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	<title>SwamplandCategory: Iran &#124; Swampland &#124; TIME.com</title>
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	<description>Political insight from the Beltway and beyond</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Mon, 20 May 2013 15:12:32 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>SwamplandCategory: Iran &#124; Swampland &#124; TIME.com</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com</link>
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		<item>
		<title>What Bush Got Right on Iraq &#8212; and What Obama Can Learn from It</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/03/20/what-bush-got-right-on-iraq-and-what-obama-can-learn-from-it/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/03/20/what-bush-got-right-on-iraq-and-what-obama-can-learn-from-it/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:45:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Massimo Calabresi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Viewpoint]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=90840</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This article was updated with Condoleezza Rice&#8217;s response at 10:50 am When George W. Bush became President in January 2001, American policy towards Iraq was in free fall and the United Nations sanctions against Saddam’s regime, in place since the first Gulf War, were in tatters. By early 2003, Bush had achieved something most analysts had thought impossible: sanctions on Iraq were tighter than ever and inspectors were back in the country. Most surprising, Saddam Hussein had reportedly offered to go into exile, as long as he could take $1 billion with him. And then Bush threw that diplomatic progress aside and committed the U.S. to a war that would cost thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi ones, and more than $700 billion in American treasure. If you factor in veterans care and other costs, the price runs to the trillions. As President Obama heads down his own path to war over Iran’s nuclear program, it’s worth reviewing not only what Bush did wrong as he confronted Iraq ten years ago&#8211;but what he did right. (MORE: Saddam Hussein Would Have Survived the Arab Spring) In Jan. 2001 the collapse of the Iraq sanctions regime was obvious. Passed in the wake of the Gulf War, the sanctions were intended to enforce provisions of Iraq’s 1991 surrender requiring the destruction of all of its chemical and biological weapons and prohibiting its pursuit of a nuclear program. All Iraqi oil sales were to be controlled by the U.N. But throughout the Clinton administration, Saddam violated the surrender terms and the U.N. sanctions regime. In Oct. 1998 he permanently kicked out U.N. inspectors. By November 2000, Syria had opened an unauthorized pipeline from Iraq. Oil and refined petroleum were flowing across the Turkish border in long convoys of tanker trucks. International flights, also banned under the sanctions, were starting up again. “The U.S. position is deteriorating by the day,” Ken Katzman, the long-time Middle East analyst for the Congressional Research Service, told TIME late in 2000. By Jan. 22, 2003, things could hardly<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=90840&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Viewpoint</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/miscellany/viewpoint/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/80631903.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Former President George W. Bush arrives to speak on the war in Iraq at the White House in Washington, D.C., on April 10, 2008.</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">calabresim</media:title>
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		<title>Congress Guns for Iran, While the Administration Focuses on Engagement</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/03/12/congress-guns-for-iran-while-the-administration-focuses-on-engagement/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/03/12/congress-guns-for-iran-while-the-administration-focuses-on-engagement/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Mar 2013 21:20:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=90291</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In a Washington these days characterized by hyper partisanship, the last four years of near unanimous votes on sanctioning Iran has been striking. They have also been a thorn in the Administration’s side. As State Department diplomats try yet again for a breakthrough at talks in Istanbul at the end of the month, two more bills further tightening the restrictions against Iran are in the works on the Hill. At best, Congress plays bad cop to the Administration’s good cop. Negotiators can say their hands are tied, that unless Iran changes its tune there’s little President Obama can to do to stop Congress. At worst, the bills complicate delicate negotiations and goad an already angry regime. While sanctions legislation has been a successful stick, pushing Iran&#8217;s economy to the brink, the Administration has reached a point where its focus is on reaching a diplomatic solution and avoiding a war. Congress wasn’t always so unified on sanctioning Iran. Three separate tracks of Iranian sanctions legislation fell apart in 2007-2008 and as Obama took office in 2009 promising a new era of engagement with Iran, there wasn’t a lot of consensus on how to proceed. Over the course of 2009, Senators Chris Dodd and Evan Bayh, two of the backers of failed 2008 sanctions, picked up the threads of those bills and began to stitch together comprehensive legislation. Throughout the year, the Administration pushed for more time for diplomacy. But by the end of 2009, after the failed Green Movement revolution seemed to dash hopes of direct talks, Congress grew impatient. Bills passed both the House and Senate and in early 2010 even tougher banking and human rights language was added. But still, the administration asked for more time to get a sanctions resolution through the United Nations first. This ended up taking longer than originally anticipated because Lebanon chaired the Security Council at the time and did not want such an anti-Iran resolution passed on their watch. Ultimately, Congress held off and waited until the UN resolution finally went through in June<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=90291&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/ayatollah-ali-khamenei2-420x0.jpg?w=164</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/557ff2649ffce53285c86e4b694cff6d?