WarSclerotic

Khamenei blames western ‘stubbornness’ for Iran’s nuclear program | JPost | Israel News.

New Iranian president sees US as only way forward in nuke talks | The Times of Israel.

Hasan Rouhani, former lead nuclear negotiator for the Islamic Republic, expected to push for direct talks with Washington

By Brian Murphy June 26, 2013, 10:49 am

Iranian President elect Hasan Rouhani during his presidential election campaign, on June 10, 2013. (photo credit: AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Hasan Rouhani knew there was an element of risk.

Just a week before Iran’s election gatekeepers announced the presidential ballot, Rouhani said one-on-one talks with Washington are the only way for breakthroughs in the nuclear standoff, given that the United States — as he put it — is the world’s “sheriff.”

Such a public portrayal of America’s importance and the need to make overtures to it undoubtedly rattled a few among Iran’s ruling clerics, who decide which candidates are cleared to run. Yet they allowed Rouhani to enter the race, and to the surprise of many, he surged to a runaway victory.

Rouhani’s repeated emphasis on direct outreach to Washington may now have a chance for real traction among the ultimate decision-makers in Iran — the ruling clerics and the powerful Revolutionary Guard. They have long opposed unilateral talks, insisting they would do no good. But the lack of major blowback to Rouhani’s speech in mid-May signaled that the idea is no longer a taboo for the establishment, even if it is not yet entirely convinced. Another sign came from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who in March hinted he would not stand in the way.

“We have disagreements with the US on regional and international matters, but obviously friendship or hostility with the world is not permanent,” Rouhani told an audience at Tehran’s Sharif University in his May address. “Every country can improve its relations with others.”

Rouhani was Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator from 2003 to 2005 and he has said he is convinced he could have sealed a deal if Tehran had been talking directly to Washington at the time. Efforts are under way for a new, fourth round of the multilateral nuclear talks bringing together Iran and the US and other world powers. Earlier rounds have brought no headway.

It’s far too early to gain anything more than hints from Iran on whether Rouhani’s election this month could shift tactics in nuclear negotiations.

Rouhani does not formally take office until August. Washington has said it appreciates Rouhani’s appeals for more engagement, but knows the meaningful decisions are made higher up by Iran’s theocracy.

Moreover, Rouhani has made clear he has the same red lines as the ruling clerics: He said in his first post-victory news conference that Iran will never surrender its ability to enrich uranium — the central issue of the disputes.

Still, the next chief nuclear envoy on the Iranian side is almost certain to side closer to Rouhani’s view that seeking one-on-one talks with Washington is a worthy pursuit. It’s widely expected that hard-liner Saeed Jalili — who finished a distant third behind Rouhani in the June 14 election — will be sent packing by the ruling clerics to avoid internal tensions.

It may be weeks before a shortlist for successors is known. But some possible names mentioned include former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, who finished next-to-last in the presidential race; Mohammad Javad Zarif, a former envoy to the UN, and Amir Hossein Zamaninia, a former member of Iran’s negotiating team.

No dates have been proposed to possibly resume talks between Iran and a six-nation bloc, the permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany. The four previous rounds since last year have foundered on a central deadlock: The US and others insist Iran sharply scales back its uranium enrichment as a first step, while Iran says the West should ease sanctions as an opening offer.

The West and allies fear Iran’s enrichment labs could eventually produce material for a nuclear weapon — and some critics in Israel and elsewhere believe that extended negotiations will only give Iran more time to advance its program.

Rouhani “may well create an opening,” wrote Dennis Ross, a former White House envoy for the Middle East and South Asia, in a commentary published Tuesday in The New York Times. “But we should be on our guard: It must be an opening to clarify what is possible and to test outcomes, not to engage in unending talks for their own sake.”

Iranian officials, including Rouhani, say that Iran will not give up control over the entire nuclear cycle, which turns uranium ore into reactor-ready fuel, but that it only seeks the technology for energy production and medical uses.

