Obama 'pwns' Bush-Cheney on Iran

First day of Talks Yields Significant Confidence-Building Steps

Juan Cole
Informed Comment

For 8 years, Bush-Cheney practiced what I call "belligerent Ostrichism" toward Iran. They refused to talk to Tehran. They wanted to ratchet up sanctions on it. Bush sent 2 aircraft carriers to the Gulf to menace Iran. Bush's spokesmen professed themselves afraid of Iran's unarmed little speedboats in the Gulf. Aside from issuing threats to attack and destroy Iran the way they did Iraq, Bush-Cheney had nothing else to say on the matter. During the 8 years, Iran went from being able to enrich to .2% to being able to enrich to 3.8%, and increased its stock of centrifuges significantly. Bush-Cheney gesticulated and grimaced and fainted away at the horror of it all, but they accomplished diddly-squat.

Barack Obama pwned Bush-Cheney in one day, and got more concessions from Iran in 7 1/2 hours than the former administration got in 8 years of saber-rattling.

Delegates of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany met with representatives of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for 7 and a half hours on Thursday for talks on Iran's nuclear research program.

Amazingly, there were signs of significant progress even on the first day, which most seasoned observers had not expected.

(More here.)