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>Israel Uneasy on Iran Ahead of Obama&#8217;s Visit</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/03/12/israel-uneasy-on-iran-ahead-of-obamas-visit/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/03/12/israel-uneasy-on-iran-ahead-of-obamas-visit/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Mar 2013 20:00:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Massimo Calabresi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=90265</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I recently wrote on Obama&#8217;s first-term progression on Iran, from engagement to saber rattling, as a walk-up to what will be a consequential year of diplomacy between Washington, Jerusalem and Tehran. Today the Wall Street Journal’s Gerald Seib takes a closer look at what&#8217;s coming, with a particular eye to Obama&#8217;s Israel trip next week. At negotiations in Kazakhstan between Iran, the U.S. and other world powers last month, the U.S. offered to ease sanctions slightly and let Iran keep less than a bomb&#8217;s worth of highly enriched uranium for research purposes in exchange for freezing it&#8217;s enrichment operations at a hard-to-bomb facility at Fordo, and other confidence-building measures. That offer, reports Seib, left Israel uneasy: Israel, however, isn&#8217;t confident. It sees the latest proposal as a rollback from the world&#8217;s earlier and tougher positions, which called for shipping out of Iran almost all of its stockpile of even less-well-enriched uranium, and the shutdown rather than merely the suspension of production at the Fordo enrichment facility. More talks are scheduled for later this month and for April. Watch for signs of friction over Iran when Obama is in Israel next week.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=90265&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/rtr3ec3h.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/rtr3ec3h.jpg?w=200" />
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			<media:title type="html">Top officials from Iran and the six powers take part in talks on Iran&#039;s nuclear programme in Almaty</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/afd9484b1bca74216e145d2c49c8af45?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">calabresim</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>The Path to War</title>
		<link>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2137429,00.html</link>
		<comments>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2137429,00.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:54:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Massimo Calabresi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Magazine]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=89287</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=89287&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Magazine</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/magazine/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/image.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Barack Obama and Bibi</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/afd9484b1bca74216e145d2c49c8af45?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">calabresim</media:title>
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		<title>Argo, and TIME</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/02/27/argo-and-time/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/02/27/argo-and-time/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:45:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Argo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ben Affleck]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Oscars]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=89105</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As most folks in America know, the film Argo won the Oscar for Best Picture on Sunday night. Its fictionalized parts have already been widely discussed, and criticized, but TIME has a particular perspective on them, having had a front row seat to many of the events. Within a month of the hostages being taken in November 1979, inquiring minds in Washington with access to diplomatic staff directories realized there was a discrepancy. The Iranians only had 50 of the 58 embassy employees (two of their captives were not embassy workers but Americans visiting the embassy at a particularly bad time). By December both TIME and Newsweek were contemplating cover stories showing individual photos of all the embassy staff and were asking the State Department about the discrepancy. After a request from State, TIME decided not to publish the individual photos. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance personally called Newsweek&#8216;s publisher, Katherine Graham, but to no avail: Newsweek published its cover shortly thereafter. It became an open secret in Washington that the Canadians were harboring the six missing Americans. (PHOTOS: Khomeini&#8217;s Long Shadow: 30 Years After the Iran Hostage Crisis) Meanwhile, TIME’s correspondent in Tehran at the time, Bruce Van Voorst – who had accompanied Ayatollah Khomeini back to Iran from Paris and was at the embassy the day after it fell – had gotten to know Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor. “Early on, he told me if you ever get in trouble, call me,” Van Voorst recalls. “He took a real risk and really kept their secret.&#8221; Says Van Voorst: &#8220;I was really distressed about [the movie’s] failure to give Ken Taylor his due. I got to know Ken during this period. I would see him in his capacity as ambassador and quickly learned how astute and competent he was.&#8221; Van Voorst visited Taylor in the residence at least three times, and Taylor managed to keep the presence of the hostages secret.  &#8221;We would exchange tidbits on what we knew – he on the diplomatic situation, while I told him what was going on in the streets where I, wearing my<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=89105&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/09263760180010700.jpeg?w=151</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/09263760180010700.jpeg?w=151" />