“The bottom line is that Rouhani’s views are not a wholesale change from the ruling system’s. They are pretty much the same on all the central points on what Iran wants,” said Mohammad Ali Shabani, a British-based Middle East expert concentrating on Iranian affairs. “The issue is over tactics and how to get there.”

For Rouhani, that likely means pushing the ruling clerics to see the value in direct nuclear talks with the US, which broke off ties with Tehran after the seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran in the wake of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Rouhani’s frequent references to a failed 2005 accord help explain his views.

He said he was close to a French-backed deal that would have allowed the maximum level of inspection by the UN’s nuclear agency in exchange for keeping Iran’s nuclear case from reaching the UN Security Council, which set in motion layer after layer of economic sanctions over the years. The deal was not backed by France’s European partners, and Rouhani now believes it was a mistake not to deal directly with Washington.

“The American are, as the saying goes, the sheriff. So it would be easier if we rather hammer things out with the sheriff than deal with lesser authorities,” he told the university audience in May.

The scholar Shabani said Rouhani now hopes to “redeem himself” for letting the 2005 deal slip away.

“It’s a mistake to think Rouhani is soft,” he said. “He’s not. He has a clear view that the only talks that matter — the only talks that are meaningful in the end — are with the Americans.”

Whether Rouhani can sell this with the ruling establishment is not so simple.

The supreme leader opened the door in March for one-on-one nuclear talks with the US in a significant reversal of policy. But it was far from a ringing endorsement. “I’m not optimistic about these talks, but I’m not opposed to them, either,” Khamenei said.

In the past, Iran has insisted that any unilateral negotiations with Washington deal with a host of disputes between the two countries beyond the nuclear issue. The US has rebuffed such multitasking talks.

One major sticking point could be efforts by Iran’s establishment to use any new openings for nuclear dialogue as a back channel forum to discuss the civil war in Syria, where Washington backs the opposition and Iran is firmly behind its crucial alliance with Bashar Assad’s regime.

“For much of the Iranian leadership at the moment, Syria is more of a priority than the nuclear talks,” said Mustafa Alani, a regional analyst at the Gulf Research Center based in Geneva.

“Rouhani, though, believes the nuclear issue is the key to everything else. You resolve that and then move on to other things. This view may be logical, but may be not what Iran’s rulers are thinking. This could leave Rouhani trying to swim against the current.”

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Syrian death toll tops 100,000 | The Times of Israel.

Rights organization says over 36,000 civilians have been killed since fighting broke out in March 2011

A Syrian man grieves over the bodies of four members of his family in Aleppo last year. (photo credit: AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)

BEIRUT (AP) — More than 100,000 people have been killed since the start of Syria’s conflict over two years ago, an activist group said Wednesday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has been tracking the death toll in the conflict through a network of activists in Syria, released its death toll at a time when hopes for a negotiated settlement to end the civil war fade.

It said a total of 100,191 had died over the 27 months of the conflict. Of those, 36,661 are civilians, the group said.

On the government side, 25,407 are members of President Bashar Assad’s armed forces, 17,311 pro-government fighters and 169 militants from Lebanon’s Hezbollah, who have fought alongside army troops.

Deaths among Assad’s opponents included 13,539 rebels, 2,015 army defectors and 2,518 foreign fighters battling against the regime.

Entry of the foreign media into Syria is severely restricted and few reports from the fighting can be independently verified.

Earlier this month, the U.N. put the number of those killed in the conflict at 93,000 between March 2011 when the crisis started and end of April this year.

The government has not released death tolls. The state media published the names of the government’s dead in the first months of the crisis, but then stopped publishing its losses after the opposition became an armed insurgency.

Syria’s conflict began as peaceful protests against Assad’s rule. It gradually became an armed conflict after the Assad’s regime used the army to crackdown on dissent and some opposition supporters took up weapons to fight government troops.

Even the most modest international efforts to end the Syrian conflict have failed. U.N.’s special envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, told reporters on Tuesday that an international peace conference proposed by Russia and the U.S. will not take place until later in the summer, partly because of opposition disarray.

The fighting has increasingly been taking sectarian overtones. Sunni Muslims dominate the rebel ranks while Assad’s regime is dominated by Alawites, an offshoot sect of Shiite Islam.

Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia is Washington’s key ally and a foe of Iran. Tehran, a Shiite powerhouse, supports Assad.

Saudi Arabia is sending lethal aid to the rebels. The United States also said it will provide arms to the opposition despite the Obama administration’s reluctance to send heavier weapons for fear they might end up in the hands of al-Qaeda-affiliated groups. Russia, Assad’s staunch supporter, has been providing his army with weapons.

In Damascus, Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi lashed out at Saudi Arabia, accusing the Gulf kingdom of backing “terrorists” after Riyadh condemned Damascus for enlisting fighters from its Lebanese ally in its struggle with rebels.

Damascus has previously blamed the Sunni Gulf states, who along with the United States and its European allies back the Syrian opposition, for the civil war.

The remarks by al-Zoubi were carried late Tuesday by the state agency SANA after Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Jiddah and condemned Assad for bolstering his army with fighters from Hezbollah. Prince Saud charged that Syria faces a “foreign invasion.”

Al-Zoubi fired back, saying Saudi diplomats have blood on their hands and are “trembling in fear of the victories of the Syrian army.”

The Syrian military with Hezbollah’s help captured the central town of Qusair earlier this month and says it is building on the victory to attack rebel-held areas elsewhere.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Netanyahu says Israel will withstand any challenge to its security | JPost | Israel News.

Putin and Obama Cross Swords on Syria. What Next?.

The sullen confrontation between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama at the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland last week condemned Syria to five months of escalating, unresolved vicious warfare – that is until the two leaders meet again in September.

For now, tempers are heating up between Washington and Moscow on Syria and other things too, notably the elusive American fugitive Edward Snowden.
US and Israeli intelligence watchers see the Syrian crisis entering seven ominous phases:
1. A five-month bloodbath centering on the battle for Aleppo, a city of 2.2 million inhabitants.

The Syrian army plus allies and the fully-mobilized opposition will hurl all their manpower and weapons into winning the city.

Military experts don’t expect the rebels to hold out against Assad’s forces beyond late August.

2.  Neither side has enough manpower or game-changing weaponry for winning the war outright.

That is, unless Presidents Obama or Putin steps in to retilt the balance.

3. The US and Russia are poised for more military intervention in the conflict up until a point just short of a military clash on Syrian soil – or elsewhere in the Middle East. US intelligence analysts have judged Putin ready to go all the way on Syria against the US – no holds barred.
The Russian president is meanwhile deliberately goading Washington and raising temperatures by playing hide-and-seek over the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, charged with espionage for stealing and leaking classified intelligence. At home, he is considered variously as a traitor and a brave whistleblower.

For several hours Snowden vanished between Hong Kong and Moscow – until the Russian president admitted he was holed up in the transit area of Moscow airport and would not be extradited by Russia to the United States.

4.  Iran, Hizballah and Iraq will likewise ratchet up their battlefield presence.

5. A violent encounter is building up between Middle East Shiites flocking to Syria to save the Assad regime alongside Russia, and the US-backed Sunni-dominated rebel forces.
It could scuttle the secret US-Iranian negotiating track on its nuclear program, which was buoyed up by the election of the pragmatic Hassan Rouhani as President of Iran.

6.  The Geneva-2 Conference for a political solution for the Syrian crisis is dead in the water. Moscow and the US are divided by unbridgeable issues of principle, such whether Bashar Assad should stay or go and Iranian representation.

7.  So long as the diplomatic remains stuck in the mud, the prospects of a regional war spreading out of the Syrian conflict are rising. Iran, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon may be dragged in at any moment – if they have not already, like Lebanon.

A small mistake by one of the Syrian warring parties in Syria could, for example, touch off Israeli retaliation and a wholesale spillover of violence.

Officials: Turkey humiliating Israel – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Despite Israeli apology for Marmara raid, Ankara yet to fulfill its end of reconciliation deal. ‘Time to make Ankara pay diplomatic price for its nasty behavior,’ top official says

Shimon Shiffer

Despite the fact that Israel apologized to Turkey over the Mavi Marmara incident some three months ago, Ankara has yet to fulfill any of the commitments it took upon itself as part of the reconciliation agreement brokered by US President Barack Obama, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Wednesday.

