Rep. Howard Berman, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is urging Obama to accelerate talks with Iran and give them a three month deadline. "...You cannot let dialogue become a trap that goes on and on...
and allows them to enrich and expand their centrifuges and who knows what they are doing with weaponization that is easier to conceal,” Berman said. “You cannot talk about a longer dialogue than eight to 12 weeks.” Berman said “pulling together key parties” to support sanctions involving bilateral trade and refined oil products would work on Tehran because “it is sensitive to public opinion.” He added: “It is a lot different than what we are doing now¬ certain people can’t fly, and minor sanctions on certain kinds of nuclear-related technologies.” ...Berman suggested that modifying the missile defense system’s terms of deployment could increase cooperation with Russia. “I don’t know, but I think there is a chance to get a level of cooperation. It’s hard for me to believe they want to see Iran get nuclear weapons,” Berman said. He added that one proposal on the table was to allow the Russians to place monitors at missile bases to show them that the system was not directed against them, but against Iran.
Oded Eran and Giora Eiland, two of Israel’s leading strategic thinkers, go further, and urge Obama to “suspend or even cancel its plans to set up the missile defenses in Eastern Europe that the Kremlin adamantly opposes” in exchange for much greater Russian cooperation against Iran.
