Iran

“a normal nation”

Written by SK Ashby

It doesn't necessarily please me to say that Iran is right and the United States is wrong, but what else can I say?

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with diplomats in Switzerland over the weekend where he said the Unites States was willing to engage in talks with Iran "without preconditions," but he qualified those remarks by saying Iran still has to prove that they're "normal."

Iranian officials understandably responded by saying it's up to the United States to prove that we're "normal."

“We are certainly prepared to have that conversation when the Iranians can prove that they want to behave like a normal nation,” [Pompeo] told a joint news conference with his Swiss counterpart Ignazio Cassis. [...]

Responding to Pompeo’s latest remarks, [Iranian President Hassan Rouhani] said on Sunday it was up to the United States to return to the negotiating table and resume compliance with the 2015 deal.

The other side that left the negotiating table and breached a treaty should return to normal state,” he said in comments reported on the government website.

President Rouhani is not wrong.

The nuclear peace deal negotiated by the Obama administration was also signed by the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council including Russia and China. It was also signed by the European Union.

Out of all the signatories, the United States is the only nation that arbitrarily abandoned the deal. We are the ones who are not "normal." We're the pariah under Trump.

There is virtually no incentive or reason for Iran to return to a negotiating table with the Trump regime or anyone else for that matter. They've complied with the terms of the nuclear deal even after Trump withdrew from it and Trump has clearly demonstrated many times over that he is an unreliably negotiator.