General Michael HaydenYesterday, we noted the comments by the European Union's Catherine Ashton about nuclear talks, with the hope of the 5+1 Powers that Iran would "consider the proposal we put on the table and respond to it". Our interpretation was that Ashton was putting the onus on Tehran to move towards the West on key issues like uranium enrichment.
Then we reported remarks by Iran's nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, who said the talks were a test of whether the US would "accept or deny" Iran's right to enrichment.
Those comments --- each demanding the other adopt its proposal, and thus make concessions --- reflect the wider impasse over Iran's nuclear programme.
Both sides believe that getting the other to make those concessions over the nuclear issue would be a major psychological blow --- perhaps even a defeat --- in the struggle for regional power. Both believe that such concessions --- Washington admitting Tehran's "right to enrich" or the polar opposite, Tehran giving up that --- would signal fundamental weakness in its rival.
At the level of this week's talks, those hopes and fears are being put diplomatically. Beyond the talks, in the chattering cauldron of Washington, some are blunter.
Step up, Stuart Eizenstat, former US Ambassador to the European Union, who warned an audience on Thursday: “I think that there is an underestimation of the massive defeat for the U.S. if we in a sense allow Iran to slide into a nuclear capacity.
Eizenstat grew more intense in his next sentence, “It’s contrary to what the president has said repeatedly and would be seen as weakness by our allies in the region…It would be taken as an absolute massive defeat.”
Where else might we have heard that image of concession as regional defeat?
Over to Sobhe Sadegh, the weekly outlet of Iran's Revolutionary Guards: “America, whose weakness and inability on the world stage has been exposed, has repeatedly attempted to claim that the military option is on the table".
Others in Iran's military and intelligence communities, including Deputy Head of Armed Forces Masoud Jazayeri --- have pushed the line that the US does not have the will or ability to pursue a significant military option against Iran.
Clearly, for either the US or Iran, that impression of weakness cannot be allowed to persist. But how?
Washington's "saviour", at least on Thursday, is former CIA director Michael Hayden. Speaking at the same event as Eizenstat, he said that a military strike against Iran was "the least worst" option.
And, before framing Hayden as a neo-con relic from the George W. Bush Administration, here is last month's decalration from Vice President Joe Biden --- President Obama is "not bluffing" about the use of military force against Iran, and the current strategy of diplomacy may gain international support for a strike:
If, God forbid, the need to act occurs, it is critically important for the whole world to know we did everything in our power, we did everything that reasonably could have been expected to avoid any confrontation.
Stay strong. Don't let the enemy sense you are not. Threaten if necessary.
Back to Tehran and the Supreme Leader, speaking on 16 February:
The Americans expect the others to give in to their unreasonable demands and their bullying, as a number of people have given in to their demands. But the Iranian nation and the Islamic Republic do not give in because they have the ability to reason, and they have power and authority…