The 'Great Satan' Meets The 'Axis Of Evil'

US Begins Talks, Negotiations With Iran And Syria

The Future Of Iraq Under Discussion By 60 Nations

Ambassadors from the United States and Iran, and dozens of other nations, are meeting in Egypt, while US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, is using the same forum to talk and negotiate with Syria.

The future of Iraq is in such a perilous state that the United States has been forced to backdown from the Bush-Cheney mantra : "We don't negotiate with terrorists".

Representatives of some 60 nations are meeting in Egypt to work out how they are going to work together to stop Iraq from totally disintegrating into a hellstorm of ever-spreading death and bloodshed. Countries like Iran, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are at the talks because they hold real fears that the horrors of Iraq will soon spread across their borders.

The United States is at the talks because they simply have no other choice left. And Rice, and her ambassadors, are also doing the bidding of the majority of the Americans they represent, who don't view Syria or Iran as a threat, and back their elected leaders entering into conversations with two of the countries named, and supposedly shamed, as backers and supporters of Islamic terrorism in the Middle East.

Naturally, the NeoCons back in Washington are in a spluttering fury, much to their own embarrassment. The NeoCon blogworld, op-ed pages and talk back radio are alight with angst and fury that the United States would try to stop a full-blown Fourth World War from becoming a reality by doing what all the great nations of the world have done for millenia : negotiate, talk and blow away the poison of threats and hostility.

It hasn't all gone well, according to a US Department of State spokesman, who claims the Iranian foreign minister opted out of a dinner, where he would have been sitting opposite Rice, with the Americans claiming the Iranian foreign minister didn't want to be in the same room with a woman playing a violin as part of the background music to the meal :

"I don't know which woman he was afraid of, the woman in the red dress or the secretary of state," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday.

Rice and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki met earlier at a lunch Thursday but exchanged only pleasantries. Neither appeared ready to make the first move for a real meeting.

"You can ask him why he didn't make an effort," Rice told reporters Friday. "I'm not given to chasing anyone."

According to Iraq's foreign minister, Iranian and American ambassadors did meet Friday for more serious talks on the sidelines of the conference to stabilize Iraq _ the second such encounter since March 10.

But for the world's media, the US and Iran must do their dance, where neither gives in to the other, or shows any weakness. How exactly do serious talks begin when neither Iran or the United States will request a formal meeting with the other? It's disappointing to see adults acting like spoiled children when the future of the entire Middle East is at stake.

From the UK Guardian :

The background to all this is the grandly named International Compact for Iraq, an initiative co-chaired by the UN, the World Bank and Iraq itself. It aims to build a framework for security, good governance and regional economic integration with the ambitious goal of a stable and prosperous Iraq within five years.

Diplomats say this is important stuff but admit it sounds like pie in the sky in the context of unending sectarian strife and the daily attacks on coalition forces. "It's probably wishful thinking to see a connection between this and what's happening on the ground," agreed one Arab official. Such scepticism has led to low expectations of what can be achieved.

But parts of the compact make good sense: the 42-page document includes a revenue-sharing oil law, a law to allow members of the now banned Ba'ath party back into public life, and an elections law that will set a date for provincial polls; the hope is that these "benchmarks" will help promote reconciliation by drawing Sunnis away from the insurgency and back into politics.

The broader purpose of the conference is to talk about what is at stake, for Iraq and the region, on the clear if unspoken assumption that the Americans and British are on their way out and that the neighbours need to more to help clear up the mess.

Early reports from the first day of the two day conference are not overwhelmingly positive. It appears Iran and the United States still have a long way to go before they feel they can negotiate with each other on equal terms.


"The United States Must Accept Responsibility Arising From Occupation Of Iraq"

The Great Thawing Between Iran and The United States Has Begun

Iran And Its Neighbours Issue Declaration Of Support For Maliki's Shiite-Led Iraqi Government

Rice Describes Meeting With Syrians As "Businesslike" "Professional"

Iraqi Lawmakers Demand US Pull Out Troops

BUSH'S 'AXIS OF EVIL' DECLARATION COMES BACK TO HAUNT HIM

From the Washington Post :

Nearly five years after President Bush introduced the concept of an "axis of evil" comprising Iraq, Iran and North Korea, the administration has reached a crisis point with each nation: North Korea has claimed it conducted its first nuclear test, Iran refuses to halt its uranium-enrichment program, and Iraq appears to be tipping into a civil war 3 1/2 years after the U.S.-led invasion.

Each problem appears to feed on the others, making the stakes higher and requiring Bush and his advisers to make difficult calculations, analysts and U.S. officials said. The deteriorating situation in Iraq has undermined U.S. diplomatic credibility and limited the administration's military options, making rogue countries increasingly confident that they can act without serious consequences. Iran, meanwhile, will be watching closely the diplomatic fallout from North Korea's apparent test as a clue to how far it might go with its own nuclear program.

"Iran will follow very carefully what happens in the U.N. Security Council after the North Korean test," said Robert J. Einhorn, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). "If the United Nations is not able to act forcefully, then Iran will think the path is clear to act with impunity."

Michael E. O'Hanlon, a Brookings Institution scholar and co-author of the new book "Hard Power: The New Politics of National Security," said the U.S. response to North Korea will have ripple effects. "Iran will certainly watch what happens. North Korea watched what happened with Pakistan and decided that the world didn't punish Pakistan too hard or too long," he said. "Iran will certainly notice if North Korea gets treated with kid gloves."

Political strategists debated the domestic implications of the North Korean test with midterm elections four weeks away. Some Republicans predicted it would take the focus off the Mark Foley congressional page scandal and remind voters that it is a dangerous world best confronted by tough-minded leaders. Some Democrats argued it would be seen as another failure of Bush's foreign policy and moved quickly to try to pin blame on the Republicans. "Is this going to help Republicans?" asked Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). "The answer to that is absolutely not. This is another significant foreign policy failure for the administration."

In Bush's 2002 State of the Union address, a speech designed to shift the political debate from a battle against al-Qaeda to a possible confrontation with Iraq, the president mentioned North Korea, Iraq and Iran and declared: "States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. . . . In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic."

All three issues came to a head in 2003: The United States invaded Iraq and discovered no weapons of mass destruction; North Korea began to obtain weapons-grade plutonium from fuel rods that had been under international observation; and Iran disclosed that it had made rapid progress with a previously secret uranium-enrichment program.

In contrast to its handling of Iraq, the administration has tried to resolve the North Korean and Iranian nuclear breakouts with diplomacy. But progress has been slow, in part because the United States has been reluctant to hold bilateral talks with either country except within the context of broader talks with other nations.

The administration launched a full-court press yesterday at the Security Council, proposing elements of a tough resolution that would call for imposing an arms embargo and a series of legally binding U.N. financial and trade sanctions. The United States also called for international inspections of all trade in and out of North Korea to enforce the sanctions.

U.S. officials yesterday were focusing especially closely on the reaction of China, long North Korea's main benefactor. The Chinese government publicly denounced the test in unusually strong language, and a senior U.S. official said the private comments of Chinese officials were equally strong. While China has been reluctant to pressure North Korea, fearing a collapse of the government and mass refugees on its border, "the question is whether a chaotic North Korea is worse than a nuclear North Korea," the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivities.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appears likely to make a trip to the region soon to further build support for a tough response by China, Japan and South Korea. Several experts predicted that although China's leadership is angry enough to support some sanctions, it always will stop short of putting enough pressure on Pyongyang to force its collapse.