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Many of us are following the news of the latest talks in Vienna with Iran, on pins and needles. We are watching every leak, every rumor, every news story, out of the US Press, The Arab Press, the Israeli Press, even out of the Iranian Press, as an indicator of whether the United States and the Iranians will finally come to an agreement.
As the late Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had once wisely said, “We know what we know. We don’t know what we don’t know.” By the time you read this article, a deal might well have been reached—or perhaps not. As I write these words, it is important to reiterate what we do know.
We do know that on January 26, 2021, when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stood before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for his confirmation hearings last January, he promised a “longer, stronger deal.” We also know that over the last 16 months there have been 9 rounds of negotiations in Vienna and one in Doha and that there has been a seemingly endless loop of negotiations, over the past 6 months, that were each dubbed to have been “the final offer”. We have heard over this period that US officials “are running out of patience”, only to participate in yet, another round of talks.
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