NYT's Elaine Sciolino:

...The Bush administration, in its waning days, seems powerless to modify Iran’s behavior. The question seems to have been pushed to the future with the forceful disagreements in recent days between the Republican presidential candidate, Senator John McCain, and Senator Barack Obama, contending for the Democratic nomination, over whether an American president should negotiate with Iran’s leadership.

Still, Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, announced in Brussels on Monday that he would go to Iran soon — possibly “within the month” — to present a new offer of political, technological, security and trade rewards for Iran if it halts its uranium enrichment program.

Mr. Solana will travel with senior foreign ministry officials from five of the six countries involved in the initiative — Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany — but not the United States, which has refused to hold talks with Iran. The incentives, agreed on by the six countries in London this month but still not made public, repackaged and clarified an incentives package presented to Iran in 2006.

Iran rejected it at the time, saying that relinquishing its uranium enrichment program was non-negotiable. After the London meeting this month, the Iranian foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, said the new package should not cross Iran’s “red line” — shorthand for its uranium-enrichment program.

On May 13, Iran responded with its own package of proposals, calling for new international talks on political, economic and security issues, including its nuclear program and the Arab-Israeli peace process.

The proposal, made in a letter from Mr. Mottaki to the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, includes the creation of international fuel production facilities in Iran and other countries — a longstanding goal of Iran — as well as improved supervision of Iran’s nuclear program by the atomic energy agency, which is based in Vienna.

Over the years, the United States and France have led the way in opposing the idea of a fuel-production facility in Iran, contending that it would allow Iranian experts to master the complex process of enriching uranium and to use that knowledge in a secret bomb-making project.

This bit on the current state of the international diplomatic process excerpted above is not the headline of the story, which is that the IAEA says Iran is not coming clean on disclosing past programs. Many people I have recently encountered who are convinced the US is looking for a pretense to gin up confrontation don't seem to be aware of the diplomatic process in place, perhaps because it's not horribly exciting to read about, and a lot of it is sort of hidden from view. I find so many people are increasingly convinced of whatever they already think regarding the US-Iran issue they are sort of innured to information which doesn't confirm what they already believe (namely, in the bad faith of the administration). And the administration doesn't do a good job of explaining itself, beyond small insider audiences, perhaps because the policy is deliberately ambiguous, and because mid level officials want to avoid trouble for saying too loudly that we're not going to war while the administration is trying to use the threat of force being an option as part of a coercive diplomatic strategy. And there is an element of doubt and uncertainty, too, that makes it hard to be overly assertive downplaying the threat of conflict.

This piece I did over a year ago captures the thrust of US Iran policy pretty well, even as it's evolved: "... One source said succinctly that the new policy is geared to 'confront Iran in every way but direct armed conflict, using all means short of war.' ... Bush administration officials are 'projecting a lot of confrontation with Iran ... But they don't mean to signal war. They don't mean war. It's war by other means.'" Link.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently explained thinking behind US policy on Iran to Congress: "I think the key here is developing leverage either through economic, or diplomatic or military pressures on the Iranian government so they believe they must have talks with the United States because there is something they want from us, which is the relief from the pressure."

Posted by Laura at May 26, 2008 10:04 PM