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Is There Room for Agreement between the Obama Administration and Tehran in Nuclear Talks?

(MEMRI) A. Savyon and Yigal Carmon - Even if we accept the mistaken assumption that Iran seeks only threshold status - mistaken because of the ever-growing evidence that it is persisting in its development of nuclear weapons and that for this reason it will not accept true oversight - there still, in our assessment, remains no area of agreement between the sides. The conflict with the West is not just about the nuclear issue. Supreme Leader Khamenei's main aim is to obtain immunity for his regime from any attack by the West. His secondary aim is to upgrade Iran's status regionally and globally, to that of a power equal to the world's superpowers - all of which are nuclear. Iran will not negotiate directly and one-on-one with the U.S. unless its status is considered equal to that of the U.S., and unless there are no U.S. preconditions, such as sanctions. For this reason, Iran is demanding, as the first condition for negotiating with the U.S., the removal of all sanctions against it. For Tehran, the nuclear talks, which it seeks to prolong, are aimed at achieving several goals: a) buying time to advance its nuclear program; b) establishing its international strategic status as the one state standing against the 5+1 without backing down; and c) forcing the West to accept it as another world nuclear superpower.
2013-03-01 00:00:00
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