Wednesday, March 31, 2010

The USA and France on Iran

The Obama Administration has started to remove the offer of the hand of friendship from Iran to a more historical position, that is seeing Iran as an enemy. At a Joint Press Conference with the President of France, Obama stated the following on Iran, " We discussed our shared determination to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. On this the United States and France are united, are inseparable. With our P5-plus-1 partners, we offer Iran good faith proposals to resolve this matter through diplomacy. But Iran thus far has rejected those offers. Today, the international community is more united than ever on the need for Iran to uphold its obligations. And that’s why we’re pursuing strong sanctions through the U.N. Security Council. ". The problem is that Russia and China have strong trade and economic links with Iran, thus they want softer sanctions, the US and the UN does not have all the time in the world, time is not their friend when it comes to Iran. President Sarkozy of France stated the following on Iran, " Now, on Iran, I am very satisfied with what President Obama has said. The time has come to take decisions. Iran cannot continue its mad race. Now, we don’t want to punish Iran, which deserves better than what it has by way of leadership today, and therefore fully support in order to get stronger, tougher sanctions at the Security Council and take the necessary decisions is what you have. I have said to President Obama that with Angela Merkel and Gordon Brown we will make all necessary efforts to ensure that Europe as a whole engages in the sanction regime. ". It comes to the day that the French President sounds tougher than a American President, that what you get if you elect a liberal POTUS. When President Obama was asked by the Press if there was a cut off point for Iran he stated the following, " On Iran, we came in with a very clear approach and a very clear strategy, and it was an open book to the world. We said we would engage Iran and give them an opportunity to take the right path, a path that would lead to prosperity and opportunity for their people and a peaceful region, and one in which they would allow themselves to become a full-fledged member of the community of nations. The alternative path was further isolation and further consequences...We mobilized the international community around this approach, including partners like Russia that in the past might have been more hesitant to take a firmer stance on Iran’s nuclear program. What we said, though, was that there was going to be a time limit to it and that if we had not seen progress by the end of the year, it was time for us to move forward on that sanctions track....My hope is that we are going to get this done this spring. So I’m not interested in waiting months for a sanctions regime to be in place; I’m interested in seeing that regime in place in weeks. And we are working diligently with our international partners, emphasizing to them that,.... this is not simply an issue of trying to isolate Iran; it has enormous implications for the safety and the security of the entire region. We don’t want to see a nuclear arms race in the Middle East...A conflict in the Middle East as a consequence of Iran’s actions could have a huge destabilizing effect in terms of the world economy at a time when it’s just coming out of a very deep recession...The long-term consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran are unacceptable. And so (France ), myself and others agree that we have engaged; the door remains open if the Iranians choose to walk through it. But they understand very clearly what the terms of a diplomatic solution would be. And in the interim we are going to move forcefully on a U.N. sanctions regime...Now, do we have unanimity in the international community? Not yet. And that's something that we have to work on. We think that we are in a much stronger position to get robust sanctions now than we were a year ago prior to us initiating our strategy....But it’s still difficult, partly because, let’s be honest, Iran is a oil producer and there are a lot of countries around the world that, regardless of Iran’s offenses, are thinking that their commercial interests are more important to them than these long-term geopolitical interests. And so we have to continue to apply pressure not just on Iran but we have to make sure that we are communicating very clearly that this is very important to the United States.....We think that we can get sanctions within weeks. ". Thus a rebuke to Russia and China, but if Obama has agreed to softer sanctions it does seem to be spin on the part of the Obama Administration. One has to just see the tepid reaction of the White House to the street protests in Iran after the stolen election, Obama is seems is quite willing to throw the good people of Iran down the toilet and allow the Totalitarian Tehran Regime to stay in power as long as they allow Obama to look good to the left. The treatment of Israel by the Obama Administration shows that Obama would rather look good to the liberal left wing that support an close ally. The anti Israeli policy has deep support in the power centers of Europe.

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