Republican Senator Calls for Unconditional Talks with Iran

Senator Hagel has called on the Bush administration to have "direct, unconditional, and comprehensive talks" with Iran and warned that the administration's current stance towards Iran was splitting the international community and that "growing differences with our international partners" were likely to widen.

"Unless there is a strategic shift," according to Hagel's letter, which was also sent to other top administration officials, including Pentagon chief Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, "I believe we will find ourselves in a dangerous and increasingly isolated position in the coming months."

"Now is the time for the United States to actively consider when and how to offer direct, unconditional, and comprehensive talks with Iran," it went on, adding that such a move should be combined with continued efforts with US allies to press Iran through economic sanctions, including a third U.N. Security Council Resolution.

"An approach such as this would strengthen our ability across the board to deal with Iran," it went on. "Our friends and allies would be more confident to stand with us if we seek to increase pressure, including tougher sanctions, on Iran. It could create a historic new dynamic in US-Iran relations, in part by forcing the Iranians to react to the possibility of better relations with the West."

Hagel has a point. At the moment most of us believe that the Bush administration is going out of it's way to avoid negotiations with Iran.

As I have previously pointed out:

The Iranian regime have made every effort to have diplomatic relations with the US, including an offer to recognise Israel, and an offer to end support for Lebanese and Palestinian terror groups and make it's nuclear programme more transparent. All were rejected out of hand.

Under these circumstances it is almost impossible to think of any offer the Iranians could make - other than giving up their legal right under NNPT to enrich uranium - which would satisfy the Americans.

Hagel's call for "direct, unconditional, and comprehensive talks" comes at a time when many are speculating that the Bush administration are planning to attack Iran:

Speculation about such an attack – against either Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) units alleged by Washington to be involved in directing attacks by Tehran-armed Shiite militias against US soldiers and marines in Iraq or Iran's suspected nuclear facilities, or both – has escalated sharply since Bush himself raised the threat of a "World War III" if Iran obtains even the knowledge needed to produce a nuclear weapon during a press conference two weeks ago.

Several days later, Vice President Dick Cheney, in a speech to a hawkish pro-Israel think tank, the Washington Institute for Near Policy, warned Tehran of "serious consequences" if it did not freeze its nuclear program and accused it of "direct involvement in the killings of Americans."

"We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon," he declared to applause in what several informed observers characterized as a clear escalation from previous administration officials that an Iranian nuclear weapon was "unacceptable."

In addition to the harsher rhetoric, Congressional analysts noticed the insertion of an 88-million-dollar request in the 200-billion-dollar 2007 supplemental defense bill to modify B-2 "Stealth" bombers so that they can drop a "Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a conventional "bunker-busting" bomb designed to destroy targets that buried are deep underground in response to "an urgent operational need from theater commanders."

The only logical target for such a weapon in the current geo-strategic climate, according to most defense analysts, would be Iran's suspected nuclear sites.

There is no reason whatsoever as to why the US could not engage in talks with Iran, and many of us are under the impression that Cheney actively wants to avoid talks and prefers the notion of simply attacking Tehran.

And Hagel's views are said to be representative of a number of senior Republicans:

While he has been far more outspoken than his Republican colleagues, his views are believed to reflect those of a number of other senior party lawmakers, including the top Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees, Dick Lugar and John Warner, respectively.

His views are also believed to reflect those of Gates and most of the Pentagon's top brass, even including the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen. According to Clemons, the chief of the US Central Command, the top military commander in the Middle East/Gulf region, Adm. William Fallon, also sent Hagel a letter of appreciation after receiving a copy of the senator's letter.

But it's almost a given that his sensible call will be totally ignored by this administration as Bush continues on his insane path of confrontation with yet another Middle Eastern country.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Hagel, Iran, "direct, unconditional, and comprehensive talks"