US, Middle East, & Iran Feature: RIP, Dennis Ross

Benjamin Netanyahu & Dennis RossBluntly summarised, Ross's approach was to bully a perceived adversary into negotiations. Israel would only face meaningful talks once the Palestinian Authority had accepted a series of demands; the "international community" would only move to agreement with Iran once Tehran had made the substantial concessions.

It was an approach guaranteed to fail, and it did. Mitchell persisted but finally gave up. There is no foreseeable prospect of an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which explains why the Palestinians made their move in September for recognition by the United Nations. The window for a resolution with Iran on the nuclear issue closed in November 2009 --- to be fair to Ross, more because of internal politics in Tehran than his politics within the Obama Administration --- and it has never re-opened. With that closure, Ross' vision --- sanctions, more sanctions, and the threat of even tougher action to force Iran to its knees has triumphed over the following two years.

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Iran Analysis: The Week in "Objective" US Journalism --- War, War, Secret War, Future War, War

We are watching an international media which is captivated by the chatter about an Israeli attack on Tehran and about a supposedly doom-laden report on Iran's nuclear programme. Indeed, some in that media are on the point of irresponsibility stoking confrontation, even armed confrontation.

The number one culprit is David Sanger of The New York Times, who uses the exalted podium of a "Week in Review" piece to declare that War may be the only option, "The big hitch in...containment strategies is that they are completely useless if Iran ever slips a bomb, or even some of its newly minted uranium fuel, to a proxy — Hezbollah, Hamas or some other terrorist group — raising the problem of ascertaining a bomb’s return address."

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