The Iran Talks: Nuclear Schizophrenia

The Iranian and American negotiators in Switzerland apparently have decided to kick the nuclear can a little farther down the road and hope like hell that sometime soon—at least before the end of June—they can finally hold it up like a trophy and declare there will be peace in our time.

That’s not going to happen.

It’s not just that deadlines have come and gone, and come and gone. Secretary of State John Kerry, who has met with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif one-on-one more than he has met with any other foreign minister in the world (even though the U.S. and Iran do not have diplomatic relations), huddled up with Zarif again on Wednesday morning.

So, the negotiators in Switzerland continue to talk about frameworks and details because, despite all the talk of self-imposed deadlines, they are playing for time. But that’s not on their side. The U.S. Senate will convene on April 13, and the presidential campaign of 2016 already is underway. The political sniping and second-guessing that will undermine negotiations at every stage will continue.

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John Hannah, a foreign policy adviser to Jeb Bush, doesn’t like the outlines of an Iranian nuclear deal that he’s seen so far.

“If the leaks about the emerging deal prove true, this is a bad deal that should not go forward. It would pose unacceptably dangerous risks not only to U.S. security, but to the survival and wellbeing of our most important Middle East allies,” Hannah told The Daily Beast.

“Even while Iran has been engaged in high-stakes talks to convince the West to lift sanctions, it’s gone on a rampage across the Middle East, asserting control over at least four Arab capitals,” Hannah said. “It beggars the imagination to believe that a deal that leaves Iran with a large nuclear infrastructure and potentially hundreds of billions of dollars worth of sanctions relief is going to make Qasem Suleimani and the Quds Force less, rather than more, aggressive.”

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Read the full article here.