Polimom is dreaming…
We’re all in a dim, crowded, stuffy trailer being pulled by a long black car. When I peer between the people packed around me toward the front, I see that there are flags attached to the car: US and Iranian flags.
The trailer is unbelievably crowded, and Polimom can understand very little of what’s being said. It seems there’s someone in here with me from everywhere — all of us staring at the road ahead of us in horror. The car is speeding, roaring down a steep hill, pulling the trailer toward what looks to be a cliff…. We’re going so fast! Where are the breaks?
Suddenly a side-road appears. It’s hardly more than a two-wheel track, but it looks as if it leads away from the cliff — a path to safety (London Free Press):
After weeks of debate inside the Bush administration, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced Wednesday that the United States is ready to join direct talks with Iran – if Iran first suspends its uranium-enrichment activities.
But in my dream, an outcry rises around me. One person cries out, “The US can’t be trusted! Remember Iraq!” while another screams “But Iran is not Iraq! They have to at least try!”
People are saying it’s a trick. How do they know that? (CSMonitor)
It appeared designed to send several key signals:
• That Iran is not Iraq, and that the US is determined to exhaust diplomatic measures to resolve the standoff.
• That the US will take tough, controversial steps to form a common front with its European allies.
• That the US expects reciprocal tough steps from other key international players involved in the tussle – specifically Russia and China – if Iran fails to suspend the uranium-enrichment and reprocessing elements of its nuclear program.
We’re all so afraid…. but what’s this?
Noooooooo! They’re fighting now for the wheel, and the limo is swerving away from the path! (CNN)
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran is willing to talk with the United States about its nuclear program but won’t stop uranium enrichment, the condition Washington put on starting negotiations.
“The choice is their’s, and we’ll see whether or not that is the firm position of their government,” Bush said Thursday.
“If that is what they decide to do, then the next step will be, of course, for our coalition partners to go to the United Nations Security Council,” Bush said.
Wait! There’s something strange going on now in that racing, deadly car ahead.
I squint, trying to peer through the dim light, around the panicked, shrieking people…. how many people are in the limo? I thought it was just two, but could there actually be more? (WaPo)
VIENNA, June 1–Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived here Thursday for a day of crucial talks with Russian, Chinese and European foreign ministers on assembling a package of incentives — and penalties — to convince Iran to curtail its nuclear program.
[snip]
The secretary of state now hopes to forge a consensus and possibly also convince Russia and China to join the talks. She hopes that Iran will be offered what she calls a “clear choice” of either cooperating or not–and that the United States will not be blamed for failing to press for a diplomatic solution.
I can’t watch anymore. I hunker down in a fetal ball, as a hush settles over the crowd around me ….
(Cross-posted from Polimom, Too)