Neocons Still Hoping for US-Iran Clash

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http://www.opednews.com/articles/Neocons-Still-Hoping-for-U-by-Robert-Parry-France_Iran_Israel_Neocons-131113-994.html



Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Neocons Still Hoping for US-Iran Clash
OpEdNews Op Eds 11/13/2013 at 15:42:30
By Robert Parry

American neoconservatives are delighted that France, acting as something of a paid lobbyist for the Saudi-Israeli alliance, sabotaged a possible breakthrough between the West and Iran over its nuclear program, thus preserving the military option against Iran that the neocons have long cherished.

Of course, the neocons say they want a peaceful settlement to the dispute -- essentially Iran's total and humiliating capitulation -- but no one should be fooled over how the French maneuver is keeping the neocons' hopes alive for an eventual crisis that will let the bombs fly and regimes change.

So, with an interim deal within sight, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on his American backers to get to work undermining President Obama's diplomatic strategy. Meanwhile, the Saudi monarchy, which has joined Netanyahu in pushing for a more belligerent U.S. approach toward Syria and Iran, was busy granting lucrative financial contracts to France and its struggling economy.The neocons were bitterly disappointed last summer when President Barack Obama failed to follow through on military threats against the Syrian government. They were then alarmed at the prospect of an international settlement that would impose tighter constraints on Iran's nuclear program but not force its complete shutdown.

Between Israel's lobbying skills and Saudi Arabia's petro-dollars, Obama found himself facing stiff resistance to his negotiations. He also had in Secretary of State John Kerry a befuddled point man who appears to have carried into his new job the fuzzy rhetoric and padded elbows that made him a popular member of the Senate club. But those characteristics have left many international observers shaking their heads at his failure to talk straight or act decisively.