Monday, July 7, 2008 by CommonDreams.org
Americans Don’t Know: There’s a Plan on the Table to Resolve the Nuclear
Standoff With Iran
by Robert Naiman
In recent weeks we’ve again seen an escalation of US/Israeli threats to
attack Iran. Among many
other examples, the House of Representatives is currently considering a
resolution promoted by
AIPAC that would effectively demand a blockade against Iran. This
resolution has over 200
co-sponsors, although a surge of opposition has prevented it from being
passed so far. (The
resolution is H. Con. Res. 362; you can ask your Representatives to oppose
it here.)
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/hconres362.html
Here’s what those promoting military attacks and blockades on Iran don’t
want Americans to
know: there’s an offer on the table that could resolve the dispute over
Iran’s nuclear program
and allow both sides to claim victory.
In this short interview, former US Ambassador to the United Nations Thomas
Pickering makes the
case for talks with Iran without pre-conditions on multilateral uranium
enrichment in Iran.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGZFrFxVg8A
In March, Ambassador Pickering co-authored “A Solution for the US-Iran
Nuclear Standoff” in the
New York Review of Books. Pickering and his co-authors wrote:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21112
“We propose that Iran’s efforts to produce enriched uranium and other
related nuclear
activities be conducted on a multilateral basis, that is to say jointly
managed and operated on
Iranian soil by a consortium including Iran and other governments. This
proposal provides a
realistic, workable solution to the US-Iranian nuclear standoff. Turning
Iran’s sensitive
nuclear activities into a multinational program will reduce the risk of
proliferation and
create the basis for a broader discussion not only of our disagreements
but of our common
interests as well. “
On May 31, the Boston Globe interviewed Iran’s Ambassador to the UN, who
said that Iran “would
not suspend its own enrichment program, but would consider establi****ng an
internationally
owned consortium inside Iran that could produce nuclear fuel with Iranian
participation.” The
Globe noted in a follow-up piece on June 10 that Iran had proposed this
idea in its May 13
letter to the UN calling for comprehensive negotiations, that the proposal
was broadly similar
to the Pickering proposal, and that Iran’s UN Ambassador had said that the
details should be
negotiated.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/wa****ngton/articles/2008/05/31/iran_cool_to_suspending_nuclear_agenda/
Unfortunately, most Americans don’t read the New York Review of Books or
the Boston Globe. So,
while polls consistently show most Americans want negotiations with Iran
to resolve the nuclear
dispute, most Americans don’t know that there’s an offer on the table
right now to resolve the
nuclear dispute that the US government is walking away from.
If this video makes the rounds, Americans can learn that there’s a plan on
the table right now
to resolve the nuclear dispute. Let’s not wait until after the devastation
of another illegal
war to discuss the fact that there was a diplomatic alternative.
Robert Naiman is Senior Policy Analyst at Just Foreign Policy.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/
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