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			<media:title type="html">Ayatollah Khomeini Man of the Year in January 1980.</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/557ff2649ffce53285c86e4b694cff6d?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>Shoe Thrown at Iran President in Cairo</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/02/06/shoe-thrown-at-iran-president-in-cairo/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/02/06/shoe-thrown-at-iran-president-in-cairo/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Feb 2013 16:03:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alex Rogers</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=87330</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi in Cairo yesterday to talk about the Syrian revolution and the relationship between their two countries.  Things turned ugly outside the Al-Hussein mosque when, according to NBC News, a bearded Syrian man belonging to the Sunni Salafist movement threw his shoe at Ahmadinejad. The man shouted, &#8220;You killed our brothers!&#8221; and was immediately detained.  Ahmadinejad, a Shiite, is the first Iranian President to visit Egypt since Tehran&#8217;s 1979 Islamic revolution. The episode immediately calls into mind a similar attack in 2008 on President George W. Bush.  While at a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, President Bush dodged two shoes thrown by Muntazer al-Zaidi, a television journalist.  Before he was detained, Al-Zaidi yelled, &#8220;This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!&#8221; View TIME&#8217;s 2008 Photo Essay &#8220;Aftermath of a Shoe Attack&#8221; here.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=87330&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/iran-president.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/iran-president.jpg?w=200" />
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			<media:title type="html">Iran&#039;s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad greets people as he visits the Al-Hussein mosque in old Cairo</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/509f545dfcf07266c1eb847a42170416?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">drogers1271</media:title>
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		<title>Iran-US Talks: Path to Peace or Confidence Game?</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/02/04/iran-us-talks-path-to-peace-or-confidence-game/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/02/04/iran-us-talks-path-to-peace-or-confidence-game/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 04 Feb 2013 10:45:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Massimo Calabresi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=87000</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Last March President Barack Obama told the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that he would do whatever it takes to stop Iran getting a nuclear weapon. But if avoiding a new war in the Middle East means believing Iran has forsaken its pursuit of a nuke, Obama faces a problem. Over the last ten years, Iran has flouted U.N. and IAEA orders to restrain its nuclear program, ignored an unconditional offer of one-on-one talks from Obama and refused to budge in the face of crippling sanctions and covert action. If all that failed to reverse Iran’s course, how can Tehran convince the world to have confidence in it now? Iran’s about to get what may be its last chance to try. At a conference in Munich Sunday, Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akhbar Salehi, said his country would join negotiations with international powers Feb. 25 in Kazakhstan. The talks were supposed to start in December, but Obama administration officials and European negotiators say Iran refused to agree where and when, exactly, to meet. Jaded western officials say they’ll only believe talks will actually happen when the Iranians show up. (MORE: Iran’s Agenda: Why Tehran Plays Hard to Get on Nuclear Diplomacy) Even if they do, the White House has low expectations. Off the table are any thoughts about what Iran could do to get its program back into compliance with international demands and ultimately keep some non-military nuclear capability&#8211;previous talks with the international powers focused only on short term measures to defuse tensions. “We are not in negotiations with them about end-state,” says a senior administration official. “All the discussions we have had with them have to do with steps that they need to take to build confidence.” Even that low bar may be too high for the Iranian regime. That’s partly because even as it stalls for time and promises to talk, Iran seems to be headed in the other direction. It has announced a plan to install higher efficiency centrifuges at its Natanz uranium enrichment<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=87000&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/rtr3d9es.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">US Vice-President Biden gives a speech at the 49th Conference on Security Policy in Munich</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/afd9484b1bca74216e145d2c49c8af45?