..."Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Mr. Obama reiterated his intention to work directly with Iran — a country whose president has called for Israel’s destruction — to improve relations and halt a nuclear program that Tehran describes as peaceful but which the West believes is not."... (click title to entry - thank you)
The Iranian circumstance today is vastly different than the time of Jimmy Carter. The Ayatollah has returned to power and until the invasion into Iraq there was a increasingly wonderful Moderate Political movement that was replaced by the administration of the extremist of Ahmadinejad.
The 'idea' that the USA has caused the tensions that now exist between itself and Iran, including in its alliance with Israel, is to realize the trend is reversable. Iran today has nuclear capacity that actually was engaged by the USA through poor design only to be taken over by Russia to insure completion. So for the USA to now say it doesn't approve of peaceful use of Iranian nuclear capacity is a bit ludicrous. The only problem is the assertions that Iran will not maintain a 'peace' only use of nuclear technology.
The moderates need to return to Iran and that will occur when the sanctions work and Iran is again distanced from a threat to its soveriegnty as Iraq is turned over to the Iraqis without the influence of Western military. To say its a balancing act is understating the outcome, but, if Russia can be a partner to priorities of a world without nuclear threat a favorable outcome can be achieved without confrontation of any kind.
I believe a nuclear non-proliferation agreement can be a focus to any negotiations including the disarmament of other countries including Pakistan that were never supposed to have a nuclear weapon to begin with.
The problem currently is that the global balance is chronically challenged through a lack of diplomatic agreements that work for countries rather than victimizing them.
Of concern, Georgia needs to stop its brinkmanship, AGAIN :
Tskhinvali says Georgia moves troops to S.Ossetia border (click here)
15:03
09/ 01/ 2009
MOSCOW, January 9 (RIA Novosti) - The Defense Ministry of South Ossetia said Friday Georgia was moving troops towards its border, the republic's information and press committee said.
The committee cited South Ossetian Deputy Defense Minister Ibragim Gasseyev as saying that four Georgian armored vehicles and 16 trucks had approached the village of Mereti, Gori district.
"Considering that each vehicle has at least 20 people, Georgia has moved at least 300 people to Mereti," Gasseyev said.
At the same time Gasseyev voiced concern over the stance of the EU monitoring mission tasked with ensuring security along the border with two breakaway republics, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Both republics have refused to allow EU observers on their territory....
