globeandmail.com : Iran cool to conditions on U.S. nuclear talks offer

globeandmail.com : Iran cool to conditions on U.S. nuclear talks offer

Any talks between Iran and the US should be seen as a positive step, but I fear this latest announcement of talks is little more than a smokescreen. If it actually results in Iranian and American officials sitting across a table from each other, then its a positive, but looking at the porposal, I find it hard to understand how anyone expects the Iranians to actually accept this.

Like the recent letter from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to George Bush, it seems like this was written with the express purpose of being rejected by the other side. The response from the Foreign Minister would have been typical and expected from any other country … “Iran welcomes dialogue under just conditions but (we) won't give up our rights,” … and yet it seems to be portrayed in the media as making some sort of unreasonable demand. The US always demands that dialogue with it be undertaken with fair conditions … all Iran asks is that it also be treated with respect.

No country will accept being dictated to, and like it. The US is free to throw its weight around if that's what they want, but it sees a bad way to get global support. Why the US won't talk to Iran without pre-conditions is the big mystery to me … the US refuses to accept pe-conditions on it (such as in talks with North Korea, for example, where North Korea had demanded bi-lateral talks with the US for decades and been ignored), so its highly hypocritical to impose pre-conditions on others. But, then again, hypocrisy is nothing new either …