Critical Vote Deferred on Resolution Opposing War with Iran

In Chicago City Council yesterday, the vote on the resolution against war with Iran was deferred one month until the next council meeting (full resolution text here).

Under a procedural regulation in the Chicago City Council, two aldermen can defer a vote until the next council meeting, but they may only defer it once. According to Robert Naiman, Just Foreign Policy senior policy analyst who has been tracking the proceedings, Alderman Stone was one of the aldermen responsible for its deferral today.

US military rescinds Iranian supplied weapons accusation?

This just in from Keith Olbermann and the LA Times: US quietly rescinds “evidence” of Iranian supplied weapons in Iraq. Check out this video from MSNBC’s Countdown.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/24586408#24586408

What Do Google and Saddam Have in Common?

Google has a funny way of doing business — one that involves muddying politics in the Middle East.

In recent months, the organization has taken the unprecedented step to rename internationally recognized bodies of water. Google Earth has begun using the controversial term “Arabian Gulf” to the body of water traditionally and internationally identified as the “Persian Gulf.”

Now many may think: What’s in a name? Why would this even be an issue?

In the Middle East, nothing is just a name. And with more than 180,000 US troops in this unstable region, being oblivious to the politics of geographical renaming is dangerous.

Can P5+1 Offer Break the Nuclear Stalemate?

There is little doubt that Tehran will reject the secret P5+1 nuclear offer since it crosses Iran’s red line — suspension of enrichment. The proposal is scheduled Though reinvigorating diplomacy is much needed, the question is why the Security Council powers would make an offer that few believe will break the stalemate at this point – that is, at a time when tensions Iran and the US over Iraq is quickly escalating?

In the piece below, published by Inter Press Services today, I discuss why Tehran is so inflexible on the issue of suspension based on its previous negotiating experience with the EU and why Washington’s insistence on this precondition is leading to a situation in which “the perfect is becoming the enemy of the good.”

“Tehran sees two key problems with the suspension precondition. First, Iran has taken away from earlier negotiations with the EU that suspension becomes a trap unless the West at the outset commits to solutions that recognise Iran’s right to enrichment, i.e. that won’t cause the suspension to become permanent.

Iran entered talks with Europe in 2003 under the impression that the parties would identify “objective criteria” that would enable Tehran to exercise its rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty while providing the international community with guarantees that the Iranian nuclear programme would remain strictly civilian. During the course of the talks, however, Europe shifted its position. The only acceptable criteria would be for Iran not to engage in uranium enrichment in the first place, the EU began to argue.

Consequently, Tehran felt trapped since the objective had shifted from seeking a peaceful Iranian enrichment programme to seeking the elimination of Iran’s enrichment capabilities.”

The full piece can be found here: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42307

/trita

Iran in Iraq: whats next for the US

Word on the Hill is that there will be a lay-out of Iranian weapons that have been used by “special groups” to kill US soldiers and undermine the Iraqi government pretty soon. They are still deciding whether it should be Petraeus/Crocker or the Iraqi government who should present what several insiders have described as “strong” evidence that the Iranians are fueling instability and the recent in-fighting in Basra.

Rhetoric Continues to Reign Supreme

It appears that rhetoric is the most resilient weed in the US-Iran diplomacy garden. Despite several rounds of both Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama attacking President Bush’s “saber rattling,” Clinton has not been able to avoid falling back on the tough talk when in a pinch.

In her appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America on April 22, Senator Clinton said that she would respond in kind to an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel and that the United States could “totally obliterate” Iran in the process. She defended this statement yesterday in an appearance on ABC’s This Week.