Administration hardliners, like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, also treated the leaders of Brazil and Turkey as unwelcome interlopers who were intruding on America's diplomatic turf.
Lula da Silva responded by challenging those Americans who insisted that it was "none of Brazil's business" to act as an intermediary to resolve the showdown with Iran.
"But who said it was a matter for the United States?" he asked, adding that "the blunt truth is, Iran is being presented as if it were the devil, that it doesn't want to sit down" to negotiate, contrary to the fact that "Iran decided to sit down at the negotiating table. It wants to see if the others are going to go along with what (it) has done."
What Iran saw instead was a parade of American pundits and policymakers heaping scorn on the Iran-Brazil-Turkey accord.
Puzzled by the U.S. reaction, Brazil released a three-page letter from President Obama to President Lula da Silva encouraging Brazil and Turkey to go forward with the swap deal. In the letter, Obama said the proposed uranium swap "would build confidence and reduce regional tensions by substantially reducing Iran's" stockpile of low-enriched uranium.
However, the administration's hawks backed by the elite opinion-shapers of the Post and Times prevailed over Obama. Instead of embracing the swap deal, the Obama administration pressed forward with harsher sanctions against Iran, despite warnings that the sanctions would only harden Iran's nuclear stance.
Now, after Iran predictably reacted with greater animosity and suspicion toward the international community, the Times editorialists are determined, again, to ratchet up the tensions in line with Friedman's view that the only acceptable solution is "regime change."
The Post's editorialists at least were honest enough to note the failed swap deal, but they, too, ended on an ominous note, suggesting that a U.S. military attack may be the only solution.
Noting a new analysis by the Institute for Science and International Security that Iran may already be producing weapons-grade uranium at a secret facility, the Post concluded: "If that is the case, economic sanctions are unlikely to prevent it."
So, this is where the biased journalism of the Times and the Post -- especially regarding Iran's 2009 election (click here or here for details) -- has led the world, to the brink of another Middle East conflict.
Having brushed aside the disaster in Iraq and the related bungled war in Afghanistan, the neocons and their allies appear to remain the chief arbiters and the leading architects of U.S. foreign policy.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
