Clinton Speaks About Iran: Shows How Slowly U.S. Policy is Changing Gears from Engagement to Sanctions

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
13 December 09

In a December 10 al-Jazira interview, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton explains U.S. policy toward Iran, showing the administration has still not really started turning from engaging Iran to slapping on high sanctions.

A lot of what she said revealed the administration’s almost pathological desire to avoid conflict:

“What we have tried to do is engage in diplomacy in a very vigorous way in order to reassure the international community, including all states, that Iran’s nuclear program was for peaceful purposes. Unfortunately, we haven’t had the kind of response we were hoping for from the Iranians.”

This is a rather shocking formulation and though I know it isn’t as bad as it sounds, after all Clinton is the one choosing her words. She basically is saying: We want to show the world that Iran has a peaceful intent so Tehran should help us do so.

It is a bit late in the game to take Tehran’s claim that it is only seeking the peaceful use of nuclear energy at face value. Of course, this isn’t what Clinton really thinks. She's just being too clever by half, hinting that if Iran wants to prove it isn’t seeking nuclear weapons it must agree to some kind of deal. She's giving Tehran a face-saving way out.

But really isn’t this coyness out of date? Al-Jazira’s audience, millions of Arabs, is likely to interpret this as meaning the United States isn’t insisting there’s a big threat or doesn’t have proof that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. They are more likely to ask what’s all the fuss about, making it seem that Iran is being framed by extremist Muslim-haters and is actually not building weapons of mass destruction? This is a dangerous miscalculation.

But Clinton goes further to make Iran seem sort of innocent:

“President Obama made it absolutely clear [despite] lots of political opposition that if he reached out his hand and if Iran reciprocated, we could talk about anything and everything. Then came the [Iranian] election, then came the crackdown on peaceful dissent, then came demonstrations, and the turmoil inside Iran is continuing until today.”

The implication here is that if not for all this disruption, Iran might have agreed. Now obviously if the United States is in the mode of persuading the Iranian regime to make a deal it can put the emphasis on not offending Tehran. But it isn’t March or April any more but mid-December 2009. Isn’t it time to lay the basis for getting tough and applying sanctions? If Clinton hasn’t switched gears yet when will she do so?

When it comes to covering for the Iranian regime, Clinton goes even further. After explaining that the United States supports the proposal for Iran shipping out enriched uranium to be turned into something relatively harmless she adds:

“They had first agreed in principle, and then I think because of internal disputes, they backed off from that, raising a lot of questions about what their true intentions are.”

This makes it sound like they came really close but then got sidetracked by internal bickering. Perhaps, an observer might think, they'll change their mind after a few more internal debates. This also gives credence to Iran’s latest efforts to confuse the situation and stall for time by pretending they might agree to a deal.

(Full article)
.