Re: Is there possibility of American invading Iran?
Brother thanks. You are welcome to share the analysis.
It seems that USA has already realised that it would be disaster to invade, attack or bomb Iran, thus USA buckled down. Now, USA is trying diplomatic relation or at least working relation with Iran. Here is how events unfolded.
Dated: 17th April 2007:
No compromise on what Iran considers their right:
http://www.dawn.com/2007/04/17/int3.htm
Iran won’t back down on nuclear plan: Ahmadinejad
Dated: 19th April 2007:
No change. Willing to fight for their right:
http://www.dawn.com/2007/04/19/int4.htm
Ahmadinejad warns attacker
**Dated: 21st April 2007:**
American response, offering Iran to come to table on Iraq:
http://www.dawn.com/2007/04/21/int14.htm
**Rice trying to end US unilateralism (It seems that US is using ‘Iraq issue’ to come out of isolation and to build relationship with Iran). **I believe that Iran standoff and recent Israel-Hizbullah conflict may be making USA to move urgently to get Palestinian issue resolved.
Dated: 22nd April 2007:
US secretary of state (Condoleezza Rice) discards many existing conflicting impressions between Iran and US, declaring that US never wanted change in Iran regime. Rice claims that US just want Iran to change their attitude, that’s all. Rice says, US removed their objection on Iran joining WTO, and she invited Iran to join WTO. [Join World trade organisation? well, well, where all those sanctions talk gone?]
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/070422/us/politics_iran_iraq_rice_dc
Rice urges Iran to take part in Iraq meeting: report (direct talk offer by USA to Iran would be first time after 1980, when USA broke relation with Iran. Israel and American hardliners opposed to this talk, but Rice realised what is right for USA)
Dated: 24th April 2007:
Iran** declares they are finding ‘softer tone’ from US:**
The News International: Latest News Breaking, World, Entertainment, Royal News
Iran sees ‘softer tone’ from US officials (Must be some indication earlier by USA to Iran, as Rice statements (of 22nd April) came after Iran claim of ‘softer tone from USA’ statement)
[Just for ease: All the news that I quoted are as under, along with site address as what I gave above].
http://www.dawn.com/2007/04/17/int3.htm
Iran won’t back down on nuclear plan: Ahmadinejad
TEHRAN, April 16: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed on Monday that Iran would not give in to Western demands over its nuclear drive, saying Tehran would “resist to the end” in the intensifying crisis.
“The Iranian people will resist until the end on acquiring their rights and will not shift an inch,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech in the southern city of Shiraz broadcast live on state television.
“The Iranian nation will not be dissuaded in its drive and the Iranian nation is standing united on this,” he told a cheering crowd of thousands gathered in a sports stadium for the rally.
Ahmadinejad’s remarks appear to confirm that Iran has no intention of yielding to international demands that it suspend uranium enrichment work, a process the West fears could be used to make nuclear weapons.
Iran’s defiance has already earned it two sets of UN sanctions and **Ahmadinejad warned that if further sanctions were imposed Tehran would announce more progress in its nuclear drive, without specifying further.
**
Tehran just last week said that its uranium enrichment work was now at an “industrial scale,” although international observers have cast doubt over what stage its nuclear programme has reached.
“The Iranian people will stand firm on the nuclear issue to acquire all their rights, will continue solidly to reach the summits of perfection and will raise their fists to insist on their rights,” Ahmadinejad told the crowd.
In a typically pugnacious speech – his first such public address since the crisis with Britain over the 15 captured navy personnel – Ahmadinejad also warned world powers not to misuse the UN Security Council.
**“Do not misuse the international organisations that you yourself have built. You cannot create a crack in the will of the Iranian people”.
**
“Give up your bullying methods! Otherwise rest assured that you will lose and you will impose great losses on your nations. What did you gain in Iraq, what did you gain in Palestine and Lebanon?” he asked.
“With the issuing of each new resolution our country will reveal new progress in the nuclear field,” Ahamdinejad said in a later speech in the town of Kazeroun, the Fars news agency reported.
“If they want, they can issue a new resolution so that our nation will reveal a new achievement.” The United States has refused to rule out the option of military action to bring Iran to heel should sanctions fail to work. Iran insists that its nuclear programme is peaceful.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Monday arrived in Jordan on the first stage of a Mideast tour that officials said was aimed at countering Iran’s influence in the region.
“The best way to confront Iran is to confront Iranian behaviour in Iraq” a senior defence official said. The trip will focus on “how we can work with strategic allies in the region” to achieve that goal.
