I don’t know how much the blogosphere has contributed to Bush’s low poll numbers. I wish there were some way to accurately measure our impact. I do know that by relentlessly exposing the Bush administration’s lies, we have had an effect on the corporate media’s coverage. I suspect we’ve even changed how the administration goes about crafting their message. They can no longer rely on pseudo journalists like Jeff Gannon and his GOPNews outfit. Whatever our influence has been, it appears it may have helped save the lives of an untold numbers of Persians.
The Bush administration’s decision to consider sitting down with the Iranian government underscores a central truth of diplomacy today: Nuclear weapons buy leverage.
For six years, President Bush and his aides have dismissed the idea of talking with Iran about its nuclear programs, and until last year gave little support to European efforts to restrain Iranian nuclear activity…
Now, in perhaps the biggest foreign policy shift of his presidency, Bush has approved the idea of sitting down at the table with the Iranian government — one headed by a former student radical who denies the Holocaust…the offer overturned a long-standing taboo, and it came from an administration stocked with officials who have made little secret of their desire to overthrow the government in Tehran.
The administration made this move at a moment of weakness. The president’s public opinion ratings are among the lowest ever recorded for a modern president, and oil prices have reached record levels, in part because of the confrontation with Iran. The high price of oil, in turn, has enriched the Iranian treasury.
I think Kessler’s analysis is correct. The administration is definitely chock-full of officials that want to change the regime in Iran. And, in their world-view, agreeing to have talks with Iran is a show of weakness. They don’t have the allies abroad, or on Capitol Hill, to unilaterally attack Iran. It’s the cratering of Bush’s popularity that has lost him the support of important Senators like Chairman of the Foreign Affairs committee Richard Lugar. It’s hard to say what kind of support Bush would have for attacking Iran if he still was soaring in the polls, but I very much doubt he would be opening up diplomatic channels.
Even so, war has not necessarily been averted. The hawks in the administration have attached conditions to the talks, most likely in the hope that the conditions will be rejected. If they are, Russia and China have agreed to go along with a tough sanctions regimen.
A senior administration official said there is substantial agreement from Russia and China — two nations that have resisted sanctions against Iran — on an escalating series of U.N. penalties that would be imposed if Iran does not comply…
…Senior Chinese and Russian officials welcomed the U.S. offer of direct talks, saying it showed an increased willingness to pursue diplomatic means to resolve the budding nuclear crisis. Still, Wang Guangya, China’s ambassador to the United Nations, said the United States should provide Iran with security assurances and drop its demand that Iran cease uranium enrichment before such talks could begin.
“I think it in a way proves that the U.S. is more serious about the negotiations than about other options, but I do hope that this offer could be less conditional,” Wang told reporters…
“If this is what it takes to get Russia and China to join in sanctions, so be it,” one administration skeptic said. “But I am most concerned that we will end up renegotiating with ourselves again.”
This has echoes of the strategy pursued in Iraq. The plan back in 2002 was the attach conditions to the return of weapons inspectors that would be rejected by Saddam, and thereby gain the casus belli for war. Saddam called their bluff and met all their conditions. If Iran wants to avoid crippling sanctions, they will have to at least agree to sit down and talk.
Cheney, Bolton, et al, are chafing at the bit. They want to have regime change in Iran before they are forced to leave office. But, it looks like they are too weakened to pull it off. That’s a good thing for world peace.