By Joaquín Bustelo
www.marxmail.org
May 28, 2010
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.