If this is Ahmadinejad's bluff, it is bluff worth calling

[bennywhale]

The only route to regime change and disarmament is engagement, so the US must respond to this week's letter from Tehran

Simon Jenkins
Wednesday May 10, 2006
The Guardian
Iran is a complex and sophisticated nation that offers more plausible diplomatic pressure points than ever did Saddam's Iraq. While Ahmadinejad may eat, drink and make merry on the Pentagon's ineptitude, he must look warily over his shoulder at his boss, Ayatollah Khamenei; at Iran's national security council under the more temperate Ali Larijani, whom Ahmadinejad does not control; and at his old foe, Akbar Rafsanjani.

A detailed survey of US-Iranian relations in March's New Yorker revealed the full extent of bilateral contacts until they were stymied, first by Bush's 2003 neocon national security directive and then by his ham-fisted intervention in the 2005 Iranian election, which helped Ahmadinejad to power. Even today there are plenty of Iranians who want no quarrel with America, and certainly not with America, Russia and China together. It is probably they who forced Ahmadinejad to send Monday's dovish letter to Washington, to which the Republican head of the Senate foreign relations committee, Richard Lugar, thinks America should respond.

Bush and Blair have given Ahmadinejad a remarkable hand of cards. He can now impose his own economic and military sanctions on the west. He can force up the price of oil and traumatise insurance premiums in the Strait of Hormuz. While his control over the Shia brigades in Iraq may be overstated, he can orchestrate lethal pressure on the occupying forces and watch as public opinion in Britain and America devastates their leaders.

There is, of course, one thing that Britain and America could do that would wholly disorientate Ahmadinejad and have him rushing troops to his borders. It would be a sudden end to the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Such a decision would remove at a stroke the running theme of Iranian militancy. It would saddle Tehran with two unstable neighbours whose insurgents and revanchists would cause it, its allies and its surrogates no end of trouble. After a bit of initial crowing the next Iraq will be Ahmadinejad's nightmare. Unfortunately such a step seems too clever by half for the west's present leadership.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1771366,00.html

[Chimichurri]

1. But Bushco already dismissed this letter publicly. Hopefully

behind closed doors they'll engage them. I doubt it though, they are looking for war.

[gulliver]

2. Ahmadinejad's saber rattling raises oil prices.

Then he just stands back and rakes in the money.

Bush can't leave Iraq or even fire Rumsfeld for political reasons. Bush is protecting himself and the rubber-stamp Republicans in Congress now, not the country. He can't do anything that might show people how badly he screwed up the country.

[annabanana]

3. (much too logical for the B*sh cabal)

They couldn't follow the logic.