Let's Make a Giant Omelet!! Or Not. Jude Wanniski March 11, 2005

Memo To: Robert Zoellick, Deputy Secretary of State
From: Jude Wanniski
Re: Negotiating With Iran

You know Bob that I thanked the Lord when Condoleezza picked you to be her right-hand man at State. You really do believe in diplomacy, not war. You are only one man in an administration otherwise dominated by neo-cons who want to whip the whole world into shape in the President’s second term, while they still hold the whip hand. It will be even more difficult for you now that Vice President Cheney – the mother hen to the neo-cons – has persuaded the President to name John Bolton the U.N. Ambassador. Anyone who has watched Bolton over the years must suspect he is not even human; he is a Robot constructed by the neo-cons to do their bidding, a Terminator programmed to stamp out diplomatic initiatives whenever they come onto his scope and ultimately designed to blow up the United Nations if the opportunity presents itself. Dick Cheney seems like such a nice fellow, how could he have done this? Well, the Veep has been known to quote V.I. Lenin now and then: “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.” Bolton breaks them by the carload, before breakfast and all day long.

Even as the Veep has the President stirring up trouble in Lebanon and Syria, as if his hands aren’t full in Iraq, he has now made a move on the Iranian front that is vintage Perle & Wolfowitz. Our European allies who are trying to work things out with Tehran, to get an agreement whereby Iran can proceed with peaceful development of nuclear power and not engage in nuclear weapon development. Now I read in The New York Times today that “we,” the USA, have agreed on how to proceed with the negotiations, offering Tehran “incentives.” As I read the story, it became perfectly clear that in exchange for the modest incentives you folks are offering, Iran has to agree to strip naked before the whole Islamic world + Israel, kiss the President’s foot, and sing the Star-Spangled Banner!

The pertinent sentence is this: “The American incentives would go into effect only if Iran agreed to halt the enrichment of uranium permanently.

Then we are reminded by the Times:

Iran has voluntarily halted its enrichment activities while it is engaged in negotiations with Britain, France and Germany. But its leaders have repeatedly declared that it will never give up its right to enrich uranium for what it insists are peaceful purposes. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which Iran has ratified, gives all signers the right to enrich uranium as long as the work is peaceful, declared and fully monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The monitoring is intended to assure that a country is only producing low-enriched uranium capable of fueling commercial nuclear reactors, rather than high-enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.

Iran's senior negotiator, Hassan Rowhani, told a conference in Tehran last weekend that the country would never agree to a permanent cessation of enrichment. But the senior American official involved in the administration's negotiations with Europe said that, after some heated internal debate, "the Europeans are now with us in the view that we could never monitor their enrichment activity reliably enough" to ensure that Iran was not producing bomb-grade uranium. Some European diplomats have argued that point in recent weeks, saying that Iran cannot be prohibited from enrichment while other signers of the treaty are permitted to produce nuclear fuel. But the American official insisted "that argument is now over."

Now Bob, think this over a minute. You took a course in logic in college and I’ve learned over the years that you are a very logical fellow. So tell me how it is that if Iran agrees to the strictest, most intrusive, perpetual inspections of any suspected nuclear-sites, you can say that we could never monitor their enrichment activity reliably enough to ensure that Iran was not producing bomb-grade uranium? Doesn’t this mean that the Non-Proliferation Treaty is deader than a doornail? Doesn’t this mean we might as well Terminate the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency? You know that Iran would never agree to such terms because you say “the argument is over.” Which means Iran will walk away from the negotiations, “we” will then take the issue to the Security Council, and Russia and China will flip us the bird, as we did in sending them Bolton.

Logic should tell you that the neo-cons are not interested in Iran’s nukes any more than they were interested in Saddam Hussein’s. They know neither Iran nor Iraq has them or a program to develop them in the next several years. What they want to do is promote a civil war in Iran. They want Regime Change!!! The whole aim and intent is to provoke confrontation, no matter how much it costs “in the short run.” They want to remake the entire map of the Middle East, and they believe chaos works in that direction. Over the last dozen years, a million Iraqis have gone to their Reward because of this game plan by the neo-cons. When Secretary Madeleine Albright was asked on CBS if it was worth the lives of 500,000 Iraqi children to die of malnutrition and disease because of sanctions requiring Saddam Hussein to get rid of his weapons, when he already had, she did not pause a moment. Absolutely, she said. After all, you cannot make omelets without breaking eggs.

Bob, for goodness sakes, explain all this to Condi so she can explain it to you know who in the White House. The whole world is counting on you.