Over the past weekend, talks in Geneva between Iran and the United States, permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany took place addressing Iran’s economic sanctions and nuclear program. The ideal was to arrive at an agreement in which Iran’s nuclear program would come to a screeching halt.
In return, a limited number of the economic sanctions currently levied against Iran would be lifted. The three-day negotiations yielded no deal, but they certainly produced new perspectives as to who is making the diplomatic power plays and why. Spoiler alert — Secretary of State Kerry is bending like a willow in the wind to those with actual foreign policy knowledge.
The United States entered the Geneva talks with arms full of possible solutions and left it to Iran to choose what they found palatable. This would have merely been a soft negotiating tactic rather than a sign of dangerous pacification, had the United States not been quietly lifting some of the economic sanctions Iran currently bears. Watering down the sanctions implemented on Iran was the United States means of luring them to the negotiating table, a clear diplomatic olive branch to the mullahs of Iran. Seen as a reasonable gesture by some, it’s seen as a sign of weakness to extremist regimes like the one in question. A rookie mistake that’s also a shining example of the pitfalls inherent with handing out high-level state positions as campaign favors.
For an increasingly lame-duck American president whose approval ratings are dwindling, and a secretary of state fresh out of blundering his way through a public fiasco orchestrated by the increasingly formidable Vladimir Putin, military action with a radical nuclear power is something to be avoided at all costs. Those costs were laid clear in Geneva: Iran will not abandon its nuclear program. The best offer put forth by Iran was a six-month hands-off of its program, which left its nuclear warhead-making capabilities completely intact and available to resume at any time.
The real issue on the negotiating table is that Iran’s need for a break on their economic sanctions doesn’t come close to outweighing how much they want a nuclear weapon. As Iranian President Rouhani stated in a speech to the National Assembly reported by Iran’s Student News Agency (ISNA), “For us there are red lines that cannot be crossed. National interests are our red lines that include our rights under the framework of international regulations and (uranium) enrichment in Iran.”
As Iran’s economy only becomes more abysmal and public discontent threatens to soar back to the rebellion levels of 2003 and 2007, action must be taken in some form on behalf of the Iranian people. If the newly elected Rouhani fails to bring about his touted “better relations with the West,” he then must deliver on the opposite front, that being the creation of a nuclear weapon. Israel recognizes the policy limbo Iran is in, with its refusal to give up any of its nuclear program making it clear in Geneva, but does the United States?
The U.S. and Israel have long stood as allies, particularly against the extremism coming out of the Middle East. With Israel geographically embedded amongst enemies, turning their national defense capabilities into an offensive tool for security has been crucial to their survival. The United States, on the other hand, enjoys peaceful neighbors and ocean borders, with our largest border problem being that of illegal immigration. Nonetheless, the U.S. rarely shies away from implementing military force in the face of dire situations unreachable with diplomatic maneuverings — until now.
With Israel and its can-do defensive attitude missing from the talks at Geneva, it was assumed that it would be present in the platform taken up by Kerry. But, alas, Kerry was far more vested in producing a diplomatic agreement that would look good than in dismantling Iran’s nuclear program. Assuming Iran continues with its nuclear production, it will inevitably obtain the means to craft a nuclear weapon. Not if, but when this occurs, the United States and her allies would be forced to take military action against the newly nuclear state.
The longer Kerry can stall with temporary treaties, even without obtaining difficult-to-reach solutions, the further off boots on the ground and jets in the air over Iran becomes. That is, until Israel is smeared off the map with one or two strategically placed nuclear weapons of Iran’s.
The talks are scheduled to resume on Nov. 20 and will go further toward showing either the depth of United States’ naivety, or where the Obama administration’s true sympathies lie.
Whitney Greer is sophomore English major from Medford, Ore.
-Whitney Greer
whitneygreere@gmail.com