**The Iranian army’s top commander meanwhile warned on Monday that any aggressor would be “destroyed” by Iran.
“We intend no harm to others, but if they want to harm us we will destroy the enemy and the enemy knows this,” Attaollah Salehi said**.—AFP
http://www.dawn.com/2007/04/19/int4.htm
Ahmadinejad warns attacker
TEHRAN, April 18: **President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday vowed that Iran’s armed forces would “cut off the hand” of any enemy that launched an attack on the Islamic republic.
**
“Our army has a defensive mission and not an offensive one. But it is completely ready to confront any aggressor and cut off their hand,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech broadcast on state television to mark Iran’s army day.
“The army and armed forces must be more ready with each passing day,” he said in the speech to a military parade outside the shrine of Iran’s revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
The United States has refused to rule out the option of military action to bring Iran to heel over its controversial atomic drive which Washington says is aimed at making weapons. Iran insists that its nuclear programme is peaceful. Iran’s repeated refusal to suspend sensitive uranium enrichment operations has already earned it two sets of UN sanctions targeting its ballistics and nuclear industries.
“They think that with sanctions on our weapons we would be paralysed but we have succeeded in producing all we need in arms,” said Ahmadinejad in his brief address to the armed forces.
Following Ahmadinejad’s speech, the army started a large-scale parade in front of the stand of the president and Iran’s military top brass, which was expected later to include a display of military equipment. Ahmadinejad said that despite the standoff over its nuclear programme, Iran wanted to have friendly relations with all countries, with the exception of Israel which it refuses to recognise.—AFP
http://www.dawn.com/2007/04/21/int14.htm
Rice trying to end US unilateralism
By David Ignatius
WASHINGTON: For the past few years, the United States has been in self-imposed diplomatic isolation in the Middle East. But two paths out of that wilderness are becoming visible, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is moving cautiously down each one.
The first path leads toward a regional solution to the nightmare problem of Iraq. Rice will take a crucial step next month when she meets foreign ministers of Iraq’s neighbours, including Iran and Syria. This regional conference, which will take place May 3-4 in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, follows a preliminary meeting last month in Baghdad that ended the US diplomatic quarantine of Iran and Syria.
As she prepares for this “Iraq neighbours” meeting, Rice has been gathering advice from former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, among others. Kissinger advised her to go in “listening mode”, rather than with a detailed American proposal for how the neighbours should cooperate. “Just let it happen,” Kissinger is said to have urged. “Let it evolve.”
Kissinger argued that at the regional gathering, Rice should seek bilateral meetings with her Iranian and Syrian counterparts, and she isn’t ruling out such contacts. The agenda would probably focus on three issues that were highlighted at the preliminary meeting: borders, refugees and internal security. Her aim will be to test the proposition that none of Iraq’s neighbours has an interest in seeing that nation destroyed by its present internal strife.
Rice also hopes to make a diplomatic effort to defuse growing tensions between Turkey and Iraq’s Kurdish region. She appears concerned that recent threats by Turkish and Kurdish officials could create a wider crisis in northern Iraq if the situation isn’t checked.Kissinger sees a broader, three-level process of negotiations emerging on Iraq: The first level is the political dialogue taking place inside Iraq, even as the car bombs continue to explode; the second is the regional process embodied by the meeting in Egypt; the third is gathering a wider group of interested nations – perhaps including India, Indonesia and Pakistan – that could help stabilise Iraq as US military forces are gradually withdrawn.
A second diplomatic path for Rice involves the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the long-festering wound that has afflicted the Middle East for 40 years. Here, as with Iraq, she is embracing a strategy of diplomatic engagement that the Bush administration long resisted. Indeed, in her effort to regain an honest-broker role, she has been willing to meet with Palestinian officials despite Israeli objections.
Rice took a small step this week by meeting with Salam Fayyad, the finance minister of the Palestinian “unity government” that is dominated by the militant group Hamas. She appears hopeful that ways can be found to resume US. financial aid to the Palestinians through Fayyad, in his role as a representative of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, despite a formal ban on assistance to the Hamas-led government.
Israel had argued strenuously against such contacts. But Rice decided she would meet with Palestinian ministers if their past statements accepted Israel’s right to exist in peace. Rice may expand her contacts to other Palestinian officials who meet that criterion, including Foreign Minister Ziad Abu Amr and Tourism Minister Khulud Dwaibess. This outreach reflects Rice’s decision that it’s more important for the United States to have influence within the Hamas-led government and the Palestinian community than to avoid any hint of indirect contact with the militant Islamic group.
Meanwhile, Rice continues a dual-track diplomatic negotiation she describes with the somewhat nebulous phrase of “the political horizon”. In practice, that has meant pushing Israelis and Palestinians to discuss details for administering the Palestinian state everyone says they want in principle. The first negotiating session last week discussed such practical issues as how Palestinians would get permits to work in Israel, if there were two states; more such technical talks are planned on security, border controls and other issues.