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">calabresim</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>Israel Pushes Washington to Give Iran an Ultimatum</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/01/07/israel-pushes-washington-to-give-iran-an-ultimatum/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/01/07/israel-pushes-washington-to-give-iran-an-ultimatum/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 07 Jan 2013 16:29:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=84240</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Israeli Finance Minister Dr. Yuval Steinitz parachuted into Washington Monday for two days of meetings focusing mainly on Iran. Steinitz’s main message to the Obama Administration: it’s time to give Iran an ultimatum. “They need something in addition to the sanction and in addition to the statements” made thus far by President Obama, Steinitz told reporters over breakfast at the Mayflower Hotel. “They need a credible ultimate, a credible threat. They are waiting for something like this to happen.” Steinitz’s visit comes the same day as Obama is expected to nominate former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel to replace Leon Panetta at the Pentagon. Several conservative Jewish groups have come out against Hagel’s nomination over worries that Hagel, who opposed the war in Iraq, might be too dovish and could roll back Obama’s commitment to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Steinitz said the timing was purely coincidental – the meeting was a rain check from several months ago – and said “it is not our custom to interfere with democratic procedures of other countries.” Still, he made it clear that Israel is impatient with the lack of progress on Iran, and that he would be pushing Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and other Administration officials to not only close certain loopholes in the sanctions against Iran but to take a stronger verbal stance on deadlines. “Of course, we would prefer… a diplomatic solution,” Steinitz said. “But sanctions with negotiation seems to be insufficient. Currently, they’re not in the mood of giving up their nuclear program. They’re exploiting the talks thus far in order to gain time to refine more uranium.” Though Iran seems to have indicated an openness for bilateral talks with the U.S. and a renewal of the so-called P5+1 – the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, plus Germany – process, little progress has been made since the U.S. elections as had been expected. A P5+1 meeting has been agreed to in January, though a date and venue have yet to be set. Meanwhile, only<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=84240&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/125677844-e1357576793731.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>The Iranian Currency Crisis: Three Possible Scenarios</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/10/04/the-iranian-currency-crisis-three-possible-scenarios/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/10/04/the-iranian-currency-crisis-three-possible-scenarios/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 04 Oct 2012 20:21:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=79552</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[During my trip to Iran last month, the owner of a chicken shop in Shohada Square, a lower middle class neighborhood in southern Tehran not far from the bazaar, complained to me about the fluctuating price of chicken. “Yesterday, I had some orders from some regular customers. So I sold them chickens for 50,000 rials each,” he said. “But when I went to buy the chickens today, the price had spiked 5,000 rial overnight. I had to pay 55,000 rials for each chicken, so I lost some money. It would be fine if this was a one-time thing, but it keeps happening. The prices, they’ve fluctuated so much the last couple of months.” The Shohada chicken-seller must have had quite the ride this week&#8211;as have consumers and merchants across Iran when the rial devalued suddenly and dramatically by 40%.  As a TIME reporter in Tehran notes, the bazaar closed on Wednesday in part because merchants no longer knew how to price their products in such an unstable market, and in part to protest President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s economic policies. There have been increasing labor strikes for months around Iran, but unrest in the bazaar is a dangerous indicator for the Iranian regime: It was striking bazaaris who began the successful take-down the shah in 1979. Most experts see three possible outcomes – or a combination of these three steps: 1)            The regime falls. There is a lot of anger at Ahmadinejad’s mismanagement of the economy, but there’s also not a lot of love for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei. When I was in Tehran last month there was much speculation on the street that Ahmadinejad was stepping back – he is a lame duck with his term expiring next summer &#8212; to allow Khamenei to take some of the bullets for once. And the frustration I heard was equally apportioned between the two men. “Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, they’re all the same,” one small business owner told me. “None of them care about the economy, it’s all ideology to them. Winning the<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=79552&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/iran_600.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>Push and Shove in Iran</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/10/04/push-and-shove-in-iran/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/10/04/push-and-shove-in-iran/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 04 Oct 2012 17:25:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=79542</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[While the rest of us are wondering what on earth happened to Barack Obama last night, the President&#8217;s Iran policy seems to be moving toward success. The international sanctions that he so laboriously put together are having a devastating effect on Iran&#8217;s economy. The currency is collapsing. And now, the bazaaris&#8211;Iran&#8217;s mythic and powerful middle-class business community&#8211;are on strike and marching   in the streets. A few weeks ago in New York, the Iranian delegation to the UN General Assembly were hinting that a nuclear deal might be possible after the election&#8211;I took it with a grain of salt, since that delegation was led by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who (a) is powerless and (b) has taken more &#8220;liberal&#8221; positions on nuclear talks than the Supreme Leader (and, indeed, the Green Party reformers) in the past. But this thing seems to be reaching critical mass, so to speak. The Iranian public is going nuclear before the government does.