Pirate's Cove

Breitbart’s John Hayward focuses on all the yelling from Iranian negotiators and others at Obama’s hapless negotiators

IRAN ‘NEGOTIATIONS’ INVOLVED A LOT OF IRAN SHOUTING AT HAPLESS U.S. TEAM

The New York Times published an embarrassing look at what went on behind the scenes during the long, long months of “nuclear negotiations” with Iran. Apparently, it involved a good deal of Iran shouting at the hapless U.S. team and declaring its demands non-negotiable, while Team Obama threw in one towel after another. (snip for an excerpt from the Times)

We are also still discovering details about this alleged mutual capitulation, too. For example, we just learned American nuclear inspectors are banned from Iran under the deal. We have to help them provide security for their nuclear operations, but we can’t inspect them.

Right after telling its liberal readership that fairy tale, the Times dishes a bit more about what was really going on:

Privately, Mr. Kerry told his team that any lifting of the ban was bound to inflame many in Congress, where fears of empowering Iran would mix with presidential politics. But shortly before midnight on Monday he called President Obama, and together they agreed that it was not worth losing what they saw as the best chance to roll back Iran’s nuclear program simply because there was a risk that sometime in the future Iran would be able to acquire far less dangerous weapons.

Over the 17 long days here in Vienna, the standoffs, trade-offs, shouts and confrontations — some real, some staged for negotiating advantage — sometimes obscured the fact that the two countries were negotiating with entirely different agendas.

As Mr. Obama made clear again Wednesday, the alternative he saw to the deal was a steady slide toward another war — perhaps, aides thought, in just a year or two as Iran’s nuclear abilities accelerated. Throughout the talks, he had one goal: to diminish the prospect that Iran could develop an atomic bomb — or could race for one before the United States and its allies could react — and buy time to try to restructure the relationship.

For the president, everything else — Iran’s support for terrorism, its imprisonment of dissidents and even some Americans, its meddling in Iraq and Syria, its arms trade — was secondary.

None of that is news to anyone, least of all the Iranians. They understood all along that their bargaining position was superior, because Obama needed a deal at any cost — as his critics have said all along, he would take a bad deal over no deal, especially as he got deeper into the process, and it became more obvious that both Obama’s ego and political needs made backing away from the table unthinkable. Obama and Kerry doubled down with every losing hand, until the Iranians cleaned them out.

Right there is the major problem: Obama wanted a deal no matter what. He sees things in black and white, which is why he trots out the “if you have a better idea, let’s hear it” line. He seems to believe that there is a choice between either war or a deal, no matter how bad. Hence, we end up with a deal that gives Iran most of everything they want, and only limits Iran’s nuclear aspirations for about a decade. Provided they don’t cheat. And rogue nations like Iran would never cheat, right? The problem itself has been kicked down the road for another president to deal with, while the US provides security, can’t inspect, drops sanctions, and sees billions put into Iranian coffers. All while ignoring every other issue, as mentioned in that last paragraph in the NY Times excerpt above.

This deal wasn’t about making the U.S. safer, nor the Middle East or even Europe: it was about stroking Obama’s ego. And the Iranian’s knew it, and took advantage of it.

Crossed at Right Wing News.