IRAN LATEST – AT 9:58 A.M. ET:  The formal goal is to have a nuclear agreement with Iran by July 20th.  That's eight 12 days away, and the talks aren't going very well.  (They can, of course, be extended.)  Indeed, the Iranians reportedly have made few concessions, and their leaders are becoming more, not less, demanding.   I suspect they sense that the sanctions regime, which held them in place, is starting to collapse, and that they can play for time.  From AFP: 

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s supreme leader revealed Tuesday that it ultimately wants 190,000 nuclear centrifuges — a figure he said was 19 times higher than world powers want to allow under a deal being discussed in Vienna.

The comments, published on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s website on Tuesday, represent a dramatic intervention in the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 group of Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany.

The talks have been taking place behind closed doors and Khamenei’s remarks are the most open declaration yet of Iran’s demands.

“Their aim is that we accept a capacity of 10,000 separative work units, which is equivalent to 10,000 centrifuges of the older type that we already have,” the supreme leader said, referring to the machines used in uranium enrichment.

“Our officials say we need 190,000. Perhaps not today, but in two to five years that is the country’s absolute need,” Khamenei, who has the final word on all matters of state, was quoted as saying.

Uranium enrichment can produce fuel for nuclear power stations or, in highly extended form, the core of an atomic bomb. The process is the most sensitive matter in the negotiations between Iran and the P5+1.

According to American media reports, the United States may accept Iran having between 2,000 and 4,000 centrifuges.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said last month that Iran could retain “several hundred centrifuges” but he said the Iranians were asking for “hundreds of thousands.”

The accord being sought by the P5+1 aims to finally allay international concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and silence talk of possible military action.

COMMENT:  Our fear is that Obama will cave in, as he always does, or agree to drag out the talks for so long that the sanctions regime collapses completely, under pressure from business interests, giving Iran no motive to make any concessions at all.

We used to believe that the credible threat of a Western military strike, aimed at destroying Iran's nuclear program, would provide incentive for the mullahs to agree to something reasonable.  But Obama has essentially taken the military option off the table, handing a huge advantage to the Iranians.  You never take the military option off the table.

But other questions arise:  Will the mainstream media continue to cover for Obama if the Iranian talks fail?  And will the Republican Party actually care, or start moving in the direction of Rand Paul, who has taken a soft line on Iran?  Wouldn't it be tragic if Iran's greatest ally turns out to be the party that used to be the party of Ronald Reagan?

July 8, 2014