Dr. Cole: What do you think of the emerging reports that "Sam Bacile" possibly isn't Israeli or doesn't actually exist (although someone claiming to be an Israeli-American by that name apparently gave interviews to several news sources)?
Stupid question. The Pakistani analyst you link describes Murabak as "the President of Jumhuriyah Misr al-Arabiyah". What does this mean? Misr is the Arabic name for Egypt right?
I guess what I don't get is, exactly what is there in this Turkey offer that from the U.S. administration's perspective is so great it's worth changing direction over? The administration's goal is to get Iran to stop enriching uranium. Right? So the offer on the table is that Iran will halt one particular [legal?] uranium enrichment program and continue with other [possibly not legal?] uranium enrichment programs. Okay? That's clearly a big step in the right direction, but it doesn't by itself satisfy give the Americans what they wanted, satisfy Iran's IAEA obligations, or put us on a path that unambiguously leads to either of these things. What are the Americans losing by just going ahead with the sanctions?
Now I mean given I can't work out what exactly it is sanctions are supposed to be accomplishing either, but apparently the administration considers sanctions a real thing and I'm trying to work out what this looks like from their perspective. From their perspective I can't come up with logic by which they'd have taken this deal (if the deal is, "drop threat of sanctions and we'll agree to this Turkey-mediated swap while continuing to enrich uranium").
I am seeing several sources reporting that some hours after the deal was announced Iran's foreign ministry seemed to undercut it:
The deal brokered by Brazil and Turkey won’t prevent Iran from continuing to enrich uranium, including to higher concentrations, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said. The activity of “enrichment to 20 percent inside our country will still continue,” Ramin Mehmanparast said after the signing of the deal, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
Dr. Cole: What do you think of the emerging reports that "Sam Bacile" possibly isn't Israeli or doesn't actually exist (although someone claiming to be an Israeli-American by that name apparently gave interviews to several news sources)?
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/09/muhammad-film-consultant-sam-bacile-is-not-israeli-and-not-a-real-name/262290/
Thanks
Stupid question. The Pakistani analyst you link describes Murabak as "the President of Jumhuriyah Misr al-Arabiyah". What does this mean? Misr is the Arabic name for Egypt right?
I guess what I don't get is, exactly what is there in this Turkey offer that from the U.S. administration's perspective is so great it's worth changing direction over? The administration's goal is to get Iran to stop enriching uranium. Right? So the offer on the table is that Iran will halt one particular [legal?] uranium enrichment program and continue with other [possibly not legal?] uranium enrichment programs. Okay? That's clearly a big step in the right direction, but it doesn't by itself satisfy give the Americans what they wanted, satisfy Iran's IAEA obligations, or put us on a path that unambiguously leads to either of these things. What are the Americans losing by just going ahead with the sanctions?
Now I mean given I can't work out what exactly it is sanctions are supposed to be accomplishing either, but apparently the administration considers sanctions a real thing and I'm trying to work out what this looks like from their perspective. From their perspective I can't come up with logic by which they'd have taken this deal (if the deal is, "drop threat of sanctions and we'll agree to this Turkey-mediated swap while continuing to enrich uranium").
I am seeing several sources reporting that some hours after the deal was announced Iran's foreign ministry seemed to undercut it:
Having the Turkey-brokered swap framework in place is surely an extremely positive step, but this doesn't seem to actually resolve the disagreement that was leading players such as the U.S. to call for sanctions in the first place, does it? Indeed the U.S. administration does not yet seem to view this as changing things any.