In our latest video from NIAC founder Trita Parsi, he explains that, if Rouhani hopes to maintain his power, his diplomatic efforts must ultimately improve Iran’s economy:
Near the end of the video, Parsi wonders if Congress will stand in Obama’s way. You think? Eli Lake talks to Israel’s proxies on the Hill:
If Obama seeks to take advantage Rouhani’s outreach, he will need support from a Congress that appears unconvinced about the new Iranian president’s charm offensive. One House staff member who spoke to The Daily Beast Monday said Iran would need at the very least to suspend uranium enrichment to stop legislators from moving a new sanctions bill aimed at the regime’s nuclear program. A memo released last week from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel group that has made Iranian sanctions a centerpiece of its lobbying efforts since the 1990s said, “The international community should only consider sanctions relief if Iran complies with United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions that require suspending its nuclear activities. Any such relief must be commensurate with the extent of Tehran’s actions.”
Which means that the Greater Israel lobby will do all it can to prevent any conceivable deal that could ensure Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear energy – the sine qua non of any breakthrough. Which means they aim to kill diplomacy to get the war they have been wanting for more than a decade. In this sense, AIPAC is the American equivalent of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in terms of scuppering any possibility of genuine peace, by refusing to treat Iran as anything but a pariah state. Israel, meanwhile, sits on a couple hundred nuclear missiles aimed in part at Iran. But that inconvenient truth cannot be uttered on Capitol Hill.
Yesterday, Parsi detailed the very limited window Rouhani has for success, as well as how he thought the US should tackle this new opportunity for rapprochement.
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