August 21, 2010
I have blogged before both on negotation and Iran. A fascinating book by John W Limbert (‘Negotiating with Iran’, 2009) brings the two aspects together. The author spent 33 years in the US Foreign Service, is a fluent Farsi speaker and has taught at the University of Shiraz. He was a captive at the siege… » read more
Posted by Stanley Crossick
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, Iran, negotiation |
June 10, 2010
Living three years in Iran, with extensive negotiating experience representing sometimes western companies and sometimes Iranian enterprises, taught me never to try to analyse Iranian thinking as if they were thought like us. The Iranian negotiating approach, whether natural or planned, is to confuse, enabling them to pick their way through confusion more easily than… » read more
Posted by Stanley Crossick
July 8, 2009
Who issued a fatwa (religious decree) in 2004 against the use of nuclear weapons? Who in a subsequent sermon, declared that “developing, producing or stockpiling nuclear weapons is forbidden under Islam.”? No-one other than Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Last year Khamenei reiterated all these points after meeting with the head of the International… » read more
Posted by Stanley Crossick
June 16, 2009
The Guardian Council today announced that there will be a partial recount of the disputed presidential election results: this is not expected to change the outcome. It is surprising that the western media before today failed to report much beyond the public outrage and demonstrations. The two opposing sides are divided by class rather than… » read more
Posted by Stanley Crossick
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, Ahmadinejad, Iran, Khameini, Mousavi, Rafsanjani |
June 1, 2009
Why, after the meeting between Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu, do I see a glimmer of hope? On the face of it, what hope is there of real peace negotiations? The Israeli prime minister leads a coalition which includes right-wingers, religious extremists and xenophobes: his own his past record militates against peace. The Palestinians, on… » read more
Posted by Stanley Crossick
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, Arab world, Iran, Israel, Middle East peace, Obama, Palestinians |
May 31, 2009
Like many others, I’ve always believed that peace in the Greater Middle East begins with resolving the Israel-Palestine issue. I have changed my mind. I now believe that the key to peace begins with the Iran-US axis, not on the Israel-Palestine dispute. And agreement with Iran is becomng a real possibility. Barack Obama’s approach is… » read more
Posted by Stanley Crossick
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, Hamas, Hizbollah, Iran, Israel, Middle East peace, Non-proliferation Treaty, Palestine, US |
May 11, 2009
Like many others, I’ve always believed that peace in the Greater Middle East begins with resolving the Israel-Palestine issue. I have changed my mind. I now believe that the key to peace begins with the Iran-US axis, not on the Israel-Palestine dispute. And agreement with Iran is becomng a real possibility. Barack Obama’s approach is… » read more
Posted by Stanley Crossick
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, Hamas, Hizbollah, Iran, Israel, Middle East peace, Non-proliferation Treaty, Palestine, US |
April 24, 2009
How did the United Nations and its leading member countries make such a mess of the racism conference in Geneva this week, dubbed ‘Durham II”?To try to answer this question requires other questions to be addressed: How can the UN Human Rights Council have credibility, given its anti-Israeli bias? With the experience of Durban I… » read more
Posted by Stanley Crossick
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EU, human rights, Iran, Middle East, US , Ahmadinejad, anti-semitism, Durban, EU, Geneva, holocaust, human rights, Iran, Israel, United Nations |
April 21, 2009
The first meeting (on 1 April in London) between Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev went very well. Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev have pledged to agree cuts in their countries’ nuclear arsenals by December of this year, as part of a “fresh start” in US-Russian relations and a step towards “a nuclear free world”.… » read more
Posted by Stanley Crossick
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, anti-missile system, defence shield, EU, European Union, Iran, Medvedev, Obama, Russia, US |
March 29, 2009
This post is inspired by an excellent debate hosted last Friday by the Heinrich Böll Stiftung, which examined “Israel-Palestine in the New political Configuration: Future Prospects.” Two ideas strike me as worth consideration, despite the current negative political environment in both Israel and Palestine. The first is to establish an international trusteeship; and the second… » read more
Posted by Stanley Crossick
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international, Iran, Middle East , Arab Peace Initiative, international trusteeship, Iran, Middle East peace, Syria |
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