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Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > Obama And Negotiations With Iran - Further Thoughts

Obama And Negotiations With Iran - Further Thoughts

October 23, 2012


October 22, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - During the time period of Oct 20-22 this publication addressed twice here the matter of a Team Obama foreign policy surprise. [see, BREAKING - PipeLineNews Vindicated - Obama Springs His Iran Nuke Negotiations October Surprise As Predicted and Is Team Obama Secretly Negotiating With Iran In Ploy To Influence Election?]

The original piece was composed upon consultation with Reza Kahlili, a former member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard who "came in from the cold," turning CIA informant, a very dangerous but courageous move. Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym and he now resides within the United States.

Some of the exclusive information provided by Mr. Kahlili included:

"...When President Obama took office, Iran had barely enough enriched uranium for one nuclear bomb, now they have enough for six should they decide to enrich further...When President Obama took office, the Iranians were limited to enrichment to 3% percent now they are enriching to 20 percent which is a major milestone to weaponization...When he took office, Iran was enriching uranium out of one facility "Natanz" today they are enriching uranium out of two...Since President Obama has taken office, Iran has also made great strides with its missile program now capable of reaching European capitals with missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead...While the Obama administration has been engaged in negotiations, Iran with the help of Russia, North Korea and China has been busy racing to the point of no return...is while the radicals ruling Iran are engaged in back channel negotiations with the Obama administration to gain concessions, requesting America to accept its right to nuclear energy and a continuation of enrichment, removal of sanctions in return for a stop, though temporary, of its 20 percent enrichment - but only if the West provides the same highly enriched stock to them..." [complete article available at Is Team Obama Secretly Negotiating With Iran In Ploy To Influence Election?]
Here we note that Mr. Kahlili had provided information to the same effect to other alternative media sources including World Net Daily, however to our knowledge what we published represented his most current thinking before things got really interesting.

Witness that on the 20th, the New York Times published U.S. Officials Say Iran Has Agreed to Nuclear Talks in which it claimed, relying upon leaks by "Obama administration officials," that the administration either had or was very close to inking a deal, arrived in "secret" negotiations with the Mullocracy in which Iran would at least temporarily give up its program of further enriching uranium in exchange for a lifting of the limited Western economic sanctions against the country.

Within the Times' piece was this curious paragraph, " The White House denied that a final agreement had been reached. "It's not true that the United States and Iran have agreed to one-on-one talks or any meeting after the American elections," Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman, said Saturday evening. He added, however, that the administration was open to such talks, and has "said from the outset that we would be prepared to meet bilaterally."

So with one hand the NY Times creates a national security firestorm and with the other hand attempts to proverbially, put the Genie back in the bottle and tamp the story down.

That is odd indeed. You can say what you want about the Time's bias, but it is an extraordinarily competent news organization in that it is not easily rolled. They may "cooperate" with various [read Democrat] administrations, politicians and allied special interest groups, but the possibility that the Times was bagged in this case is less than remote.

So what gives?

Michael Ledeen, over the weekend provided some much needed background information from the point of view of an insider.

1. Talks between the U.S. and Iran have been ongoing, "...do not know of any American president from Jimmy Carter to the present who did not secretly pursue a deal with Tehran. (I participated in such talks in the mid-1980s during the Reagan administration.)"

2. He also notes that the Times' piece stated that there was no evidence that Iran's "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had approved of any deal, assuming one was actually struck.


Regarding Nicholas Burns, whom the Times' quotes as being supporting of this alleged deal, we wrote:

