Gary Sick, "A Stealth Engagement of Iran?": Tergiversations

"Tergiversation," according to Merriam-Webster (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tergiversation):

1. evasion of straightforward action or clear-cut statement: equivocation

In an article entitled "Frustrated US rambles on Iran: Gary Sick" (http://presstv.com/detail/223089.html), Iran's Press TV refers us to an article written by Gary Sick, entitled "A Stealth Engagement of Iran?" (http://www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2012/01/17/stealth-engagement-iran), which was published by The World Policy Institute. Yes, it is of course significant that Iran has chosen to highlight this opinion piece.

In his article, Gary Sick, "an adjunct professor of Middle East politics at Columbia's School of International & Public Affairs" and "the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the subsequent hostage crisis," observes recent "tergiversations in U.S. policy pronouncements": Both Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have coupled denunciations and threats over Iran's ongoing efforts to attain nuclear weapons with calls for renewed negotiations and avoidance of any armed conflict. Sick ponders whether these conflicting declarations reflect "pure chaos and incompetence in the White House," or whether the White House is engaged in a highly sophisticated attempt to manage three problems:

• Congress, which in an election year, has maneuvered Obama into signing the Defense Authorization Bill with the latest sanctions rider, amounting, according to Sick, to "a tacit declaration of war."
• Obama's desire to avoid war and return to negotiations.
• Netanyahu's threats "to strike unilaterally if necessary" and to use those threats "to keep the situation at a constant crisis pitch, while pressing for the most extreme sanctions."

According to Sick, "if you throw enough anti-Iran dust in the air, you may defuse any concerted attack—figuratively or otherwise."

So is there chaos in the White House, or, is there indeed a master plan to talk through both sides of your mouth in order to preseve the status quo?

Indeed, there has been much doublespeak emerging from the Obama White House (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/iran-and-obama-administration.html), and Obama, the Procrastinator-in-Chief, would prefer to avoid a conflagration. However, Obama will also do anything and everything to be re-elected, and this single consideration will determine Obama's policy toward Iran over the coming months. The short-term effect of an increase in the price of oil on the U.S. economy and the receptiveness of the US electorate to bellicose statements issued by Romney and Gingrich, painting Obama as a patsy, are all being monitored by the West Wing.

One final observation: Sick's conjecture that the leak, alleging that Mossad personnel, pretending to be CIA agents, recruited Iranian dissidents, was linked to cancellation of Austere Challenge, a joint US/Israeli anti-missile exercise scheduled for April, is not grounded in reality.