Obama softens on nuclear Iran: Keep components, just promise not to weaponise them

OBAMA IS PREPARING THE PUBLIC FOR A LOUSY DEAL ON IRAN’S ATOMIC PROGRAM.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis September 18, 2013,

The moderate mien of Iran’s new president Hassan Rouhani has had its intended effect – even before nuclear dialogue began. President Barack Obama had only one demand of Tehran: “Iran would have to demonstrate its own seriousness by agreement not to weaponise nuclear power,” he said Wednesday, Sept. 18. He thus took at his word Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who declared the day before: “We are against nuclear weapons. And when we say no one should have nuclear weapons, we definitely do not pursue it ourselves either.”

The symmetry between the words from Washington and Tehran was perfect in content and timing – and not by chance.

DEBKAfile’s Washington and Iranian sources disclose that it was choreographed in advance.

Obama and Khamenei have been exchanging secret messages through Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said of Oman, who visited Tehran in the last week of August and conferred with both Khameini and Rouhani.

In the last message, carried to Tehran by Oman’s Defense Minister Sayyid Badr bin Said Al Busaidiat, the US president said that Rouhani’s conciliatory gestures towards Washington needed to be backed up by an explicit pledge not to weaponise Iran’s nuclear program.

That pledge must come from the supreme leader in person and delivered publicly to Iran’s most hawkish audience, Revolutionary Guards chiefs.
And indeed, Khamenei acted out his part Tuesday under TV cameras.

Full details of the exchanges going back and both between Washington and Tehran will appear in the coming DEBKA Weekly 603 out Friday, Sept. 20.
They will confirm that the US president has come to terms with a nuclear-capable Iran and will be satisfied with Ayatollah Khamenei’s word that Tehran will not take the last step to actually assemble a bomb.

Our sources note that in his direct secret dialogue with Tehran, Obama is pursuing the same tactics he used for the Syrian chemical issue with Russian President Vladmir Putin: Moving fast forward on the secret track while pretending that the process is still at an early stage and then a sudden leap to target – a particular form of diplomacy consisting of verbal calisthenics.
This pretense was played out at the G20, when the two presidents acted as though they were irreconcilably divided on the Syrian question, while secretly tying up the ends of the chemical accord.

Obama’s willingness to accept Khamenei’s oft-repeated assurance that his country’s nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes – while letting its military program advance to the brink – leaves Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu lagging far behind and his Iranian policy with nowhere to go.

At the Israeli cabinet meeting Tuesday, the prime minister said his White House talks with President Obama on Sept. 30 would focus on Iran and his four demands:

1) Complete halt of uranium enrichment;
2) Removal of enriched materials from Iran;
3) Closure of the Fordo enrichment plant;
4) Termination of plutonium production at Arak.

Notwithstanding the briefing offered by Secretary of State John Kerry when he visited Jerusalem on Sunday, Sept. 15, it looks as though Obama is keeping the Israeli prime minister in the dark on his moves towards Iran.

September 18, 2013 | 6 Comments »

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  1. Iran’s DEATH Program, (Mostly) Via Its Centrifuges, Spins On: Courtesy of Barack HUSSEIN Obama & His Linkage To Syria!…Commentary By Adina Kutnicki
    http://adinakutnicki.com/2013/09/17/irans-death-program-mostly-via-its-centrifuges-spins-on-courtesy-of-barack-hussein-obama-his-linkage-to-syria-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
    HOT on the heels of a recent commentary, The Islamist-in-Chief Jaw-Jaws Iran To The Finish Line In A Side Deal With Syria: Allah’s/Devil’s Bargain With America’s Foes (9/13/2013), its basic thesis was confirmed through various strategic analysts, as well as (inadvertently) through Sec of State Kerry’s sprint to ‘reassure’ PM Netanyahu, yes, America has Israel’s back. In a pig’s eye.

  2. Netanyahu’s deceptive tactics obscure strategic success

    Netanyahu’s deceptive tactics obscure strategic success – Opinion Israel News | Haaretz.

