At this juncture, Americans should be asking: What is the
desirable end point of a negotiation between Iran and the West? The undeclared
endpoint should be a speedy arrival at a resolution not inimical to Western
interests.
Here is a report from the Los Angeles Times on current negotiations between the Obama White House and Iranian leaders:
“U.S. officials said Sunday that
Iran would be allowed to continue existing research and development projects
and with pencil-and-paper design work, but not to advance research with new
projects. Araqchi [an Iranian representative], however, implied that the
program would have wide latitude.
“’No facility will be closed;
enrichment will continue, and qualitative and nuclear research will be expanded,’
he said. ‘All research into a new generation of centrifuges will continue.’”
That would be a final result that, from a Western point of
view, would frustrate the very purpose of the negotiations – which is to
prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapon grade material.
It does not help that the present negotiations were launched
with the assistance of Russian President Vladimir Putin, a fast friend of
everyone in the Middle East who is a declared enemy of the United States,
including Syria. Nor does it help that
most every foreign policy theater touched by Mr. Obama has crumbled into ashes.
Iraq, secured by the West at great cost in blood, sweat and tears, is now besieged
by al Qaida connected fighters pouring into the north of the country. American
troops in Afghanistan have never been more exposed to danger than they are today
-- before the eve of Mr. Obama’s final withdrawal from “the graveyard of
empires.” The chief U.S. negotiator in Iran is Secretary of State John Kerry,
who launched his career in the U.S. Senate after he had appeared before
Congressional investigating committees and testified that, as a matter of
routine, U.S. troops in Vietnam were little better than barbaric Genghis Khans.
Describing the reports of anti-Vietnam War “Winter Soldiers,”
Kerry said in his testimony before Congress in 1971:
“They re-lived the absolute horror
of what this country, in a sense, made them do. They told the stories of times
they had personally raped, cut off the ears, cut off heads, taped from portable
telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up
bodies, randomly shot at civilians, raised villages in a fashion reminiscent of
Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally
ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravages of
war and the normal and particular ravages which is done by the power of this
country…”
These were “not isolated incidents,’ Mr. Kerry told the
committee, “but crimes committees on a day to day basis, with a full awareness
of officers at all levels of command.”
It is doubtful that either Mr. Kerry or Mr. Obama knows who
the real enemies of the United States are, and it might be helpful in future
negotiations with them for our president and secretary of state to pretend that
those sitting at the negotiations table opposite them are Republican
congressmen.
It is impossible to form a coherent foreign policy is you
are unable to distinguish between friends and enemies. Mr. Obama may have found
his perfect complement in Mr. Kerry. Neither of them would recognize Genghis
Khan if he cut off their ears.
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