The myth of "diplomacy" with Iran

There are many media-manufactured myths around the issue of Iran's nuclear program: for example, that Iran's nuclear program was a "secret" before it was exposed" in 2003. Some of these myths are being manufactured even right now. Prominent among them is the myth that "diplomacy" has been pursued in dealing with Iran. For example, the NY Times reports today:

Bush administration officials appear to have concluded that diplomatic efforts to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions will not yield any breakthroughs this year... But European diplomats have been loath to acknowledge publicly that diplomacy on Iran’s nuclear development is in a holding pattern..."

Ummm... what "diplomacy" or "diplomatic efforts" is the NY Times referring to? Since when does submitting an ultimatum which consists of nothing more than "Give in or else we'll bomb you" constitute "diplomacy"? Is this label of "diplomacy" attached to this policy justified?

This "myth of diplomacy" with Iran has two aspects: on the first, it frames the EU/US as being "reasonable" and "diplmatic' whilst it is Iran that is being "intransigent" - when in fact it is the EU/US who are being instransigent by illegally demanding that Iran give up a sovereign right to use her own natural resources and technology for her own benefit, and by ignoring repeated Iranian compromise offers -- such as multilateral enrichment on Iranian soil -- which would address any real concern of weapons proliferation and which have been widely endorsed even by IAEA officials.

The second aspect of this myth of diplomacy with Iran is that it frames the issue as a false choice: attaching Iran is presented as the only alternative to this sort of "diplomacy", thus laying the groundwork to justify such an attack in the public mind by ignoring other peaceful options.

The New York Times article does precisely this when it switches deflty between talk of diplomacy and military strikes on Iran. The message is basically meant to be this: "We tried diplomacy with Iran, our diplomacy was 'exhausted', and so now the only remaining option is to attack Iran."  Notice how perfectly reasonable ways out of this conflict such as simply recognising Iran's right to having enrichment under IAEA monitoring and joint participation of foreign governments, is simply ignored.

That's not an accident, folks. This is pre-determined script that we're seeing played out. No amount of Iranian nuclear compromises will ever suffice, because the whole nuclear issue is simply a pretext for another policy entirely. So whenever someone tells you about "diplomacy" with Iran, give them a knowing look -- you know what the "diplomacy" code-word really means.

Comments

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Cyrus, US knows very well that Iran does not have the WMD program. They also know that Iran is sticking to its guns and faithfully staying in the NPT. US is deliberately pushing Iran into a corner with the hope that she will abandon NPT; this was the scenario envisioned by the Zionist war criminal, the honorable John Bolton. He confessed in an interview that he was hoping Iran would leave NPT. Then the Empire, in collaboration with the Zionists, would have had justification for bombing the ROUGE Iranians to oblivion. But Iranians are very shrewd and are not being blackmailed. They are abiding by the NPT rules and are not leaving the club. Matter-of-fact, the American military-industrial complex is pissed off that the Iranians do not have a military nuclear program so that the US could start a perpetual war with Iran, beneficial only to the complex. As James Petras said military conflict is essential for maintaining the Imperial hegemony.