Iran-West Relations and Media Tactics

Today the United States and Iran had their first direct talks since the United States cut off relations during the hostage crisis of 1979-80.The multilateral talks in Geneva involved five U.S. allies: Russia, China, Germany, France and Britain. The interesting thing about these talks is what happened before them and the way the western media, especially that of the U.S. paved the way for such talks

After the recent Iranian presidential election and the media involvement of the west with it, and the reactions it triggered among the Iranian leaders, it seemed it would take some time before the two sides could sit and talk to each other directly after 30 years. What happened after the election in Iran was that the western media tried to show that the election had not been a democratic one and in some way implied, but never directly mentioned, that the government formed after the election would have a legitimacy problem. At the same time the west,particularly the U.S is deeply involed in a problematic region (the Middle East) in which Iran is a major player. So, the problem for the west was to find a way to justify the talks with a government it had been criticizing a few weeks earlier. My assumption is that what the west needed was to show that the danger of a nuclear Iran was eminent and this danger would let them convince the western public that the talks with the government of Iran was a necessity. That's when the Qom nuclear facility comes to help. This facility shows the advancement of Iran towards completing its nuclear capabilities . This gives the group of 5+1 the pretext they needed to engage with Iran. On the other hand, the last thing the Iranian governmet, deeply troubled by domestic problems, needs is international economic and political sanctions. During the above-mentioned talks the Iranian delegation has promised to let international inspectors to visit the Qom facility and has agreed to let Russia to enrich the Uranium Iran needs for its nuclear power plants.

So apparently the two sides are fully aware of their mutual interests and are trying to rise above the media image they fabricated prior to the talks aimed at justifying the talks