Senior Israeli officials who are familiar with the situation described Turkey’s conduct as humiliating and disrespectful, adding that it exposes IDF soldiers and officers who took part in the 2010 raid on the Gaza-bound Turkish ship to lawsuits by the victims’ families. Nine Turkish nationals were killed during the commando attack on the vessel.

As part of the reconciliation agreement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erodgan that Israel would compensate the victims’ families and also substantially lift the restrictions on the transfer of goods to Gaza.

Marmara raid (Photo: IDF Spokesman’s Office)

A statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office at the time said the countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations, including an exchange of ambassadors. Erdogan, according to the statement, said Turkey would terminate all legal proceedings launched against IDF soldiers who were involved in the raid and would prevent similar legal action in the future.

However, following Netanyahu’s apology, the Turks appeared to be in no hurry to fulfill their end of the deal. Israel agreed to pay $5 million in restitution, while Ankara demanded $40 million. During talks held over the past few days the Turks have expressed their agreement to receive $24 million from Israel, while the Israeli side raised its offer to $14 million – a regular Turkish bazaar.

And if this wasn’t enough, the Turks announced they could not guarantee that IDF soldiers and officers who were involved in the raid, including former IDF Chief Lt.-Gen. (res.) Gabi Ashkenazi, would not be prosecuted, claiming that in Turkey the “executive branch cannot influence the judicial branch.”

According to the Turks, Erdogan cannot act to stop the legal proceedings while anti-government protests are taking place because he does not want his constituents to view him as being pro-Israeli.

In light of Turkey’s conduct, Israel is considering the possibility of exacting a diplomatic price from Ankara with the help of a pro-Israeli Congressman. “After they fed us smelly fish and ran us out of town, it’s time that the Turks pay a price for their nasty behavior,” a senior official said.

BBC News – Violence in China’s Xinjiang ‘kills 27’.

( Even in China, moslems = violence. – JW  )

Riots have killed 27 people in China’s restive far western region of Xinjiang, Chinese state media report.

The incident happened in Turban prefecture early on Wednesday.

Police opened fire after a mob armed with knives attacked police stations and a local government building, Xinhua news agency quoted officials as saying.

There are sporadic outbreaks of violence in Xinjiang, where there are rumbling ethnic tensions between Muslim Uighur and Han Chinese communities.

Confirming reports from the region is difficult because information is tightly controlled.

The incident happened in Turban’s remote township of Lukqun, around 200km (120 miles) south-east of the region’s capital, Urumqi.

The Xinhua news agency report, citing local officials, said rioters stabbed people and set police cars alight.

Seventeen people, including nine security personnel and eight civilians, were killed before police shot dead 10 of the rioters, it said.

At least three others were injured and were being treated in hospital, it added.

The Xinhua report did not provide any information on the ethnicity of those involved in the riot or on what sparked it.

In 2009 almost 200 people – mostly Han Chinese – were killed after deadly rioting erupted in Urumqi between the Han Chinese and Uighur communities.

In April an incident in the city of Kashgar left 21 people dead.

The government said the violence began when “terrorists” were discovered in a building by officials searching for weapons.

But local people told the BBC that the violence involved a local family who had a long-standing dispute with officials who had been pressuring the men to shave off their beards and the women to take off their veils.

Uighurs make up about 45% of Xinjiang’s population, but say an influx of Han Chinese residents has marginalised their traditional culture.

Beijing authorities often blame violent incidents in Xinjiang on Uighur extremists seeking autonomy for the region. Uighur activists, meanwhile, accuse Beijing of over-exaggerating the threat to justify heavy-handed rule.

‘We’ve got to stand for what is right… We don’t worship at the altar of consensus’ | The Times of Israel.

