Bet51987 wrote:The European three – Britain, France, and Germany – with the backing of the United States, China, and Russia, are preparing a package of incentives to offer Iran in return for it to suspend its uranium enrichment activities. As part of the package, the EU will pledge to assist Iran in building a light-water reactor inside Iran.
That idea was immediately rejected by Ahmadinejad... Here are a few links.
Details of Iran's 23-page written response have not been released, but they crucially are expected to confirm that Iran is not prepared to suspend uranium-enrichment activities without comprehensive security guarantees, especially from the US, in return.
The US has never been prepared to give such guarantees, and thus ends what appeared on the surface to be a genuine multilateral initiative for negotiations with Iran on the terms under which it would give up its nuclear program.
[..]
Britain, France and Germany (European Union Three - EU-3), which had begun negotiations with Tehran on the nuclear issue in October 2003, had concluded very early that Iran's security concerns would have to be central to any agreement. It has been generally forgotten that the November 14, 2004, Paris Agreement between the EU and Iran included an assurance by the EU-3 that the "long-term agreement" they pledged to reach would "provide ... firm commitments on security issues".
The EU-3 had tried in vain to get the Bush administration to support their diplomatic efforts with Tehran by authorizing the inclusion of security guarantees in a proposal they were working on last summer. In a joint press conference with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in July 2005, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy referred to the need to "make sure ... that we discuss with [the Iranians] the security of their country. And for this, we shall need the United States ..."
Also, AFAIK Ahmadinejad's opinion doesn't weight a lot. He's facing opposition in his own country for his stupidity. Nobody negotiates w/ him.
Bet51987 wrote:The worlds color may be grey, but to Islam its very black and white... To convert this world to an Islamic one...by force if neccessary. No country should be allowed to imprison and beat its young girls and women because of their gender. Every person born should have basic inalienable rights.
Quite aggreable, but not the full picture.
Nobody should be allowed to apply force to anyone for reasons of subjective moral or ethics.
Bet51987 wrote:Grendel wrote:2. you can't force change on anyone/a group, never works. Change has to come from w/in and takes at least a generation to happen.
The generation change will not work because the present generations mindset teaches the future generations, like the Taliban was doing.
All I said is that any change will take at least one generation to happen, regardless of how it is induced.
Wars in the more distant past worked better -- the winner killed (at least) everybody in key positions erradicating most of the mindset, then filling the void w/ own people, kids & ideas. We don't do that anymore, wars like in Afganistan or Iraq leave the mindset intact creating what we call extremists & terrorists.
Bet51987 wrote:Nationalism? Ask the women.
I was refering to western POV nationalism. It was ment as a point to think about, so I'll not go deeper since it's another can of worms.
Bet51987 wrote:Grendel wrote:I'm still marveling about exactly what the "it" is I "will never get", maybe you could clarify that.
I really can't because you have a pro Iran stance.
Why do you think that ? For the record, I'm strictly against any form of fanatism. If you can find a way to remove all fanatic elements in control in Iran (or any other region) w/o laying the area to waste and harming normal people I most likely would be in favor of it. My opinion is that another war in the ME will not improve conditions for anyone, it will fuel terrorism, destabilize the area further, create a new high of anti-americanism (or anti-west even), and make the living conditions for the "regular" guys in the ME hell. I don't feel that the US has exhausted diplomatic means yet so I'm against a war. How does that make me pro-Iran ?
Bet51987 wrote:Your wrong again. The offer came from Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China and was backed by the U.S. ONLY if they halted enrichment. This quote is from your very own links above.
Let us also be clear: Tehran has made it unmistakable that enrichment is their right and that enrichment has never been nor will it become a negotiable point.
No wonder the U.S. refused....... Your turn again.
Let me extend aboves quote:
The EU-3 and the Bush administration agreed that the permanent-five-plus-one proposal would demand that Iran make three concessions to avoid UN Security Council sanctions and to begin negotiations on an agreement with positive incentives: the indefinite suspension of its enrichment program, agreement to resolve all the outstanding concerns of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and resumption of full implementation of the Additional Protocol under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which calls for very tight monitoring of all suspected nuclear sites by the IAEA.
That meant that Tehran would have had to give up its major bargaining chips before the negotiations even began. The Europeans wanted security guarantees from Washington to be part of the deal. Douste-Blazy said on May 8 that if Iran cooperated, it could be rewarded with what he called an "ambitious package" in several economic domains as well as in "the security domain".
The EU-3 draft proposal, which was leaked to ABC (American Broadcasting Co) News and posted on its website, included a formula that fell short of an explicit guarantee. However, it did offer "support for an inter-governmental forum, including countries of the region and other interested countries, to promote dialogue and cooperation on security issues in the Persian Gulf, with the aim of establishing regional security arrangements and a cooperative relationship on regional security arrangements including guarantees for territorial integrity and political sovereignty".
That convoluted language suggested there was a way for Iran's security to be guaranteed by the United States. But the problem was that it was still subject to a US veto. In any case, as Steven R Weisman of the New York Times reported on May 19, the Bush administration rejected any reference to a regional security framework in which Iran could participate.
Rice denied on Fox News on May 21 that the US was being "asked about security guarantees", but that was deliberately misleading. As a European diplomat explained to Reuters on May 20, the only reason the Europeans had not used the term "security guarantees" in their draft was that "Washington is against giving Iran assurances that it will not be attacked".
