Eight years ago, the hawks wanted to bomb Iran – and they still do

It’s very disappointing news that agreement has not been reached between Iran and the six Western partners on control of Iran’s nuclear programme, but the parties are still talking and there is a new timetable.  As long as eight years ago, I did a blog posting pointing out that some observers saw the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities by Israel as imminent because allegedly we had reached a tipping point in the programme.

Thank goodness that bombing did not happen – not least because I had a visit to Iran planned which eventually took place in November 2009.

But an agreement still has many obstacles to overcome and, as this article explains, there are many who would like the negotiations to fail:

“The governments and leaders favouring a deal did not exactly lose in Vienna, but it is clear who came out ahead – the conservative rejectionists and clerical last-ditchers who dominate Tehran’s political establishment, parliament and media; the mostly Republican hardliners in the US congress who oppose an agreement at any price; Israel’s leadership and the Gulf Arab monarchies, who distrust everything Tehran says; and Islamist Sunni extremists in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, who exploit differences between Shia Iran and the west to pursue their vicious hegemonist fantasies.”


 




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