Word: iranian
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Negotiating with a regime like Iran's, however, would have drawbacks. Skeptics dismiss the sincerity of the Iranian proffers, calling them ploys to distract attention from Tehran's defiance and dilute the international community's will to confront Iran. "We have nothing to say to them," says a U.S. official deeply involved in the Iran issue. "Every demand and every incentive that we would support has already been put on the table." The official adds that by agreeing to talk to Iran, the U.S. would "absolve the international community of the responsibility to tackle this problem." Opponents of engagement further...
That mild thaw ended not long after Bush labeled Iran a member of the "axis of evil," chilling relations with then President Mohammed Khatami, Ahmadinejad's reform-minded predecessor. But as late as May 2003, the two sides discussed swapping members of the Iranian exile group Mujahedin-e Khalq (M.E.K.) whom the U.S. had detained after the invasion of Iraq for al-Qaeda prisoners held by Iran. But the talks ended after the U.S. received intelligence suggesting Iran's complicity in a terrorist bombing in Saudi Arabia. Former officials like Flynt Leverett, who headed Middle East policy at Bush...
...former senior Bush aide is worried that the President's ideological aversion to the Iranian regime may prevent him from trying to talk the Iranians out of their nuclear ambitions. Richard Armitage, who served as Deputy Secretary of State during Bush's first term, told TIME, "It appears that the Administration thinks that dialogue equates with weakness, that we've called these regimes 'evil'--either Iran or North Korea--and therefore we won't talk to them. Some people say talking would legitimize the regimes. But we're not trying to change the regimes, and they're already legitimized...
...second document, written by a top Iranian official and given to TIME just before Ahmadinejad's letter was made public, offers a more concrete foundation for negotiations to resolve the nuclear impasse. In the two-page memorandum, intended for publication in the West, Hassan Rohani,representative of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, on the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and Iran's former top nuclear negotiator, defends Iran's nuclear posture, decries American bullying, and puts forward a plan to remove the nuclear issue from the U.N. Security Council and return it to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA...
...letter also offers some specific Iranian starting points for negotiation. Rohani said Iran would "consider ratifying the Additional Protocol, which provides for intrusive and snap inspections," and that it would also "address the question of preventing 'break-out'" - or abandonement of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Independent nuclear experts consulted by TIME said these proposals were "hopeful" signs. p> However, on the key U.S. demand that Iran forgo uranium enrichment on its own soil, because of international fears the process would permit Tehran to develop weapons-grade fissile material, Rohani said Iran would agree only "to negotiate with...