Jubin Afshar
Political initiatives to resolve the Iraqi crisis usually attract much attention. The International Baghdad Conference on10 March drew together Iraq’s regional and international partners for a one day conference. The spotlight however was more than anything else on the US delegates, Ambassadors David Satterfield and Zalmay Khalilzad, and the Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi.
Many analysts asked whether Iran’s seat at the table implied recognition of its regional importance. Whether US recognition of Iran’s role in the region would facilitate a drop in violence in Iraq? Whether direct negotiations at the regional conference could help end 28 years of animosity between Iran and the United Sates? Whether the meeting could affect the outcome of the Iranian nuclear file at the UN Security Council?
But all the above really boiled down to one simple, central question: Is Iran ready to earnestly negotiate with the US?
Let’s face it. Iran’s nuclear drive is a "train with no brake and reverse gear," with a driver named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Unless the world leaders find the stop button quickly, a collision might be inevitable. That is an eventuality nobody wants to see. All indications call for need of a new, bold initiative but the EU appears hell-bent on pursuing the threadbare policy of appeasing Tehran once more and the mullahs are always ready to exploit all these signs of craven weakness.
New Europe, the European Weekly, Feb 18– A group of Members of the European Parliament met with the Iranian resistance movement in Strasbourg on February 14 to discuss plans to change Iran from within. 
The following is the full text of speech delivered on Wednesday by President George W. Bush in which he outlined his strategy for dealing with Iraq’s security crisis:
Stop Fundamentalism, January 13 – Mullahs’ seem quite surprised about the change in the policy as if they never expected such change. 
