As Predicted: One of Obama's October Surprises

U.S. Officials Say Iran Has Agreed to Nuclear Talks‏

NY Times

 

-->The United States and Iran have agreed for the first time to one-on-one negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, according to Obama administration officials, setting the stage for what could be a last-ditch diplomatic effort to avert a military strike on Iran.

 
In an exclusive report in Sunday’s New York Times, Helene Cooper and Mark Landler, citing Obama administration officials, write that Iranian officials have insisted that the talks wait until after the presidential election so that they know which American president they would be dealing with. 

News of the agreement comes at a critical moment in the presidential contest. It has the potential to help President Obama make a case that he is nearing a diplomatic breakthrough in the effort to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, but it could pose a risk if Iran is seen as using the prospect of the direct talks to buy time. It is also far from clear that Mr. Obama’s opponent, Mitt Romney, would go through with the negotiation should he win election.

Comment: As reported at this blog some time ago, the details of such negotiations are at best suspicious. The essence of the talks will center around Iran reducing the amount of nuclear material to be produced (not cessation of production) in exchange for complete lifting of sanctions by USA against Iran.  Given Iran's "track record" keeping agreements and honoring their word one can only be cautious entering into such a deal.  Furthermore, if Iran is willing to make any concessions does this not demonstrate that the sanctions are working and the only thing we should discuss with Iran is the open inspection of all their sites after they agree to a full and complete stop of production? 

BTW when did these discussions begin? Just within the last few weeks?  Did they align with Obama's drop in the polls?  For a party that has criticized the Romney campaign for politicizing events, the Democrats know a thing or two about hypocrisy.

AND there is the following: 

Winning at any cost? No deal has EVER been kept with Iran, nor has any lie been withheld by the mullahs.  It is simply a religious obligation: Taqiyaa.

They could only temporarily take a public maneuver to make sure Obama wins.  Iranian leadership VERY satisfied with the  record of Obama of trying to stop their nuclearization program.  Romney will surely be harder to deal with.  

The stakes have never been bigger. 

Then again, maybe this is Republican shenanigans

Too bad and too late, that we will only know for sure in hindsight. Share it for more people to test.

Shakespeare would have said, “A pox on both their houses”.

Don

Obama’s October Surprise Nuke Deal with Iran Emerges --October 19, 2012

Jerry Gordan, Iconoclast

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and author of the award-winning book “A Time to Betray” (Simon & Schuster, 2010). He serves on the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and the advisory board of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran (FDI).

On October 6th, we headlined a report from Reza Kahlili, ex-CIA agent about secret negotiations in Doha, Qatar between a US delegation and a senior representative of the Islamic regime in Tehran, Ali Akbar Velayati, the former Iranian Foreign Minister and current close adviser to the Supreme Leader on international affairs. The headline we used was, “Will there be an Obama October Surprise on Iran’s Nuclear Enrichment?” 

Kahlili has released a new report today , based on reliable sources in Iran, that a tentative deal has been reached and who the mysterious US woman was who had long term connections inside the Islamic Republic, Valarie Jarrett, a close advisor to President Obama.

Kahlili notes in this latest World Net Daily report today, “Obama cuts deal with Iran over nukes” the outline of the proposed deal and alleged timing;

Iranian and U.S. negotiators have reached an agreement that calls for Iran to halt part of its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of many of the U.S. sanctions against the Islamic regime, according to a highly placed source.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, expects a letter from President Obama in a few days guaranteeing the details of the agreement, arrived at recently during secret negotiations in Doha, Qatar.

The source, who remains anonymous for security reasons and is highly placed in Iran’s regime, said that once Khamenei receives Obama’s guarantees, he will authorize an announcement by Iran on a solution to the nuclear crisis before the U.S. presidential elections.

The agreement calls for Iran to announce a temporary halt to partial uranium enrichment after which the U.S. will remove many of its sanctions, including those on the Iranian central bank, no later than by the Iranian New Year in March. Iran is in the throes of massive inflation and citizen unrest because of the sanctions.

French intelligence verified today that Yukiya Amano, the current director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has been given the go-ahead by the U.S. to be ready to travel to Iran and announce the agreement, according to Hamid Reza Zakeri, a former intelligence officer in the regime who has defected to Europe.

The source in Tehran said Khamenei has made it clear that unless he receives Obama’s written guarantees, he will not begin the process, which would dramatically boost Obama’s re-election chances. If the guarantees are not given, Khamenei has warned, Iran will speed up its nuclear program.

The veil has also been lifted on the mysterious woman intermediary on behalf of President Obama in the secret Doha negotiations and her family ties to Velayati.

In the Qatar meeting, according to the Iranian source, the American woman delegate, who has had several meetings with Velayati during the past several years, jokingly told Velayati that she will be the next secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in a second Obama administration and that it would be wise for Iranians to invest in U.S. real estate.

In the past five months, four meetings were held in the U.S. with the Islamic regime’s surrogates to hash out what was to be discussed at the Doha meeting. The source identified Valerie Jarrett, a senior Obama adviser, as the head of the U.S. effort to engage Iran. Also identified was Cyrus Amir Mokri, assistant secretary of the Treasury Department for financial institutions, as another member advising the president on the issue.

Jarrett’s family has known the Velayati family since their stay in Iran in the 1950s, the source added. Jarrett’s father worked at the Namazi hospital in Shiraz, owned by an Iranian family that has been influential with the regime after the Islamic Revolution.

The WND article indicated that both the State Department and the White House when approached declined to comment on these reports.

This cynical back channel play by the Obama Administration appeasing the Mullahs at a time when they desperate to head off another economic collapse when hard currency reserves run out in the near future. That, and the continuing downward spiral of the Iranian rial could stoke possible riots of greater magnitude than the recent bazaar protest.
However, the WND report notes what opposition in Iran has said about these prospects:

Many within the Iranian opposition believe that if the West continues to pressure the Islamic regime and supports the aspirations of the majority of the Iranian people who resent the regime and its ideology, the regime will face a nationwide uprising and will collapse from within, changing the geopolitics of not only the region but the world.

However, if the regime is provided a lifeline for whatever reason, not only will it get the bomb but it will take Iranians and the world hostage for decades to come, they believe.
If this Obama October surprise is confirmed, will it surface in time to make a difference in a close race with Romney’s poll figures currently surpassing those of the President?

The timing of this Obama deal with Iran is exquisite. It would upstage the upcoming final Presidential debate on Foreign Policy, deflecting attention from what has been called Benghazigate by the media, the unraveling of the facts about the jihadist attack on the consulate and killing of four Americans including the US Ambassador on what is deemed US territory. Moreover, it would push to the side Israeli PM demands for red lines on Iran’s uranium enrichment program.

Netanyahu has called for early elections in February 2013 to bolster Israeli public support for a possible military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities. It would as we pointed out in our early article on this possible Obama October surprise bolster Jewish votes in key battleground states for his re-election. It would further consternate EU implement of tougher sanctions that started this week.

In our earlier October surprise article we commented:

This October surprise is a classic Persian chess gambit to confuse the real intentions of the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guards in their inexorable progress towards achieving a nuclear weapons capability.

Remember Churchill’s famous quote about appeasers: “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last”