A promising new Arab initiative is broadening this path out of the Israeli-Palestinian wilderness. With Rice’s encouragement, Arab countries agreed this week to establish a working group to present details of Saudi King Abdullah’s 2002 peace plan to the Israelis. So far, the group includes only Jordan and Egypt, two countries that already have diplomatic relations with Israel. But there’s hope the group will expand if negotiations over the Palestinian “horizon” gather momentum. Such an Arab mission could have a powerful effect on Israeli public opinion. Rice’s past diplomatic efforts have been limited by the Bush administration’s tendency to moralise foreign policy issues and to refuse the very process of dialogue with adversaries that might resolve problems. Isolation hasn’t worked, and Rice is now charting the pathways out.—Dawn/The Washington Post News Service
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/070422/us/politics_iran_iraq_rice_dc
Rice urges Iran to take part in Iraq meeting: report
Sun Apr 22, 7:58 PM
LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Iran to take part in a meeting on Iraq next month, telling the Financial Times it would be a “missed opportunity” if Tehran failed to attend.
In an interview published in Monday’s edition of the newspaper, Rice also denied the Iran policy of President George W. Bush’s administration had been directed at “regime change.”
Egypt will host the high-level meeting of a group of countries that includes Syria, Turkey and the United States in the first week of May to discuss how to stop the violence in Iraq. The conference is a follow-up to one in Baghdad in March.
Iran has not yet decided whether Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki will participate.
**
“It will be a missed opportunity if he doesn’t, but obviously it’s up to the Iranian government,” Rice told the Financial Times.**
As for Syria, another of Iraq’s neighbors, the secretary of state said: "We have diplomatic relations with Syria. And it is not a matter of having an allergy to talking to certain states.
“But we have the neighbors’ conference coming up. We’ll have a chance to, in a sense, test the proposition that Iraq’s neighbors have more to lose from an unstable Iraq than to gain from it.”
**
Rice also rejected the idea that Washington sought a change of government in Iran.**
**
“It (regime change) was not the policy of the U.S. government. The policy was to have a change in regime behavior,” she said.**
**
“It is very clear in the package of proposals that were put forward would open up some possibilities of economic and political dialogue, even advantage. We removed our WTO (World Trade Organization) objection so that Iran could apply for WTO membership. I think (America’s stance) is perfectly clear.”**
Her comments were published after an Iranian official said on Sunday the United States was showing signs of softening its attitude towards Iran.
The News International: Latest News Breaking, World, Entertainment, Royal News
Iran** sees ‘softer tone’ from US officials **
(24th April 2007)
TEHRAN: The United States is showing signs of softening its attitude towards Iran, an Iranian official said on Sunday, but added that Tehran had not yet decided to attend a meeting on Iraq with senior US officials.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Iran would decide after talks this week with Iraq’s foreign minister whether it would take part in an international conference next month to discuss the conflict in neighbouring Iraq.
Egypt will host the high-level meeting of a group of countries that includes Syria, Turkey and the United States in the first week of May to discuss how to stop the violence in Iraq. The conference is a follow-up to one in Baghdad in March.
An Iranian newspaper reported earlier this month that Iran might not attend if US forces do not release five Iranians they are holding in Iraq. But Hosseini said Iran had not linked the meeting with other issues. “About participating or not participating, or the level of participation, this is still under examination,” he told a regular briefing.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki would hold talks with his Iraqi counterpart Hoshiyar Zebari this week, he said. “After that we will announce our final decision,” Hosseini said. “The problem is the place and the context of the meeting,” he added without elaborating.
**The US State Department has said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will go to the meeting at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh and is open to direct talks with Iran over Iraq. Washington has not had formal diplomatic relations with Iran since 1980, when it cut ties after the Iranian Islamic revolution and the holding of US hostages.
**
It accuses Iran of furthering instability in Iraq and has spearheaded UN sanctions against Tehran over its atom work, which Washington and others say is aimed a building a nuclear bomb and Iran says is for peaceful power purposes. Hosseini suggested the United States was changing its stance towards Iran, saying in a response to a question:
**“I agree with you on the softer tone from Miss Rice and in some American officials’ statements … it will be good if we witness this change in their behaviour.”
**
**“If there is goodwill and if they correct the behaviour they have had so far this will create a chance for reconsidering the kind of relations we have,” he said.
**
Hosseini said he saw positive signs regarding the five Iranians held in Iraq, who Tehran says are diplomats but Washington accuses of links to Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards and of backing Iraqi militants.
