Neocons, Thirsty for Blood, Look to Quash Iran Negotiations

By Ali Gharib, IPS News. Posted December 16, 2008.

The CPD release on Thursday brings attention to a report from the anti-proliferation Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) announcing that, based on the latest figures, Iran could "generate enough low enriched uranium for one bomb in roughly four months."

"Here's hoping the incoming administration is paying attention," concluded the statement.

The neoconservative faction, despite being few in numbers, exercises an outsized influence on both conservative and, to an extent, liberal governments through a combination of shrewd alliances and public exposure via their ample media presence.

Even when out of government, as in the 1990s or their expected eviction from State and Defense Department positions, neoconservatives have pushed their agenda publicly by forming organizations such as CPD today, or the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) -- a group instrumental to the Iraq War push -- in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Their campaigns, such as the build-up to the Iraq invasion and the push against negotiations with Iran, are highly coordinated efforts where numerous players parrot each other's talking points.

Take, for example, the recent anti-engagement campaign's talking point on the futility of talks with Iran.

On Dec. 2 at AEI, Bolton said that the debate about negotiations was over because they were a failure.

Then on Dec. 4 at the Heritage foundation, Phillips said that the diplomatic track was not encouraging because Iran has a revolutionary Islamic government that is concerned with ideology rather than the Iranian peoples' national interest.

The week before, AEI resident scholar and Iran expert Michael Rubin -- who recently authored a hawkish report on the U.S.'s upcoming Iran policy for the Bipartisan Policy Council signed by, among others, Obama Middle East advisor Dennis Ross -- wrote an article for the website of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a congressionally-funded international news outlet.

"If all diplomacy required were Washington's good intentions, the world would be a magical place," Rubin wrote. "It is ironic that some U.S. diplomats trust the Islamic republic more than many Iranians themselves do."

"[...T]he impediment to engagement lies not in Washington but in Tehran," he said. "[...A]s Obama will learn when he assumes office, Iranian officials often approach diplomacy insincerely."

Again on Dec. 2, Phillips, in a paper he co-wrote for Heritage, said Iranian diplomacy is characterized by "religiously sanctioned ... dissimulation or duplicity."

But Hillary Mann Leverett, who has been physically at the table with the Iranians representing the U.S. over the past decade and is a strong proponent of a "grand bargain" comprehensive rapprochement strategy for Iran, says that such characterizations are "not based on anything real."

"To me that's just racist. There's nothing in the historical record to support that," Leverett told IPS. "The lie that they're hagglers in the bazaar and can't be trusted is the same sort of anti-Semitic stuff you hear about Jewish people."

"Iranians brought people to the table who were authoritative," she said of the four major rounds of talks with Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, including those she was party to. "What was asked of the Iranians was, for the most part, delivered."

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