Iran in a Position of Relative Strength...

Representatives from Iran and the P-5+1 group will hold key talks in Istanbul on Friday and Saturday over the Islamic republic?s controversial nuclear program. These will be the first such negotiations to be held in Turkey. The two-day meeting will be a follow-up to lengthy discussions that were held in Geneva in December.�Both the United States and Russia have said that they are not expecting any major breakthroughs in the nuclear dispute. In many ways this is to be expected. Given the situation of the regional chessboard, Iran is feeling very confident and will not be in a mood to make any major concessions.?It is not surprising that senior Iranian officials have been saying for days that they will not be going to Istanbul to discuss their country?s nuclear program.?In December, the Iranians were able to have a Tehran-leaning, Shiite-dominated government installed in Iraq ? despite the fact the main American and Saudi proxy, the Sunni-backed al-Iraqiya bloc, won the parliamentary elections last March. Last week, Tehran?s premier regional proxy, the Lebanese Hezbollah, successfully engineered the collapse of the Lebanese government that had been led by forces allied with Saudi Arabia and the United States. While American allies are being forced to accept a minimal piece of the political pie in Baghdad, in Beirut, they are being compelled to appoint a prime minister preferred by Iran?s allies. In other words, the Iranians are headed into this latest round of nuclear negotiations from a position of relative strength. More importantly, however, is the fact that these negotiations have very little to do with Iran?s nuclear program than they have to do with the wider U.S.-Iranian geopolitical struggle, especially as Washington is headed toward a complete withdrawal from Iraq by the end of the year, leaving Iran as the most powerful conventional military force in the Persian Gulf region. It is not surprising that senior Iranian officials have been saying for days that they will not be going to Istanbul to discuss altering their country?s nuclear program. In a sense, this intransigence has to do with Tehran not being prepared to mothball its nuclear program. Indeed, from the Iranian point of view, any ultimate compromise settlement on the nuclear issue should be as such that it will not place permanent limits on the clerical regime to harness nuclear technology. That said, the nuclear issue is not as important for the Iranians as is the goal of leveraging their expanded influence in the region to emerge as major player.Likewise, for the Americans, the real concern is how to manage growing Iranian power, especially once Washington has pulled forces from Iraq. Therefore, as in previous public meetings and particularly, back-channel communications, the discussions in the next couple of days will not be limited to nuclear matters such as the mundane technical details related to the swapping of low-enriched uranium for higher grades of the substance. On the contrary, the more substantive conversations will likely be about the core strategic issues that have arisen from growing Iranian regional assertiveness and the inability of the U.S.-led sanctions efforts to force Tehran to capitulate.

Source: http://www.tayyar.org/Tayyar/News/PoliticalNews/en-US/Nuclear-Talks-Iran-Turkey-hn-3.htm

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