Cheney's Waning Influence?

"Many underlying problems, including the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, are not on the verge of resolution. Afghanistan has recently seen a sharp spike in violence. In the Middle East, optimism can fill the void left by even a temporary lull in violence, like the recent -- and still fragile -- stability gains in Iraq. Nevertheless, not long ago, the fear was that Lebanon would descend into civil war and that either Israel or the United States, or both, would attack Iran. That seems less likely at the moment."

There is the possibility that this is a feint. As Slackman writes: "Some analysts suspect that Israel and the United States may be trying to placate their other enemies in advance of a military strike on Iran that they consider all but inevitable."

The New York Times editorial board writes: "It is very late in the game, but we hope this means that Mr. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are learning the lessons of seven years of failed foreign policies built almost completely on isolating (or attacking) America's adversaries. There is little chance of solving major international problems so long as this country refuses even to have a seat at the table.

"We also hope it means that Vice President Dick Cheney and his crew have given up their dangerous fantasy of bombing away Iran's nuclear ambitions -- or at least have been overruled by the president."

One British newspaper is nearly ready to dance on Cheney's grave.

The Guardian's editorial writers conclude: "America's decision to send a senior official to international talks with Iran in Geneva tomorrow marks a major, and long overdue, policy change. It could be at least as significant as the U-turn the country performed about talking to North Korea. It was preceded by a bitter internal debate in Washington, which its victors tried hard yesterday to conceal. . . .

"But try as they might, there was no disguising the fact that vice-president Dick Cheney, who has pushed hard for an air strike on Iran, had been defeated. As a result, America is now on a different track."

Guardian assistant editor Simon Tisdall writes in his opinion column: "It may be too early to proclaim an end to the 'Cheney era', but Washington's decision to participate in Saturday's nuclear talks with Iran and send diplomats back to Tehran is a very significant shift. It marks a nadir for the gun-toting neoconservatives who dominated the first Bush term and for their unofficial champion, vice-president Dick Cheney, the stealthy advice-giver also known as 'whispering grass'.

"Noisy sabre-rattling and a crescendo of shouted threats exchanged by Iran and Israel in recent weeks convinced many observers that the Middle East was on the brink of a new conflagration. They feared a 'second Iraq' was in the making, again triggered by worries about real or imagined weapons of mass destruction.

"That dreaded spectre appears to be receding for now. A 'second North Korea' remains the preferred model for the US state department and the European allies -- meaning talks leading to voluntary disarmament in return for security, aid and normalisation. This is just the sort of multilateral 'soft power' horsetrading Cheney & Co cannot abide."

But Abbas Edalat, the founder of an anti-war group, writes in a Guardian opinion piece: "While the positive shift in policy is a setback for them, the hawks are by no means defeated. We have been in this position before. The US and Iran had three rounds of negotiations about stability in Iraq last year, which only led to a new hype in US accusations against Iran. On Monday, Israeli military adviser Amos Gilad said that Israel is preparing to attack Iran if diplomacy fails, and that the US would not veto it."

And Israeli historian Benny Morris lets loose with an apocalyptic vision in a New York Times op-ed: "Israel will almost surely attack Iran's nuclear sites in the next four to seven months -- and the leaders in Washington and even Tehran should hope that the attack will be successful enough to cause at least a significant delay in the Iranian production schedule, if not complete destruction, of that country's nuclear program. Because if the attack fails, the Middle East will almost certainly face a nuclear war -- either through a subsequent pre-emptive Israeli nuclear strike or a nuclear exchange shortly after Iran gets the bomb."