Thursday, May 24, 2012

The Talks with Iran Do Only One Thing, Strengthen Iran

The second round of talks with Iran are now finished.  The only business that seems to have been concluded is that another round of talks has been scheduled for June 18-19 in Moscow.  At the conclusion of those talks probably the only thing that will have been agreed to will be another round in July in a place like Beijing or Islamabad or something.  There doesn't seem to be a point to any of this besides giving Iran more time to develop nukes by holding off an Israeli attack.  The danger, of course, is that intelligence on Iran is wrong and they are further along than people expect, hence past the point where an Israeli attack will actually set them back.  Europe and Obama can afford to dither along because even if Iran does get nukes, there isn't really a mortal danger at stake here for the US or the EU, at least not for years.  The biggest immediate impact will be that it will alter their political calculus for the middle east.  For Israel though, the danger is mortal and immediate and there seems to be absolutely zero upside for waiting but a pretty horrendous downside..

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