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Saturday, April 11, 2009

FORMER IRAN NEGOTIATOR NICHOLAS BURNS
'Europe Needs to Make the Same Sacrifices as the US'

Former top Iran negotiator and US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns talks about Obama's new emphasis on diplomacy, the wisdom of talking with one's adversaries and the threat posed by North Korea.

Iran is a major European trading partner, making it hard for the US to convince Europe's leaders to impose sanctions.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: American commentators have criticized President Barack Obama for not getting more commitments from the Europeans on Afghanistan or Pakistan during his recent visit to Europe. If he can't even win over allies, they say, is it not naïve to expect progress from negotiations he promised with adversaries like Syria, Iran or North Korea ?

Nicholas Burns: It was disappointing that the Europeans did not make more commitments on Afghanistan. But I don't blame President Obama. It is up to Europe to do more. However, this Europe trip and its results have nothing to do with the question of how to deal with difficult governments such as Iran and Syria. These are very separate questions and we are dealing with very different mindsets.

... well, europe has built 55mpg diesel cars since the mid 70's ...
... while "technologically superior" america is building seven liters gas guzzlers ...
... and has not changed energy policies ...
... besides a lot of nice talk ...
... not to hurt their political contributers of wall street and detroit ...
... sanctions don't work, otherwise fifty years later ...
... you would not see fidel saying hi on tv ...
... while all the ones that imposed sanctions are either retired or dead ...
... also apparently several US commentators state on press that ...
... they don't need european help unless it is under american command ...
... and this is quite an attitude towards sovereign nations ...
... that are deploying forces and spending moneys for the american agenda ...
... thank you and your country so much for your gratitude ...
... so far the reality is that the only result of the afghani war ...
... has been reinstating afghanistan as the number one world opium producer ...
... surely it may have not been "the plan" ...
... but as GBS said "the road of hell is full of good intentions" ...
... maybe if the US would take an approach of "modesty" ...
... instead than an approach of occupying powers worldwide ...
... diplomacy would get done a better job ...
... than the cowboys attitude ...
... the crash of the US economy ...
... and the instability on the border of mexico ...
... also seem to indicate ...
... that the US should first pay atention to their back yard ...
... before running around the world ...
... "teching" and "preaching" doctrine ...
... that seems "empirically" to make very little sense ...
... "diplomacy" and "low profile" seem the correct words ...
... is diplomacy that took down the berlin wall ...
... jumping into wars ...
... and learning from experience ...
... as demonstrated on several unsolved conflicts ...
... such as somalia and iraq ...
... is very costly and leads to very poor results ...
... the only "visible results" of the cowboys policy ...
... is that the US has largely overestimated ...
... the economic capacity of itself and the entire western world ...
... and this may lead the entire western economy to collapse ...
... practically the world economy IS under US dollars command ...
... look at what a nice job ...

# posted by intcoex : 12:35 PM

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