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=79542&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/iran/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>U.S. Sanctions Take a Toll on Iran&#8217;s Currency</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/10/02/u-s-sanctions-take-a-toll-on-irans-currency/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/10/02/u-s-sanctions-take-a-toll-on-irans-currency/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 02 Oct 2012 09:45:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Foreign Policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=79225</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There aren’t many places for Iranians to shelter their money these days. Inflation has surpassed interest rates. There’s a construction boom in Tehran, and gold and gems are popular, but hard currency is the safest commodity. And Iranians are fleeing the Rial for the dollar. As one U.S. official described it, they are voting with their currency against their government. The Iranian Rial on Monday reached 36,000 to the dollar, nearly a 30% devaluation just since last week. The currency has lost half its value since the day I left Iran last month, when the Rial was trading at 22,500 to the dollar on the black market. (The official rate was, as it is today, roughly 12,000 Rial to the dollar). The upshot: U.S. sanctions are clearly having an impact. Last month I traveled to Iran for the Non-Aligned Movement conference. While there, I took the opportunity to check out the local economy. As a testament to how stringent U.S. sanctions have become, I had to get a special license from the Treasury Department to spend money in Iran. (Subscribers can read my story on how the sanctions are impacting Tehran here.) I heard several people complain that the government wasn’t doing more to shore up the Rial. For example, Tehran bought dozens of brand new black armored Mercedes to ferry dignitaries around – hard cash that could’ve been used to buy Rial. At the airport waiting for my flight to Dubai, I saw a dozen of the vehicles being loaded onto trucks near the tarmac and I wondered: Can one return barely used armored cars? At a press conference in New York last week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad scoffed at the idea that Iran’s economy might be suffering under sanctions. “Certainly our economic situation is better than Europe or America,” he said. “The last 33 years we’ve had no trade ties with the U.S.&#8221; (PHOTOS: Political Photos of the Week, Sept. 20-27) What does the potential collapse of the Rial mean? Aside from economic pain for the Iranian people, not<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=79225&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/iran/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>Long-Term Uncertainty Remains in Nuclear Talks with Iran</title>
		<link>http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2012/05/23/long-term-uncertainty-remains-in-nuclear-talks-with-iran/</link>
		<comments>http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2012/05/23/long-term-uncertainty-remains-in-nuclear-talks-with-iran/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 23 May 2012 11:28:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tony Karon</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Diplomacy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Foreign Policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=71250</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Anyone banking on a big-win breakthrough in Wednesday’s nuclear talks with Iran will likely find themselves in the same boat as investors who bet on an instant surge in the Facebook stock price last week. If there’s value to be found in nuclear negotiations with Iran, then — like an investment in Facebook — it’s likely to emerge over time. And in both cases, even the long-term outcome remains uncertain.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=71250&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/iran_nuke_talk_0523.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">TIME.com</media:title>
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		<title>Iran Nuke Concession?</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/05/22/iran-nuke-concession/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/05/22/iran-nuke-concession/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 22 May 2012 20:27:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=71227</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The New York Times is reporting that Iran may be about to open its Parchin military facility to international inspections. This is a biggish deal, but not a complete breakthrough. Parchin is where Iran may have been conducting experiments on weaponizing its nuclear fuel; there has been speculation that the facility housed a chamber to test nuclear triggering devices. No doubt, if the inspections are allowed at Parchin, there&#8217;s not going to be anything there to inspect. (Although if uranium was present in the past, it will be detectable.) This is part of a flurry of Iranian activity on the eve of the next round of nuclear talks in Baghdad tomorrow. Iran is also attempting to launch a space satellite tomorrow. It has been making renewed, obnoxious noises about obliterating Israel.  It has declared victory in the nuclear negotiations. All of which could mean&#8230;anything. But the sheer volume of signals blasting out of Tehran indicates that something is up, that actual negotiations&#8211;and maybe even concessions&#8211;may be on the horizon. The most important concession would be the one toughest to judge&#8211;complete cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on rigorous, unannounced inspections of anything that IAEA wants to look at. This can&#8217;t be a one-shot deal. It has to be ongoing. These negotiations are extremely complicated. Breakthroughs will be achieved over time, as trust is built, and that will require a constant, daily set of negotiations&#8211;if the Iranians don&#8217;t agree to that level of intensity, if they want another 5-week breather between sessions, it&#8217;s likely that they&#8217;re stalling. The point is, no concessions should be made until Iran has taken credible, irreversible first steps. The economic sanctions are obviously working. The Obama Administration and its allies, especially the Chinese and the Russians, need to maintain that pressure until the deal is done&#8230;if it can be done.