"...Nick Burns was also a member of President Clinton's dysfunctional national security team serving [1990-95] on his National Security Council. His entire CV is one of a leftie intellectual, a product of Wellesley [Hillary's alma-mater] and the Sorbonne. [source, Wiki, Nicholas Burns]. He now teaches at Harvard and is being trotted out as the pretend Bush era hawk who favors once again humiliating the U.S. in pointless negotiations with Iran over a topic - nuclear fuel enrichment - which was the very cause of the most recent talks blowing up..."
Adding to suspicions regarding Burn's intent, considering that the Times was employing a standard elitist media technique - using a phony conservative to undermine a truly conservative, additionally in this case realistic argument - Ledeen notes that Burns seems not to have learned the lesson in humiliation previously taught him by the Iranian regime.
"...Burns, who was Condoleezza Rice's top negotiator with the Iranians, actually believed he had negotiated a "grand bargain" with the Iranians in 2006. The Iranians would suspend nuclear enrichment and we would lift sanctions. Except that the Iranians failed to show up for the signing ceremony at the United Nations, and Rice and Burns sat in New York waiting for the Iranian airplane to take off from Tehran. Apparently Mr. Burns didn't learn the obvious lesson..."
Apparently Burns and other diplomatic/State Department types [especially those manning the notoriously Arabist Middle East Desk] just can't help themselves, even when having been previously played for fools, burned badly and publicly.

So what to make of this entire matter, this gambit?

That someone in the administration passed information along to the Times on "the deal" is hard to disbelieve, again the Times has written the book on the art of leaking. Ditto their simply making this up, in our judgment that just didn't happen. Even under the debased "standards" of the legacy media, revelation of such fabrication would be the kiss of death to an already tottering enterprise.

So from that we conclude that Team Obama indeed did throw this out there, but for what purpose is impossible to determine. It does however seem determinative as to the level of panic in the West Wing and with the last debate - foreign policy - at hand.

Perhaps the most plausible explanation is that this WH might be so desperate that they are tossing this tidbit out there merely to muddy the waters, possibly intending to set the stage for the allegation that Mr. Romney might be trigger happy, anxious to in their parlance, "plunge America into another unpopular war."

Seeing the now probability of his defeat two weeks from now, Team Obama feels power already draining away. Already there is a war of leaks within Obama foreign policy/intel superstructure.. Intel isn't going to take the fall for Benghazi, State is no different, regardless of Hillary's politically calculated "noble" falling on her sword for the boss.

Another considered here, aside from the speculation over Iran. Regarding America's overall defense posture - and setting aside Team Obama's gutting of the U.S. military:

As September 11, 2012 approached would any seasoned national security professional not consider the possibility of a terrorist act being directed at American citizens, especially those stationed outside the confines of the U.S., and act accordingly? Why weren't defenses hardened? In locations and countries deemed irretrievably indefensible, why wasn't staff whisked away?

Libya was clearly a war zone and there were a lot of forces in that country who were not at all pleased with the toppling of Gadhafi. It has been reported that in Benghazi, not a large town, some buildings were prominently flying the al-Qaeda flag and hundreds of security "incidents" had been recorded in the area over previous months.

If this was not grounds for concern it's hard to imagine what would be. Yet in the face of such imminent threat and despite the pleading of ambassador, security was lessened at the Benghazi embassy, personnel actually withdrawn - to their great consternation, testifying so before Congress two weeks ago. [see our Oct. 11 piece, House Hearing - Obama's Failure in Benghazi]

Of particular note, Frank Gaffney, President of the Center for Security Policy, just published a very detailed piece dealing with all of these and related issues. This is a must read - The Real Reason Behind Benghazi.

The explanation here is easy. Obama has been running on the lie that al-Qaeda is moribund, that he killed bin-Laden [please ignore the fact that Binny's location was obtained by rather coercive means, all of which Obama continues to oppose as constituting torture] and therefore his foreign policy credentials are impeccable.

The real picture of course is exactly the opposite. Through his actions, now culminating in Benghazi and this silly Iranian gambit, he has singlehandedly destabilized the Middle East. Of note, Mr. Obama's "dead" al-Qaeda was in large part responsible for the embassy attack and the organization and its many franchises have established numerous beachheads throughout the ME and especially North and Eastern Africa. We have written extensively of al-Qaeda's push - via Al-Shabaab - in Kenya, where Muslims are a tiny minority.

If Barack Hussein Obama believes that all of this qualifies him for a second term, then he must be entirely delusional. The damage this president has wrought in the space of less than 4 years, has forced the United States into a position of national security weakness unparalleled in recent history.

©2012 PipeLineNews.org. All rights reserved.

http://www.pipelinenews.org/2012/oct/22/Obama-Negotiations-With-Iran-Further-Thoughts.html

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