President Obama has time to deal with Iran, if only he knew it

November 9th, 2012 | http://www.lobelog.com/president-obama-has-time-to-deal-with-iran-if-only-he-knew-it/
By Mark Jansson
Although President Obama has another four years, he will surely continue to hear from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu and a chorus of critics at home, that he has far less time to convince Iran to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA). But the administration should not let the urgency of the matter drive it to a neurotic fixation on breakout timelines, which is likely to have a dumbing-down effect on policy and push a diplomatic solution farther into the future rather than hasten it.
Throughout the President’s first term, the issue of time dominated the narrative about Iran and continues to do so. Obama himself has said that the “window is closing
” for Iran to address contentious issues properly, but that there’s “still time” to do so. The focus on time has gradually become an obsession – one that crescendos intoxicatingly in the post-IAEA report number-crunching frenzies that determine the time intervals comprising the worst-case scenario of Iranian nuclear breakout. More recently, some have extrapolated (erroneously) a “cripple date” for how soon the United States must take drastic steps to force capitulation by ruining Iran’s economy. Yet, as the nuclear drama has played out during Obama’s first term — punctuated by inflammatory speeches, abortive diplomatic initiatives, spellbinding unveilings
of “Bibian” art and long intermissions for US sanctions and Iranian centrifuges to do what they do — it has left in its wake a sort of desultory urgency. Clearly, the issue is serious, but the recent history of failed negotiations is less-than-heartening and there is no obvious or specific reason to believe that talks will go better in the future.