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=71227&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/iran/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>Good News on Iran Nukes</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/04/18/good-news-on-iran-nukes/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/04/18/good-news-on-iran-nukes/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:56:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=69732</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The body language coming out of the first round of talks about Iran&#8217;s nuclear program is excellent. As David Ignatius writes today, we seem to be moving down a path toward a well-calibrated and sensible deal. And that should make everybody happy. But, of course, it won&#8217;t. The neoconservatives won&#8217;t like it, no matter what. They&#8217;ll say, you can&#8217;t trust Iran. They&#8217;ll say, we&#8217;ve been suckered. And they will have a point. So ongoing IAEA inspections of every aspect of the Iranian nuclear system will be a quietly crucial part of the deal. It is also important not to get too optimistic too quickly: the Iranians highly overvalue their ability as hagglers&#8211;just ask the Indians, Russians, Chinese and any other country that has tried to close a trade deal with them&#8211;and could easily haggle themselves off a cliff. But I suspect that the economic sanctions, patiently organized by the Obama Administration, have forced the Supreme Leader into a corner. If this deal is made, it will be a major diplomatic triumph, not just for Obama, but for the idea that America doesn&#8217;t need to go clumping around the world like a clumsy Goliath, that multilateral diplomatic and economic actions can sometimes lead to significant results. If this deal is made&#8230;<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=69732&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/iran/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>U.S.-Israel Tension a Liability in Iran Talks</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/04/17/u-s-israel-tension-a-liability-in-iran-talks/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/04/17/u-s-israel-tension-a-liability-in-iran-talks/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Apr 2012 23:41:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benjamin Netanyahu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ehud barak]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nuclear]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=69691</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made his annual pilgrimage to Washington last year it was an unmitigated disaster. President Obama felt Netanyahu was lecturing him during the press appearance at the end of their meeting and that patronizing tone took center stage in Netanyahu’s subsequent address to a joint session of Congress. His March 2012 visit went much better. The leaders seemed to be on the same page and their tones were calm and confident. But the lecturing, it seems, could only stay bottled up for so long. On Saturday, as U.S. negotiators&#8211;together with their European, Russian and Chinese counterparts&#8211;formally wrapped up the first round of successful nuclear talks with the Iranians in more than two years, Netanyahu was panning the summit. He lamented that the next round of talks, scheduled for May 23 in Baghdad, afford Iran a five-week “freebie” to “continue enrichment without any limitation, any inhibition.” (MORE: Iran Nuclear Talks: Can Islam Guide the Way to Peace?) Obama responded on Sunday at a press conference with Colombia President Juan Miguel Santos, arguing that Iran got nothing out of the talks and is still living under the harshest economic sanctions in history. Indeed, according to Laura Rozen, Tehran seemed desperate to delay or avoid completely the next round of sanctions, which take effect on July 1 and include a European Union embargo of Iranian oil. Until this year, Europe was the largest buyer of Iranian crude. But the slight progress seems to have left the Israelis unimpressed. If Netanyahu’s lecturing wasn’t enough, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak added fuel to the fire on Monday when he told Israel’s Army Radio that Israel never pledged to hold off from attacking Iran while these talks were taking place. What Barak said: “We are not committing to anything… The dialogue with the Americans is both direct and open.&#8221; &#8220;We regret the time being lost. This is precious time.&#8221; &#8220;It requires a few direct meetings where all the demands are put on the table. There you can see if the other<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=69691&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/sl_israel_0417_blog.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>First Round of Iran Nuclear Talks Highlights Obama&#8217;s Tough Spot in an Election Year</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/04/16/first-round-of-iran-nuclear-talks-highlights-obamas-tough-spot-in-an-election-year/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/04/16/first-round-of-iran-nuclear-talks-highlights-obamas-tough-spot-in-an-election-year/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 16 Apr 2012 18:35:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=69630</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Tehran emerged from the latest round of talks on its nuclear program fairly upbeat. Iran’s foreign minister said Monday that all of the disputes over his country’s nuclear program – which Iranian officials say is peaceful but world powers worry is military in nature – could be solved “quickly and easily,” even by the next round of talks scheduled to be held in Baghdad on May 23. American negotiators struck a more cautious note after the weekend talks in Istanbul. The Iranians “brought ideas to the table,” one senior U.S. diplomat told the Christian Science Monitor, but “dialogue is not sufficient for any sanctions relief.” And back in the U.S., the news was greeted with even more skepticism. Congress still plans to push ahead with a new round of even tougher sanctions by the end of the summer. Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney continues to criticize Obama on Iran: &#8220;The President was silent when they took to the streets following a stolen election. And I think we have to make it very clear that we would take military action if necessary to prevent them from pursuing, or from achieving their nuclear ambition,&#8221; he said on April 4. The truth is, it’s too early to make much of determination about the talks at all. The last set of so-called P5+1 negotiations &#8212; which included the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, the U.S., Russia, China, Great Britain and France, plus Germany &#8212; ended prematurely 15 months ago when Iran showed up demanding that the international community lift all sanctions and recognize its right to enrich uranium before Iran even sat down at the table. By comparison, the latest talks, which lasted 10 hours, were a success. &#8220;The Istanbul meeting was like a preliminary consultation to schedule a very complicated surgery,” says Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. “ The really hard part hasn’t begun.” Indeed, for Obama this process could be like performing open-heart surgery with one hand tied behind his back. It&#8217;s an<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=69630&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/sl_iran_0416_blog.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>The Menu of Options in the Iranian Nuclear Talks</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/04/12/the-menu-of-options-in-the-iranian-nuclear-talks/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/04/12/the-menu-of-options-in-the-iranian-nuclear-talks/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:00:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=69407</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For the first time in more than a year and a half, negotiators from Iran and the so-called P5+1 countries – the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, the U.S., Russia, China, France and England, plus Germany – will sit down with their Iranian counterparts this Friday in Istanbul to talk about Tehran’s nuclear program. In the weeks leading up to the talks, getting all six countries to agree on a cohesive bargaining strategy with Iran has been almost as hard as getting Tehran to agree to, well, anything. “I do not think that we’ll come to any unified position before the negotiations, but rather have a menu of options,” Sergey Ryabkov, Russian deputy foreign minister told reporters in Washington on Tuesday. Each country comes to the talks with its own agenda – and sometimes a schedule, as is the case with the U.S. elections, threatens to overshadow any potential progress. Here’s a look at the five key positions as they stand ahead of the talks: &#8211;Russia and China: Both countries view the U.S. and European Union sanctions as distasteful and dangerously unrelated to Iran’s nuclear program. They’ve been seeking to decouple the two issues, or at least ease the sanctions. “We’ve never seen any movement on the Iranian part under pressure,” Ryabkov said. “We’ve only seen more stubbornness.” Indeed, Iran recently announced it would pick up its pace of uranium enrichment despite crippling economic sanctions that have seen the real, the Iranian currency, lose 75% of its value over the last year amidst hyperinflation. China and Russia both still argue that a nuclear-armed Iran won’t be tolerated: “The Iranian side must do much more to show its seriousness,” Ryabkov said. But they believe the path forward lies in traditional direct talks, confidence-building measures taken in slow steps followed by the bite of  United Nations resolutions. &#8211;The so-called E3, the U.K., France and Germany: All three are much more inclined than the U.S. to believe that Iran is seeking to weaponize its uranium stockpiles. They have more<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=69407&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/sl_iran_0412_blog.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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		<title>Eying the Conflict Timeline with Iran</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/03/09/eying-the-conflict-timeline-with-iran/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/03/09/eying-the-conflict-timeline-with-iran/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 09 Mar 2012 10:45:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=67431</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When will the U.S. go to war with Iran? That question was on the minds of President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at their summit this week in Washington, as Massimo Calabresi and I write in this week’s dead tree version of the magazine. Perhaps the smartest answer I’ve heard on the Iran timeline comes from Dennis Ross, who until November was thinking about these issues full time at Obama&#8217;s National Security Council. “The use of force is likely when the world’s reaction to Iran will continue to be the same after the use of force than before it. It’s crucial to sustain isolation and pressure,” Ross says. “This isn’t just Israel against Iran, it’s the world against Iran.” In other words, having worked so painstakingly hard to forge a fragile near-global alliance against Iran, the U.S. and Israel would not lightly discard diplomacy until absolutely necessary and by that time the circumstances would be so extreme that most other countries in the world would accept a strike. Ross notes that the Israelis are on a timetable of their own, so a unilateral strike isn’t out of the realm of possibility. However, he added, “If the Israelis were so anxious to use force, they would’ve done it a long time ago.” Waiting for much of the rest of the world to be comfortable  with the U.S. or NATO bombing Iran might take years, if ever. But who would’ve thought a year ago that Europe would willingly boycott Iranian oil and that even China could be coaxed to shop elsewhere for its crude? Iran seems to be fully aware of its increasing isolation in the world. Last week, Iran said it would grant inspectors access to the Parchin military research facility, where International Atomic Energy Agency  inspectors were denied access last month. (There are reports that Iran is scrubbing the area up before granting access). And this week, Khamenei responded to Obama’s Tuesday press conference in which the President pledged to