In characteristically straightforward terms, Canada’s Foreign Minister John Baird explains why his country is so supportive of Israel, and why others aren’t

By David Horovitz June 25, 2013, 5:50 pm

John Baird is a big, friendly, open-faced, square-jawed man, who says things like “We’ve got to stand for what is right,” and “We don’t go along to get along,” and “Sometimes you’ve got to take a principled stand, even if it doesn’t make you popular,” and, of the Iranian leadership, “These people don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.”

These are the kinds of aphorisms leaders of raw integrity might have delivered in less morally compromised times, which may not actually have ever existed. They are the unclouded philosophies of ultra-decent James Stewart movie types, or of fictional superhero fighters-for-justice, to be unleashed as villains are dispatched to the scrapheap in adventure films or on the pages of comic books.

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They are not the kinds of things that Western foreign ministers tend to say in the early, hesitant years of the 21st century. Indeed, it’s reasonable to assume, they are not the kinds of things that Western foreign ministers, in the morally subverted world of realpolitik, are even capable of thinking.

But Baird is not your average Western foreign minister. And when it comes to foreign affairs, the Canadian government of Stephen Harper in which he serves is not your average Western government.

The clearest recent expression of its atypical nature? While most every country on earth, including the supposedly responsible, relatively decent Western European nations, either supported Mahmoud Abbas or abstained in last November’s UN General Assembly vote upgrading the Palestinians to nonmember state, Canada stood alongside only the US, Panama, the Czech Republic and four tiny Pacific Islands in voting with Israel against Abbas’s bid to attain sovereign recognition without the discomfort of negotiating Palestine’s modalities with Israel.

“Maybe people try to be pragmatic or, in the conduct of international affairs, worship at the altar of compromise or consensus,” Baird offered The Times of Israel by way of explanation. “I am more of a conviction politician, like Stephen Harper.”

The uncomplicated moral approach should not be mistaken for over-simplicity, however, or for an unsubtle reliance on guts and gung-ho fervor. In a lengthy interview with The Times of Israel during his visit to the region last week (he also went to Jordan and the Palestinian territories), Baird, 46, rejected the notion of easy fixes for Syria, even as he lamented the suffering of the Syrian people. He steered clear of prescriptions for Israeli-Palestinian progress, too, while urging the two sides to stop the “pettiness” and get down to negotiations.

But in many areas where his foreign minister counterparts tread warily or hedge, Baird spoke with a rare clarity. And he was unsparing, too, in addressing other states’ lapsed judgments, most notably when it comes to the international community’s attitudes to Israel.

The Times of Israel: I want to understand, first of all, why Canada is so strongly supportive of Israel. And more than that, when it seems so obvious to Israelis and apparently to you that Israel has shared values with the West, is subject to double standards on some of its policies, is uniquely stable and democratic in this part of the world, why is it that so many other countries aren’t where Canada is on Israel?

John Baird: First and foremost, my grandfather fought in the Second World War … [and faced] the great struggles of his generation: fascism, communism. [In] the great struggle of our generation, international terrorism, far too often, the State of Israel and the Jewish people are on the front lines of that struggle. That is a global struggle and there is no room for moral relativism. We’ve got to stand for what is right, and against what is wrong.

In Israel we have a stable, liberal democracy with all kinds of warts, just like Canada and just like the United States. But I think most people — freedom-loving people anywhere in the world — would welcome it, warts and all.

I think we’ve seen what happens when the Jewish people don’t have a state. After the Holocaust, a Jewish state is so tremendously important.

You know, I was here a few years ago. I was with a friend. We were going through the Old City. He recognized the son of a family friend. The guy was 28 or 30. He was doing his two years of service in the IDF. He’s French. I said, “You’re 28, why are you doing your service in the IDF?” He said, “Oh we made aliyah later in life.”

After we left my friend told me that this man and his parents moved here because he got the snot kicked out of him once or twice — hate crimes — in France. To think that in the heart of Europe, that sort of stuff still happens. Stunning, absolutely stunning.

That’s why it’s so tremendously important to have a Jewish state. I do find that in the international institutions – when you find sometimes 25 percent of the resolutions are against Israel, it’s just totally disproportionate. And a total pile-on.

