Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Brazil-Turkey 1, sanctions 0

By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times

"The groundbreaking nuclear fuel swap agreement brokered by Brazil between Iran and Turkey was a ''victory for diplomacy", according to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. It was most of all a win for the BRIC countries - the emerging global counter-power to US hegemony and Washington's continuing demands for crippling sanctions against Tehran....

What may have happened is that the BRICs, plus Turkey, in a concerted effort these past few weeks, have made it very clear to the Iranian leadership that without any sort of agreement the US would keep on pushing for more and more crippling sanctions - and everyone knows what happened to Iraq in 2003.

So both Khamenei and Ahmadinejad seem to have got the message. But the key was still to find a deal that preserved Iranian dignity. Lula is right; the operative concept is "trust". Will Washington and its allies bow to the evidence? Or will they insist on playing a loser's game?"

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