focus on diplomacy as “good words… a sign<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=67431&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/iran/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>Making Iran a Campaign Issue May Not Prove Easy for the GOP</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/02/29/making-iran-a-campaign-issue-may-not-prove-easy-for-the-gop/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/02/29/making-iran-a-campaign-issue-may-not-prove-easy-for-the-gop/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 29 Feb 2012 15:00:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[2012 Election]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gop]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=66756</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In Washington, D.C., Iran seems to be on everyone’s minds. Republican strategists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie this week made the case in an op-ed in Foreign Policy that in order to win the White House, the eventual GOP nominee should focus on international affairs rather than the domestic economy. “The Republican candidate should focus on the dangers of rogue states, particularly Iran,” they wrote. “The upcoming three-year anniversary of the stolen June 2009 Iranian presidential election is a particularly opportune moment for the Republican nominee to meet with Iranian exiles and offer a major speech drawing attention to Obama&#8217;s weakness and naivete in dealing with this belligerent power.” (MORE: Four Ways the U.S. Could End Up at War with Iran Before the Election) In Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, the paper’s Washington bureau chief, Gerry Seib, made the case that far more than Republican infighting and Super Tuesday’s March 6 primaries, “Iran and its nuclear intentions are rapidly emerging as the ultimate wild card in this year&#8217;s presidential race.” The annual pro-Israel AIPAC policy conference taking place in the capital this weekend will coincide with a visit from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom the Obama Administration hopes to persuade to restrain any military action against Iran while economic sanctions take effect. Both events are sure to amplify saber-rattling on the part of White House critics. But despite the hype, when it comes to Iran, there’s not much daylight between the President and his GOP rivals or, for that matter, most Republicans in Congress. Though Rove and Gillespie mocked Obama’s early attempts at outreach, it was Iran&#8217;s rejection of the President&#8217;s open hand that helped persuade European leaders, among others, to go along with crippling sanctions &#8212; sanctions that are tougher than anything any Republican President has managed to enforce in more than three decades of severed relations with Tehran. (MORE: Newt Gingrich Contemplates War With Iran) “Obama pushed the Bush agenda better than Bush did,” says Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution. “Israel in 2008 wanted to bomb Iran. Bush<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=66756&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/iran/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>Four Ways the U.S. Could End Up at War with Iran Before the Election*</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/02/09/four-ways-the-u-s-could-end-up-at-war-with-iran-before-the-election/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/02/09/four-ways-the-u-s-could-end-up-at-war-with-iran-before-the-election/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:00:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Diplomacy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Foreign Policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mideast]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[White House]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=65599</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Most political analysts in Washington believe that war with Iran is unlikely, especially before the November U.S. elections. Politically it would be hard for President Obama to engage in another Middle Eastern war given the war weariness of the U.S. electorate, let alone the question of being able to afford it at a time when Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from the Pentagon budget. There also seems little appetite from the international community to wage war with Iran, especially since Tehran is still allowing United Nations inspectors into their nuclear sites and, for the first time in recent history, sanctions seem to be working. That said, despite the political, economic and military reluctance to go to war with Iran, there are four ways the U.S. could still end up embroiled in such a conflict before the elections. And by conflict, no one is envisioning troops on the ground. More likely: a bombing campaign or, worst-comes-to-worst, a naval one in the Strait of Hormuz. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think we&#8217;re going to go to war with Iran, but I do think we could get dragged into it,&#8221; says Michael Breen, vice president of the Truman Project. (MORE: Iran Calls New US Sanctions &#8216;Psychological War&#8217;) Iran wants a war.Not a full-blown one, which would happen if they closed  the Strait of Hormuz, shutting down the flow of oil and provoking international condemnation. But, say, one where they throw out International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors. Such a move would be seen as a deliberate provocation&#8211;clear proof that Tehran had decided to head toward weapons grade uranium. If that leads to bombing by the U.S. or Israel or both, the Iranian people would rally around their leaders. &#8220;I think there are hardline elements in Tehran that would welcome a military attack,&#8221; says Karim Sadjadpour, an Iranian expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. &#8220;It&#8217;s a dangerous and unpredictable gamble, but it&#8217;s the one thing that could potentially repair the country&#8217;s deep internal political fractures and distract from widespread popular<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=65599&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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