Stupid, unsophisticated diplomacy

On Friday at a press conference in Tehran, EU president presents an incentive package similar to the one in 2006 and says “We are ready to cooperate with Iran in the development of a modern nuclear energy program based on the most modern generation of light-water reactors. We offer legally binding fuel supply guarantees, or to work together in designing a system to provide these fuel guarantees. We can help Iran with the management of nuclear waste. We can support Iranian research and development, including in the nuclear field once confidence is being restored. If we can settle the core issue, the nuclear program, the door would be open to cooperation in many other areas.”

This sounds good…then after a quiet weekend…

Gordon Brown and Bush get together today and have a press conference to talk about a new set of sanctions on the biggest bank in Iran saying:

"We will take any necessary action so that Iran is aware of the choice it needs to make."

Then in the same AP article it becomes clear that Solana talked to some people in Tehran this weekend and didn’t get such a great reception to the package.

“The EU has not yet announced stronger sanctions. But Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman for EU foreign affairs and security chief Javier Solana, said EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Monday were prepared to take formal action and agreed in principle on the need for stronger sanctions… ‘It is clear they are ready to move further. We will definitely take a formal decision,’ she said. Gallach would not speculate on the timing of a final decision. Solana met with Iranian officials last weekend before an EU leaders' summit in Brussels later this week.”

Ostensibly, a very subtle, crafty, and sophisticated carrot and stick process.

And Europe is on board with the “diplomatic” process:
"Britain will urge Europe — and Europe will agree — to take sanctions against Iran," Brown said.

Well…sort of…

“EU foreign ministers refused to comment on the timing of the tighter EU sanctions…Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said the exact timing of the launch hinges on "how positive — or not — Iran's response will be to the economic incentives package."

Meanwhile, in the past couple of months the Iranian hard line newspapers have been saying indirectly to the west and about the incentive packages: Are you guys really this out of touch with reality? Do you know who we are and what we want?

As to who they are: Their popularity in the region grows. The oil which funds their “projects,” good and bad, grows. Their power to influence in Iraq grows.

As to what they want: Iran is after some serious respect. An incentive package that is only slightly better than one 2 years ago, coupled with George Bush’s policies, will never win them over. They want a new tone, a new respect, a true break from the past. And they seem to know better than Americans do, that this will not happen in the US even with a democrat as president. Something I am sadly starting to understand myself.

Though the Iranian government is nowhere near respectable in many of its policies, it has tried to be diplomatic with the US and it was beaten down. And part of me thinks the Iran of 2008- unprincipled, uncooperative, self-destructive and irrational- is in response to the rejection it got from the US in the 90s and early 2000s when it was trying on a new image and aiming to be enlightened, progressive and pragmatic. It was the Clinton administration that started the first round of sanction in the mid-90s and it was Bush that called them the Axis of Evil after their cooperation in Afghanistan.

I believe there are people that reside in the US that understand how to do diplomacy in difficult situations. I just don’t know if they are employed. Perhaps they all retired in the 80s.