How to Talk to Iran
By ROGER COHEN
NYT
GENEVA — The five-page Iranian platform for talks with major powers — “Cooperation for Peace, Justice and Progress” — has been much mocked as evasive blather, but is in fact an instructive document that suggests the endeavor may not be hopeless. It bears close scrutiny.
True, it makes no mention of Iran’s nuclear program, the elephant in the room, although it does talk of “promoting the universality” of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, of which Iran is a member but nuclear-armed Israel is not.
What the proposal provides is a useful guide to the Islamic Republic’s psychology and preoccupations, which find echo elsewhere. When Iran calls for “multilateralism” and “progress free from double standards for all nations,” it reflects thinking in Moscow and Beijing, one reason why ever getting Russia and China behind meaningful sanctions against Iran is a pipe dream: more on that later.
President Obama was right to accept the platform as an entrée to talks that will begin Oct. 1. I argued strongly for engagement with Iran after a February visit. During a second stay in Tehran, appalled by the brutal repression of protesters I witnessed after the June 12 election, I said Obama had to allow a decent interval on outreach. Three months have passed. That’s a short pause, but matters are pressing and this is real toe-in-the-water stuff.
(Continued here.)
NYT
GENEVA — The five-page Iranian platform for talks with major powers — “Cooperation for Peace, Justice and Progress” — has been much mocked as evasive blather, but is in fact an instructive document that suggests the endeavor may not be hopeless. It bears close scrutiny.
True, it makes no mention of Iran’s nuclear program, the elephant in the room, although it does talk of “promoting the universality” of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, of which Iran is a member but nuclear-armed Israel is not.
What the proposal provides is a useful guide to the Islamic Republic’s psychology and preoccupations, which find echo elsewhere. When Iran calls for “multilateralism” and “progress free from double standards for all nations,” it reflects thinking in Moscow and Beijing, one reason why ever getting Russia and China behind meaningful sanctions against Iran is a pipe dream: more on that later.
President Obama was right to accept the platform as an entrée to talks that will begin Oct. 1. I argued strongly for engagement with Iran after a February visit. During a second stay in Tehran, appalled by the brutal repression of protesters I witnessed after the June 12 election, I said Obama had to allow a decent interval on outreach. Three months have passed. That’s a short pause, but matters are pressing and this is real toe-in-the-water stuff.
(Continued here.)
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