One U.S. publication just covered the stalled negotiations over the Iran nuclear deal fairly and honestly. Another ran a distorted, alarmist report that could have been written by Israel’s Hasbara Central propaganda department. The valuable report was in Responsible Statecraft, a new outlet that is gaining respect and influence but is still small. The biased article is on page 7 of today’s New York Times.
Let’s start with the Times. The fearmongering is right in the headline: “Iran Nears an Atomic Milestone.” The first sentence says, “Iran has come within roughly a month of having enough material to fuel a single nuclear weapon. . .” Paragraph after paragraph sound the alarm: “Iran has not been this close to a weapon capability since before President Obama agreed to the 2015 nuclear accord.” David E. Sanger and William J. Broad do perfunctorily note that “Iran continues to insist that it has no desire for a nuclear arsenal,” but then they go straight back to the warnings.
Nearly left out is Israel. You have to read down to paragraph 19 to learn that this April Iran “started enriching its uranium stockpile to 60 percent after its main nuclear site was sabotaged — almost certainly by Israel. . .” You nowhere find out that Israel has for many years been conducting a murderous campaign inside Iran, which included assassinating a nuclear scientist named Mohsen Fakhrizadeh last November. Nor does the Times explain that former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu spent a decade trying to sabotage the nuclear deal, including his provocative 2015 address to the U.S. Congress, and even tried to provoke the U.S. into attacking Iran.
Let’s turn to the Responsible Statecraft article, which also appeared today. Ryan Costello takes a calm look at why the U.S./Iran negotiations have stalled, and makes suggestions to get them back on track. He doesn’t hide Israel’s efforts to undermine the talks. The U.S., led by Rob Malley, joined the negotiations in Vienna, and on April 9 “hailed progress amid a constructive environment.” The good news frightened Netanyahu, so he acted:
Two days later, the Israelis, presumably, triggered an explosion at the Natanz enrichment site, causing a blackout and knocking many of Iran’s first generation centrifuges offline. Breaking with precedent, Israel had reportedly given the United States less than two hours’ notice before proceeding with the covert operation, which left no time for the Biden administration to caution against or convince Israel to call off the attack.
Iran’s regime is regarded as hard-line, especially after any remaining moderates were routed in the June elections. But no government anywhere could just ignore ongoing murderous attacks inside its national territory. Costello quotes a senior Iranian official:
The West seems unaware of how much we have suffered, how humiliated we feel after the assassinations of [Qasem] Soleimani [the top general Trump ordered killed in January 2020] and Fakhrizadeh, how angry we feel about so many covert operations, how painful our strategic patience has been.
Costello faults the Biden administration for moving back to the negotiating table too slowly. He also says that maintaining “maximum pressure” against Iran through economic sanctions endangers the talks. And he closes with a warning, which is even more ominous after the Afghanistan tragedy:
The path ahead will not be easy. But we know that max pressure has failed and the United States and Iran might not be able to avoid a disastrous war if Iran chooses its own form of maximum pressure.
“The valuable report was in Responsible Statecraft, a new outlet that is gaining respect and influence but is still small.”
Responsible Statecraft – love the name! – has some interesting articles about Israel:
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2020/08/16/israel-will-have-to-reckon-with-the-occupation/
Israel will have to reckon with the occupation one way or another…
As the Israeli government continues to deny Palestinians their basic rights, its democracy, and American Jewry’s support for it, are in peril. (by Henry Siegman, executive director of the American Jewish Congress, `1978-1994)
Oh, a little comment from Siegman in his article in Responsible Statecraft- this one is for all those folks in the “there’s no partner for peace” camp, italics mine –
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2020/08/16/israel-will-have-to-reckon-with-the-occupation/
Which leaves us to the question of what or who might lead to an end of the Israel/Palestine conflict? … And most Israelis who favor a two-state solution claim the peace process has failed because Palestinians refuse to resume negotiations with Israel. What they don’t tell you is that the only subject Israel’s government has been willing to discuss at such negotiations is a Palestinian entity that has none of the defining features of statehood, and would much resemble Gaza…
Iran has never attacked its neighbors, started wars, or killed unarmed civilians, unlike Israel.
They are involved in proxy wars, but then so have the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.
If Israel can have nuclear capabilities, despite its endless violence, and killing of civilians, Iran is entitled to have it too. It will even level the playing field. Israel has no right to send assassins and kill Iran’s scientists inside Iran. Imagine the howling and outrage had Iran done the same to their scientists.
The New York Times must stop being so biased and make sure their articles have some balance and honesty, instead of conveniently missing out important facts that show Israel’s culpability in many crimes. The world knows by now what Israel crimes are, and it will not be a huge surprise.
A very pertinent article that proves yet again the NY Times continued bias towards Israel. Whether or not Iran is the “evil” that America (thru the prism of Israel’s fractured lenses??) believes it to be is something that cannot be answered with any certainty. What should be addressed is that sanctions on people trying to live in some kind of dignity is counter-productive (sanctions SHOULD, however, be applied to apartheid Israel) and will only do irreparable harm to both parties. The article’s final admonition is indeed an ominous plea that will of course not be taken seriously by anyone in the US government who only knows bullying tactics, especially where Iran is concerned.
“Iran has come within roughly a month of having enough material to fuel a single nuclear weapon. . .”
That’s after thirty years of being on the verge of getting a nuke.