NEW YORK TIMES: In its delicate negotiations with Iran over freezing its nuclear program, the Obama administration is gambling that the gradual relaxation of punishing sanctions will whet Tehran’s appetite for greater economic relief, inducing the country’s leaders to negotiate a further deal to roll back its nuclear progress.
Yet, President Obama’s biggest critics — in Congress, the Arab world and Israel — argue that he has the strategy entirely backward. By changing the psychology around the world, they argue, the roughly $100 billion in remaining sanctions will gradually be whittled away. Wily middlemen, Chinese eager for energy sources and Europeans looking for a way back to the old days, when Iran was a major source of trade, will see their chance to leap the barriers…
At the heart of the dispute is a fundamental disagreement about how best to negotiate with a savvy, skilled adversary, one whose own decision-making processes have long baffled American intelligence agencies… (more)
