Israel Matzav

Former IAEA inspector: Negotiations with Iran going nowhere

Former IAEA inspector David Albright has told the Jerusalem Post that 'negotiations' with Iran are going nowhere, and that it's time to step up the pressure and put real sanctions in place.

David Albright, who once worked with the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that "negotiations are going nowhere" and urged a comprehensive program of sanctions, increased regional missile defense, regional arms control and more aid to Israel as well as concessions on Jerusalem's alleged nuclear weapons program.

"There needs to be a reorientation toward this kind of strategy," Albright said, speaking to The Jerusalem Post after participating on a Foundation for Defense of Democracies panel on preventing a nuclear-armed Iran.

"You need to shift more toward a policy of pressure. Sanctions and offers of negotiations are not enough." Still, he indicated that he backed both measures, and that the former should be a comprehensive "economic tax" which inflicts pain on the Islamic republic.

Two Iranian experts who participated in Tuesday's panel, though, called for any sanctions to be targeted and focus more narrowly on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and other leading political-military actors so that those behind Iran's aggressive stance would be hurt rather than the general public.

They also called for sanctions to be implemented in the context of pressing Teheran for democracy and human rights, arguing that that would help undermine the regime more than focusing on the nuclear issue.

"Sanctions implemented in the name of human rights, in the name of democracy, would help Iranian civil society," said Farhad Khosrokhavar, author of 14 books on Iran, Islam and radicalism, who said money reaped by the IRCG and similar groups doesn't reach the middle class anyway.

The problem is that the Obama administration is now willing to take no for an answer from Iran. Any change in their stand is likely to be too little too late.

What could go wrong?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:07 AM