And under Stephen Harper, we don’t go along to get along. It’s a lot easier to shut up and to go with the crowd, but sometimes you’ve got to take a principled stand, even if it doesn’t make you popular.

And I should say two things. One is that in Canada, one percent of the population is Jewish, 3.6 percent is Muslim or Arab. My own constituency, I have 2,800 Jews, with 11,500 Muslims or Arabs, and we have strict campaign finances: 1,200 dollars [maximum donation], that’s it. So we don’t have big money involved. We do it out of moral conviction. I think we should stand up for what is right.

All of which you state as the blindingly obvious. And it seems to many Israelis to be blindingly obvious. And yet what ought to be consensual and obvious positions are atypical to the extent that in the vote in the UN last year on Palestinian statehood, it was Israel, Canada and seven others, four of whom you’d struggle to find on the map, who voted against the Palestinians’ upgraded status. Your position is not one of global consensus at all. It is an aberration. It marks you along with Israel on the margins of international consensus. Why is that? The Organization of Islamic States, the non-aligned nations, it’s not hard to understand where their instinctive positions are. But the supposed barometer, responsible states – the Western European states – in that resolution, for example, they abstained or voted for the Palestinian upgrade. Why is it that they don’t see it in the obvious way that you see it?

There’s a natural tendency to support what they see as the underdog, moral relativism.

What does that mean?

Moral relativism is, “Well, I know that these people were terrorists, but they were marginalized and in a difficult place and you’ve got to understand where they come from, and it’s difficult, and if only people treated them nicer” — that sort of thought.

I strongly support a two-state solution. I was in Ramallah yesterday with the Palestinian prime minister and President Abbas. I think we have a good relationship. With that, we have honest differences of opinion and I don’t mind speaking out publicly or privately about what my views are. I think that sometimes, for various reasons, our prime minister has a lot of moral courage. And we’re very like-minded in terms of our positions.

I come from Britain, as you may have gathered from my accent, although a long time ago. In Britain, there are many more Muslims than Jews. The most popular boy’s name for years now is Mohammed. In France, there are ten times as many Muslims as Jews. Is it political pragmatism [that shapes their policies]? The demographics of some of these countries?

Absolutely.

Maybe people try to be pragmatic or, in the conduct of international affairs, worship at the altar of compromise or consensus. I’m not totally unpragmatic but I am more of a conviction politician, like Stephen Harper.

I followed Tony Blair closely when he was prime minister. One of the reasons that he began to lose popularity was his perceived irrational support for Israel and his sensible position about the nature of terrorism. In parts of western Europe, including Britain, there seems to be this disinclination to believe that you have an Islamist, extremist threat to your country.

Maybe people try to be pragmatic or, in the conduct of international affairs, worship at the altar of compromise or consensus. I’m not totally unpragmatic but I am more of a conviction politician, like Stephen Harper.

I was in Jordan two and a half weeks ago for a World Economic Forum gathering. I got the sense that they’re seeing all sorts of chaos unfolding around them, and there’s a certain caution about being too revolutionary in Jordan. I found it to be relatively stable. Was that your sense as well?

We have a very close relationship with Jordan and with His Majesty’s government. We have provided just now a hundred million dollars for development — a big chunk of which was to support Jordan in dealing with the refugees.

I am always worried about the stability of like-minded friends and allies. I think His Majesty has had a difficult challenge in how do you balance off civil society, and prosperity, and the needs of a country, with the honorable aspirations of reformers. I think he’s accelerated some of the things that he was already doing, but it’s a tough balancing act. I said about Libya and Gaddafi’s decline: You don’t go from Gaddafi to Thomas Jefferson overnight. And I think you’ve got to recognize that [fact] if you go from a civil society, which is an honorable, aspirational goal, on the way to what we would see as more of a concept of democracy.

Freedom is the end goal. Democracy is one of the means to freedom. Obviously Jordan is a peace-loving society, dealing with a lot of big challenges. The fifth-largest city in Jordan now is a refugee camp. Twelve percent of the population are Syrian refugees and the fact is that they have been so decent and giving, to welcome these people in. They have buses to go to the border and transport these people, so they’ve been very generous. And we should be very, very mindful that this is a struggle over basic things like water and education, employment.

