Iran Pleased That US Has No Deadline To Start Talks

Smart Diplomacy^(tm) finally produces a win!

Iran said Tuesday it welcomes Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's comments that there is no hard-and-fast deadline for starting nuclear dialogue.

On Monday, Clinton said the Obama administration remained open to negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program, though it will move toward tougher sanctions if Iran does not respond positively. She stressed there was no hard-and-fast deadline for Iran.

Responding Tuesday, Iran's foreign ministry welcomed the comments

"We share the same idea with her. Deadlines are meaningless. We hope other countries return to their natural path, too," said Ramin Mehmanparast, a foreign ministry spokesman.

The remarks were a rare positive response by the Iranians to U.S. comments on its nuclear program.

The Iranians responded positively to the abject surrender of the US? Wow, I didn't see that coming. Obviously this lowering of tensions between are two nations shows just how wonderful Obama's engagement strategy has worked. This 'rare positive response' would never have taken place under the Bush-Cheney Regime.

Flashback to May of last year and what Obama said as he was sitting next to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Sitting next to Netanyahu in the Oval Office, Obama said he hoped to begin negotiations with Tehran soon, after Iran holds elections next month. Iran's leaders have so far rebuffed his efforts to reach out to them and toughened their rhetoric.

"The important thing is to make sure there is a clear timetable, at which we point we say these talks don't seem to be making any serious progress," Obama said.

"By the end of the year we should have some sense whether or not these discussions are starting to yield significant benefits, whether we are starting to see serious movement on the part of Iranians," he said.

But there's nothing to worry about, we have that NIE from '07 that assured everyone that Iran had given up its nuclear program. Oh, wait, not even the idiots in this administration believe in that fairy tale.

Mr. Obama’s top advisers say they no longer believe the key finding of a much disputed National Intelligence Estimate about Iran, published a year before President George W. Bush left office, which said that Iranian scientists ended all work on designing a nuclear warhead in late 2003.

After reviewing new documents that have leaked out of Iran and debriefing defectors lured to the West, Mr. Obama’s advisers say they believe the work on weapons design is continuing on a smaller scale -- the same assessment reached by Britain, France, Germany and Israel.

If it wasn't clear before, it surely is now...the US is officially out of the Stop Iran From Getting Nukes business. The only outstanding questions are, will the mullahs survive long enough to build one and will the Israelis do anything to stop or even slow the program?

posted by DrewM. at 10:49 AM

| Access Comments