    Rather than being bad news for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Iranian strategy, the agreement to disarm Syria of its chemical weapons is proof of its success.
    By Avi Shilon | Sep. 18, 2013 | 2:15 AM http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.547564

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: His bluster hides a successful strategy. Photo by AP

    The prevailing argument regarding the U.S.-Russian agreement to disarm Syria of its chemical weapons is that it’s a bad development, even a failure, for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Iranian strategy. Since Israel behaved as though it was hoping for a U.S. attack – both behind the scenes and in the dissemination of reports to the effect that Military Intelligence had intercepted conversations confirming that Syrian President Bashar Assad had deliberately used chemical weapons – the natural conclusion is that the cancellation of the operation is a blow to Israeli policy. A policy that hoped that an attack would send a signal to Iran and undermine its ally.

    Even Netanyahu’s “If I am not for myself, then who will be for me” speeches early in the week and anonymous statements by ministers reinforce the sense of Israeli disappointment. And in fact, Iran is presumably watching the behavior of U.S. President Barack Obama and concluding that it won’t be attacked either. Netanyahu therefore remains alone. It is tempting to mock him, as many are doing.

    This point of view confuses the prime minister’s tactics and his strategy, which is now in its optimal and most promising stage. The truth is that Israel, in contradiction to Netanyahu’s belligerent declarations, does not want to attack Iran, not alone and not with the help of the United States. That is a last option, whose effectiveness is not guaranteed, even in the opinion of those who favor a military strike. Israel – also in contradiction to Netanyahu’s declarations – does not really fear a second Holocaust, but rather the very fact that Iran possesses nuclear weapons, which weakens Israel strategically and is liable to cause the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

    In order to prevent that, Netanyahu is threatening an attack. In order to strengthen the threat, he is using the card of Holocaust awareness. That, in effect, is a deceptive tactic: to create a sense of horrifying danger to the country, which will require the U.S. to defend its ally, or require Israel to embark on a preventive action.

    The strategic objective is different: to carry out in Iran what will happen in Syria. Because it’s clear to everyone that Iran’s nuclear program, like the chemical weapons in Syria, cannot be destroyed completely in a military attack. The disarmament agreement in Syria produces a result more effective than any bomb – even if it is not implemented in its entirety. Netanyahu is now at the peak of implementing his strategy – precisely because of the reasons that ostensibly prove that it is weakening.

    Nore does the fact that Russia prevented an attack prove the other side of the coin. In effect, Russian President Vladimir Putin has joined the effort against non-conventional weapons. Since Russia’s status in the world has been strengthened as a result of the agreement, it is likely to join a similar move against Iran. Because even Russia is not interested in the proliferation of non-conventional weapons, but in strengthening its diplomatic power.

    In addition, Obama’s foot-dragging before the attack also reinforces the threat against Iran. Had the U.S. attacked in Syria – after the tiring process leading up to a vote in Congress and in light of the collapse of his international support – we can reasonably assume that the administration would have been too exhausted to embark on another campaign. In Iran, they are probably concluding that Obama can’t threaten twice and give in both times. Next time, he’ll shoot. That is why the chances that Iran is willing to compromise have increased.

    The trap in which Netanyahu finds himself lies in his inability to boast of an achievement. If he declares that he is satisfied, he will lose, He must continue to threaten, and through his ministers to convey ostensible disappointment in the Americans. If the cooperation with the U.S. administration continues to be conducted clandestinely, until in the end Iraq’s nuclear projects are dismantled, the newspapers will continue to mock Netanyahu’s lack of proportion in connection with the Iranian threat – but historians will judge his Iranian policy positively.

  3. I am relatively certain now that nobody will attack Iran, irrespective of their fabrication of nuclear weapons. “Nobody” includes the USA, Israel, China, Russia, India or any combination of the above-named states.

    All international talk that contradicts the above, in my judgement, is just the usual and expected television and weblog-based bullshit.

    So dream up some other answer to any problems expected to result from that reality.

    Arnold Harris
    Mount Horeb WI

  4. “A nation that dwells alone” and one that had better realize this reality real soon and take appropriate unilateral steps to ensure its own survival!

  5. Israel failed to expose Obama’s duplicity early on when doing so could have put Obama on the defensive. Obama will now offer Israel a fake compromise on Iran and then claim he has protected Israel. In return he will demand Israeli concession on the ‘two state’ solution. Israel then ends up with the West Bank turning into another Gaza and Iran within an inch of going nuclear.