Syria has produced some surreal situations here. We had a story last week on our website about this four-year old Syrian girl who came from Jordan for life-saving surgery here — from a Jordan refugee camp to a hospital in Israel. We had a guy in the hospital last week who came with a note from his doctor in Syria – they found a note on his person – saying “Here’s how we tried to treat him, maybe you can do more, because we really haven’t got the capacity.” There’s extraordinary stuff going on as a consequence of the Syrian civil war.

It is. How someone who has ruled over his people, whose family has ruled for all these years, could watch the devastation and the suffering of these people, and could allow this to go on.

And hasn’t the West failed as a moral actor here in allowing this to continue?

If there is an easy solution to this, we haven’t found it. I suspect that there are a lot of good minds on it.

My colleagues and I in the West, my counterparts in the West — this does haunt us, finding the solution. What worked in Libya doesn’t necessarily work in Syria… I was recently in Baghdad, the security situation, the sectarian violence there, the influence of Iran, is deeply concerning as well. There’s no easy solution, there’s no one-size-fits all solution.

Obviously, my conclusion is that there’s only one way to end the suffering of the Syrian people, and that’s through a political solution. But if one side gets the upper hand, they’re less open to that. The real fear is sectarian violence – the minorities there, whether they be Palestinians, Druze, Alawites, Kurds, Christians  – the real fear is that there’ll be a slaughter, a slaughter of those special sects.

If [Rouhani] wants me to say something kind or generous, he’s going to have to solicit that by his actions, not by any perceived notion of him being a reformer. These people don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.

What do you make of the new Iranian president? We have our typical Israeli range of responses – President Peres talking about, well, maybe this is a little bit encouraging, and Prime Minister Netanyahu saying, don’t be fooled. This guy doesn’t set policy and he’s not exactly a reformist either. On the other hand, he was the candidate that the reformists backed, so perhaps that says something about the Iranian public? What’s your sense?

You know, I’m not a pessimist and not an optimist. I’m a realist. The nuclear program, which is the chief of the big concerns we have with the regime in Tehran, is not controlled by the prime minister. It’s controlled by the Supreme Leader [Ali Khamenei] and those around him. Only a select six of several hundred people were even allowed to contest the presidential election, so this is by no means a free and fair election. And if he [incoming president Hasan Rouhani] wants me to say something kind or generous, he’s going to have to solicit that by his actions, not by any perceived notion of him being a reformer. These people don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Are we at the end in terms of diplomacy [on Iran’s nuclear program]?

There’s always a reason to wait another two or three months.

Even now, when they may be less than two or three months from…?

If they want to prove the naysayers wrong, they can make meaningful progress with the P5+1. I’m pessimistic on that but I hope to be proven wrong.

But you’d give it another two or three months?

We waited two or three months during this election period since the last meetings chaired by Catharine Ashton. A peacemaker — there’s no more noble action in the world. I hope they can make progress, but this process is nearing the end, and should have been nearing the end in my judgment. If Iran wants to seek out concrete, meaningful solutions to this, they have the opportunity to demonstrate to the world in the coming weeks that they’ll do that…

And if they don’t…

And you have someone [in Rouhani, a former Iranian nuclear negotiator] who doesn’t need to have any time to read up on the files. This person does not need anytime to be briefed up.

And if at the end of two or three months there isn’t some kind of concrete evidence…?

I think fair and reasonable people will have shown that they have taken every reasonable measure, every diplomatic measure, to try to successfully bring this to a conclusion.

Short of intervention. And then comes the time for intervention?

I’ll just leave it at that.

You were with Abbas [in Ramallah the day before]. I’m sure you had a frank exchange of views. How do you see the effort to resume talks playing out?

There was the prime minister, and [PA Foreign Minister] Mr. Al-Malki, who I got to know well and have a good relationship with. And we had my fourth or fifth meeting with President Abbas and it was good and constructive. I found him in a good mood, you know.

