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The US. drive towards war with Iran has now sparked public
denunciations and recriminations between Brazil and the United States.
Speaking yesterday at the Brooking Institution, Secretary of State
Clinton said the United States had "very serious" differences with
Brazil on Iran, accusing President Lula of "enabling" Iran's nuclear
weapons program and "buying time" for it. She said that what Lula had
done "makes the world more dangerous."
Lula's crime? He negotiated a deal between Turkey and Iran where Iran
would send low enriched uranium to turkey in exchange for ready-to-use
reactor fuel.
The Brazilian president wasted no time in responding to Clinton's
attack. "We do not need anyone's permission in order to deal with the
nuclear issue in Iran," he said.
"The argument that existed was that there was a general lack of trust
that existed towards Iran and they (the United States) would say Iran
did not want to sit at the negotiating table and do its part.
"What the Prime Minister [of Turkey] and I did was show Iran the
importance of sitting at the table and talking."
But Lula escalated the confrontation even further by leaking a letter
to him by President Obama. And to make it *very* clear that the
Brazilian government had leaked it, the web site that published the
letter printed not just the text, but a reproduction of the actual
document, on White House letterhead and with Obama's signature.
That's here, BTW:
http://www.politicaexterna.com/archives/11023#axzz0pB5f3OCQ
The April 20 letter lays out the reasonable --well, supposedly
reasonable-- U.S. conditions for an agreement with Iran, with the
transfer of 1,200 kilograms of low-enriched Uranium in exchange for more
highly enriched --but not weapons grade-- uranium rods for use in an
Iranian research reactor that provides isotopes for medical uses like
cancer treatment.
This is part of the text of the letter:
* * *
There is a potentially important compromise that has already been
offered. Last November, the IAEA conveyed to Iran our offer to allow
Iran to ship its 1,200 kg of LEU to a third country — specifically
Turkey·- at the outset of the process·to be held "in escrow" as a
guarantee during the fuel production process that Iran would get back
its uranium if we failed to deliver the fuel. Iran has never pursued the
"escrow" compromise and has provided no credible explanation for its
rejection. I believe that this raises real questions about Iran’s
nuclear intentions, if Iran is unwilling to accept an offer to
demonstrate that its LEU is for peaceful, civilian purposes. I would
urge Brazil to impress upon Iran the opportunity presented by this offer
to "escrow" its uranium in Turkey while the nuclear fuel is being produced.
Throughout this process, instead of building confidence Iran has
undermined confidence in the way it has approached this opportunity.
That is why I question whether Iran is prepared to engage Brazil in good
faith, and why I cautioned you during our meeting.
* * *
Those points that Obama claims Iran rejected are pretty much the
agreement reached by Turkey and Iran through Lula's good offices.
Now you may be wondering --if you're in the United States-- why you're
reading this in Marxmail and not in the New York Times or some other
newspaper, or seeing it on TV.
The reason is that administration flacks have been working assiduously
all day to suppress the news.
As I hear it, they're telling reporters that this is selective leaking
of no significance, if we saw the whole correspondence we'd see the
context made clear --in essence-- that Obama said the opposite of what
he said. And even if you don't buy that, the US had an additional
condition that Iran either stop enriching Uranium altogether or stop way
short of the level of enrichment needed for its reactor.
On top of that, at least one journalist was said to have been told that
giving more play to this prank by the Brazilian President would endanger
national security and undermine delicate negotiations at the UN. And oh
yeah, by he way, would you like a one-on-one sitdown interview with
Hillary? Perhaps it can be arranged. Implicit, of course, is if you play
ball.
The irony is that in those circles, the "offer" of a "perhaps"
interview with some top official is in reality a threat to cut off the
reporter. This means that they would not even get the official leaks
from "high administration officials" (the government PR flacks) that are
the bread and butter of the hacks that have choice assignments like the
White House or State Department.
Thus, although all national TV news outlets of any significance have
clips of both Clinton's and Lula's statements, because it was
distributed by AP Television News, which they all subscribe to, the only
one that I've heard of that carried Lula's statements was CNN'S
Spanish-language network.
And as far as I can tell, no story moved on the AP English wires with
Lula's statement -- in my experience very unusual, because the AP
editors, if they only had the TV crew covering an event, will get
someone from the newsroom to write it up for the print wire on the basis
of the TV material, as a byproduct of working up the script that
accompanies the video feed.
The initial feed with Lula's statement came early this morning, with
the accompanying list of contents and script. (An earlier version had
only Hillary, and that's probably the reason we got Lula at all, since
standard "objective" journalistic practice would lead editors in the
newsroom to call Brazil to see if there was any reaction.)
And I suspect the wire editor on duty held off sending out the later
print version with Lula to get a US reaction to his statements, and that
reaction was basically to discourage sending out the dispatch.
I've also not seen any Reuters story with the Lula statement and Obama
letter, but the Administration's effort to put the kabosh on the letter
may backfire.
It led to a blog post on Politico, about the Administration efforts to
deep six the story. And that to a Washington Post story, in which the
Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorin made it very clear that Lula's
government is fed up with Washington's duplicity.
The WAPO tells about the Obama letter to Lula and continues:
* * *
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan received a similar letter.
That letter has become a sort of talisman for Brazil, which says Lula
and Erdogan used it as a guide when they negotiated a deal with Tehran
on May 17. Brazilian officials are shocked that the United States is
raising objections to the agreement and its terms, including the fact
that it did not end Iran's recent decision to begin enriching uranium to
a level of 20 percent.
Brazil's foreign minister, Celso Amorim, said that his government was
encouraged "to implement the proposals in October, without deviation,
and we did." As for the 20 percent enrichment, he said, "Nobody told us,
'Hey, if you do not stop the enrichment to 20 percent, forget the deal.' "
* * *
The Post story tries to paint the affair as a comedy of errors, where
lower-level communications supposedly told Brazil about the further
conditions but since Obama happened not to mention it in his letter,
Brazil and Turkey didn't get the message.
Frankly, the idea that US Presidential letter-drafters, in a letter
Obama would sign that outlined the terms of a deal, simply forgot to
include a condition like that Iran has to stop enriching Uranium even
just to levels for civilian use, does not stand the giggle test.
And even if they had "forgotten," the idea that a second letter of the
same level would not have been sent once the U.S. realized its omission
is also flat-out not credible, because as Lula and Amorin make clear,
the Brazilians were in very close touch with Washington on the issue.
But the text of Obama's letter shows he IS addressing further Iranian
enrichment and says he will accept it:
"Not withstanding Iran’s continuing defiance of five United Nations
Security Council resolutions mandating that it cease its enrichment of
uranium, we were prepared to support and facilitate action on a proposal
that would provide Iran nuclear fuel using uranium enriched by Iran — a
demonstration of our willingness to be creative in pursuing a way to
build mutual confidence."
Note this: "support and facilitate" the use of "uranium enriched by
Iran."
The WAPO article concludes:
"But U.S. officials said there was no president-to-president letter
laying out those broader concerns. So Lula and Erdogan went to Tehran
with the earlier -- and, in the White House's view, out-of-date -- missive."
"'They became riveted on the TRR,' the official said, referring to the
Tehran Research Reactor. 'Lula wanted to go there. He wanted to play a
certain kind of role. This was the most immediate thing out there.'"
The operative part is the last couple of sentences. The stuff about the
outdated letter, the Post's own wording suggests, is simply not to be
believed. The real complaint is that "Lula ... wanted to play a certain
kind of role."
How dare Lula act as if he were a significant player on the world
stage? Why he's just a spic!
Which goes to show, the President may be Black, but the House is still
White.
Joaquín
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