Well, on one hand....if we go into the details of the US-Saddam relationship, the situation is even worse, since this relationship started with him on the "Company's" pay-list. So, if we discuss this relationship that precisely, and suppose that there are no lasting friendships in diplomacy, then we also ought to conclude that there are very much lasting friendships in "intelligence" (even if this is limited to paid assassinations).Originally Posted by Dayuhan
On the other hand: would you use the same analogy about lasting friendships in the case US - KSA?
Would you like to say that all the US "special friendships", are lies?Politicians and diplomats lie a lot; it's their job.
Yes, I'm sorry I do not recall who was it specifically that said so in his presentation on that conference. I do recall that the statement in question found a wide agreement, though.Conferences don't prove or disprove anything. Lots of perspectives out there, few of them amenable to "proof" one way or the other.
Sorry, but I never said the US "initiated the war": I implied they were informed in time about Saddam's intentions (I would like somebody to tell me that the Saudis are not informing their "business partners" in the US when somebody tells them he's going to invade one of their neighbours) - yet did nothing at all to stop him.Not a lot of difference there. The war probably did fasten the Iranian regime in power, but the US didn't initiate the war and couldn't have stopped it.
You say "they couldn't have stopped it", to which I can only conclude we're back to the topic of the quality of US influence in the Middle East. And here I meanwhile must observe: if the situation is as you present it, the US has no and is not attempting to influence whoever or whatsoever; its diplomacy is entirely concentrating on innocent commerce; there are no special "relationships" (neither of diplomatic nor of personal nature) and especially no connections to local despots based on any kind of common interests against the "subjects" of these same despots and even less so against other governments that refuse to have their foreign- and domestic affairs dictated by the DC (which is impossible any way, since DC is never dictating anybody how to behave)....
...right. And can we get serious now?
Once again, Ken described this in a very nice fashion. I do not ask you to agree with that, but you'll at least have to accept the fact that the people in the Middle East - and in this case: people who used to have leading positions in Iraq - see the situation differently than you do.I'm sure Saddam sold this idea to his generals and many others; that doesn't mean he believed it himself. Many Iraqi generals believed to the last that Saddam had WMD.
...which is the standard US line, obviously based on not even listening to what the Iranians (those who have the say) say. Then, from their standpoint - regardless if from those closely associated with the government, working as IRGC officers, but also Artesh officers, and regardless if pro or contra their government - there is no chance of anything of that kind - since all such proposals start with conditions. Is their standpoint that unless somebody starts to treat them as an equal partner, they are not ready to any kind of concessions, really that "strange" or at least as "unusual" as to be completely "in-no-way-understandable" to the USA?All of which could be achieved, without contention, under a number of fuel processing deals that have already been rejected.
This is also what the US government is "explaining to Iran" (via the media) since years, and the same idea that is not functioning because it is ignoring Iranian interests and standpoints.The Iranian government could stop supporting Hezbollah, accept the fuel processing deals on offer, and drop the ridiculous anti-US and anti-Israel rhetoric without compromising its interests in any way.
You can't expect the Iranians to even think about not providing US$100 Million or so to Hezbollah every year, while the US is providing 400 Million to various Iranian oppositional groups (particularly those renown as "terrorists" in the IRI) and who knows how many Billions to various other of their enemies (again: I'm just telling you what they say, not argumenting pro or contra).
In fact, don't you find it rather surprising they are ready to negotiate at all, considering they have to deal with an administration that is - from their standpoint - involved in state-sponsored terrorism against their country?
Why do the oil-producing countries have to get on with the West, first of all?The advantages would be very substantial: there would no longer be any justification for sanctions, and the neighbors across the Gulf have demonstrated rather well that oil-producing countries that get on with the west do rather better than those who choose confrontation.
Would you like to say that if they don't (get on with the West), they "automatically" turn into US enemies?
OK, very nice.We work with governments who are willing to work with us, and governments with interests similar to ours. Alliances are made by common interests, not similar systems of government... always been that way.
Now, before I come to my next question, let me first observe that I am aware of the fact that a large part of "academic" West (I'll not even try to discuss the Western politicians) has immense problems of understanding alone how the IRI functions as a state, not to talk about how the government there functions. And, obviously, this is a topic that could easily "gulp" 10-15 threads each of which would be three times as large as this one, only in order to properly explain. So, let me try to (roughly) summarize the situation there as a "rule of consensus in a chaos of self-governing".
Anyway, the point I would like to hear from you about is this: at the turn of the centuries (note: the following did not happen some 50 years ago, but within the last seven, eight years) there was a relatively moderate admin in Tehran (the same figures are now organizing protests against the government), which dismantled a large part of the IRGC apparatus and then proved more than willing to cooperate with the Bush admin in Afghanistan and Iraq (for a summary of relevant developments see, for example, "Immortal", by Steven R. Ward). The very same Bush admin first exploited this situation, then dropped the IRI admin like a hot rock and at the first opportunity began openly antagonizing it. Quite "surprisingly", during the next elections in the IRI, the IRGC returned to power in full force and is meanwhile mightier than ever before. What happened ever since is more than well-known.
While I'll always be the first to observe that this reverse at the top of the IRI was primarily related to an internal power struggle going on already since the lat 1980s, I can't but add that this development was directly influenced by the behaviour of the Bush admin too - i.e. this "business only, nothing personal" policy - and this because not only a few voices emerged in Tehran concluding, "You see, we can't cooperate and even less so depend upon them" (the US). This is what I've heard with my own ears from several persons there that really can't be described as "not important".
So please be so kind and patient and explain me: if it is so as you say, and the US is interested to work with governments that are willing to work with the US, and the IRI admin of Khatami proved willing not only to work with the US, but fully support its "business" (since this was all on purely commercial basis, right?) in the neighbourhood, if there were strong and undisputable common interests, and this has always been that way, and there was no change of US admins in between (and thus there should have been no change in US foreign policy either)... then what was the logic of the Bush admin turning its policy towards an actually friendly IRI admin for 180°, at the spot, in around 2003-2004?
Was there some kind of disagreement over commercial deals?
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