He didn’t say to you, Why are you so gung-ho, pro-Israel?

You know, listen, I respect his right to have his position and I think he respects Canada’s right to have their position. We engage with the Palestinians, we work with the Palestinians, we’ve been a major development partner with the Palestinians, also with the United States in Operation Proteus on security and justice development and reform, humanitarian assistance. We announced 25 million dollars in humanitarian aid. We discussed security stuff with them yesterday.

Netanyahu’s appointment of Tzipi Livni [to oversee peace efforts with the Palestinians] is, I think, an olive branch, and we hope to see the Palestinians make a similar [move]

I found [Abbas] in a better mood than he has been. He seems incredibly engaged with John Kerry’s mission. I encouraged him, as I will with my Israel interlocutors. I’m not one who believes that this is the last chance for peace and the last chance for a two-state solution, but I think it’s the best chance and it’s right on our doorstep and both sides should take advantage of this American leadership. John Kerry, from his first day in office, has jumped head first into this. I think his is an extraordinary effort that deserves and merits full support.

I did find in my last meeting here with Prime Minister Netanyahu that he was and that his government was incredibly engaged. His comments on forming a new government after the elections were warm and generous. His appointment of Tzipi Livni [to oversee peace efforts with the Palestinians] is, I think, an olive branch, and we hope to see the Palestinians make a similar [move, and] come to this discussion with a similar approach.

Your meeting [in April] with Livni in [her Justice Ministry office in] East Jerusalem became controversial. Is Canada setting down some kind of a marker about East Jerusalem or was it just a convenient place to meet the minister?

Listen, I’m a visiting minister. I met with all four or five of the leaders of the coalition. I met with her in her office – it was coffee, and nothing more. I’ll go with any peace-loving person who wants to talk about peace, I’ll meet them anywhere to discuss that. I think we’ve got to move beyond these petty issues.

A minister in the previous Canadian government that we replaced, our minister of justice, had met with the [Israeli] minister of justice [in the same ministry building] and despite the media in Canada knowing that, they didn’t report it. Our position on that issue is unchanged.

As long as we’re debating a Canadian minister having coffee on this side of the street or that side of the street, as long as we’re debating why Israel can or cannot give treatments to cure the cancer of a dying Palestinian terrorist, as long as we’re debating these types of things, we’re not going to move forward. And we’ve got to stop this pettiness, in my judgment. On both sides.

And from Abbas, you sensed a certain…

This was my third visit to Ramallah. The most negative person on Canada’s relationship with the Palestinian Authority once again was the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, by far. At a factor of a hundred times more negative than the Palestinians. Even though the two of them there [from the CBC] I had helped get out of jail in Turkey three days ago.

We strongly support, strongly support a two-state solution. We want to see the Palestinians live in dignity, live in prosperity. We want to see a Jewish state where people live in security

If anything, I think our relationship with the Palestinian Authority, certainly in the last seven years, has been at a high point, with honest differences of opinion. There’s nothing wrong with that. We have honest differences of opinion with the United States on some issues. There’s nothing wrong with that. It doesn’t mean you can’t have a good relationship.

We strongly support, strongly support a two-state solution. We want to see the Palestinians live in dignity, live in prosperity. We want to see a Jewish state where people live in security. We want to see that happen. This is the reason why this is one of most intractable problems in the world today.

In Jordan at the WEF event, Abbas made a speech that basically expressed bafflement with Israel: Why wouldn’t you pull out of the West Bank and trust us? We would never harm you, and so on. It seemed to be disingenuous, as did the appeal to the UN and the refusal to engage directly.

My view is the most fundamental foundation for constructive dialogue and peace is you’ve got to stop this hyperbole and this rhetoric on both sides.

I felt Abbas yesterday to be very engaged, in a good mood, better than I’ve seen him in recent times. He brought out a cake for my assistant Oren’s 30th birthday. He brought out a cake, sang happy birthday to him. Oren was born in Eilat. [We went] from coffee in East Jerusalem to cake in Ramallah.