Iran’s president says he believes the United States and the West have accepted that negotiations are the way forward in the dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program. Iran believes it has won a victory in outmaneuvering the West over the nuclear issue.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a news conference in Tehran Sunday following a summit with Syrian President Bashar Assad that Iran was serious about negotiations and that “all those who stood against Iran over the past years have now reached a conviction that in this issue there is no other way but to involve into dialogue and consultation.”

In June, the U.S., China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany offered Iran economic and other incentives to coax it into halting its uranium enrichment. On July 19, Western officials gave Tehran two weeks to respond to their offer, saying they would hold off on imposing more UN economic sanctions if Iran just froze—temporarily—any expansion of its nuclear work. The deal included an offer of civilian nuclear power plants, economic aid, new airplanes, agricultural assistance and high-tech transfers—in exchange for a promise from Iran not to increase its current enrichment activities.

This was an extraordinary offer, for it amounted to an acceptance by the Western world of a nuclear Iran.

Saturday was the deadline these nations—the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany—gave Iran to respond by. While rebuffing the deadline by providing no direct answer, Tehran sent a very clear message. Hosting Syrian President Bashar Assad on a visit to Tehran over the weekend, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defiantly announced that Iran won’t back down “one iota” in its tussle with the West over its nuclear program. He said, “In whichever negotiation we take part … it is unequivocally with the view to the realization of Iran’s nuclear right and the Iranian nation would not retreat one iota from its rights. … We will take part in any negotiations and talk about any issue which consolidates our nuclear rights. … Iran will not give an inch on its nuclear rights.”

Meanwhile, the “deadline” did not prove to be a deadline at all, with a European Union official saying the EU is prepared to wait a few more days for a reply: “What matters is that we get a clear answer quickly, it’s not a matter of one day,” said the official.

debkafile reports that Assad’s visit to Tehran—which was originally scheduled to occur a week later—was planned to coincide with the nuclear deadline so the two countries could plan their next moves after successfully outmaneuvering the West. debkafile’s Middle East sources report, “Iranian and Syrian rulers are so pleased with their unforeseen success in outmaneuvering the West that they called an urgent summit for follow-up planning” (August 3). Specifically, debkafile referred to both the EU’s and the U.S’s mild reactions to statements by high-level Iranian officials over recent weeks that Tehran would not back down over its nuclear program and would not make any deal that would put restrictions on its uranium enrichment.

The Iranian-Syrian meeting also followed what these nations consider a diplomatic victory in splitting the Israel-U.S. alliance in its stance on Iran. The U.S. decision to send diplomat William Burns to participate in the July 19 meeting of world powers with an Iranian delegate was a major shift in U.S. policy on Iran. The U.S. participated in this meeting without the precondition that Tehran first halt uranium enrichment. “The turnaround,” reports Reuters, “raised eyebrows in Israel, which has long looked to its U.S. ally to lead efforts to isolate Iran.”

Last Thursday, Israel voiced its displeasure over the U.S.’s engagement with Iran, urging Washington to stand firm in its demand that Tehran abandon its nuclear weapons program, according to an Israeli official. In consultations with William Burns—as well as separate meetings with U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice—Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz voiced Israel’s objections to the direct U.S.-Iranian talks. Mofaz’s spokeswoman, Talia Somech, said, “It wasn’t a matter of leveling outrage, but of voicing Israel’s strong concerns.” In a subsequent statement, the U.S. State Department made no mention of the possibility of using force against Iran.

“Iran’s supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Mahmoud Ahminejad and Assad,” says debkafile, “can therefore pat each other’s backs over the cooling of U.S.-Israeli strategic relations … on top of their other successes” (op. cit.). debkafile contends the Bush administration and Europe took all of the pressure off Iran by opening back-channel talks with the Islamic Republic. Read debkafile’s report here for how it sees the West has played into Iran’s hands.

Once again, the West has made itself susceptible to manipulation by Iran. By Ahmadinejad’s own criterion, the July 19 deal should have been acceptable negotiation, since it certainly would have consolidated Iran’s nuclear rights. But it is unwilling to even slow the growth of its program, let alone stop it.

All the efforts to negotiate Iran into giving up its nuclear activities, even to punish it with economic sanctions until it gives them up, have led precisely nowhere.