From Global Research
By Abbas Edalat

President Bush’s decision to send William Burns, his third-ranking diplomat, to observe nuclear negotiations in Geneva with Iran, represents a long-overdue shift in American policy - underlined by plans revealed in yesterday’s Guardian to re-establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran. Hitherto, the US had demanded that Iran must concede the main point of negotiations, namely suspension of its uranium enrichment programme, before talks begin. Iran has responded positively to negotiations, but ruled out the US precondition of suspension. The US still states that it will only enter into dialogue with Iran if it halts its enrichment programme.

Iran’s nuclear plants are all under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has stressed consistently that there has not been any illicit diversion of declared nuclear material. Despite no evidence of a nuclear weaponisation programme, the US pressured the member states of the governor’s board of the IAEA to report Iran’s file to the UN security council in February 2006. Three rounds of resolutions and sanctions followed.

The Bush administration’s policy towards Iran was inspired initially by its quick success in regime change in Iraq. It has pursued the dual strategy of demonising, isolating and pressuring Iran while trying to destabilise the country by covert operations in order to prepare the ground for a military attack.

However the hawks, led by Dick Cheney, have failed to make any headway. In December 2007, the National Intelligence Estimate reported with high confidence that Iran does not have a military nuclear programme, disarming the principal allegation against it. For a time, a concerted attempt was made to create a casus belli by accusing Iran of arming the militants who are “killing our soldiers” in Iraq. But no real evidence for this charge was ever produced, the Iraqi government refuted it and the allegations have not been trumpeted by the US in recent months.

Read more War on Iran