Israel Matzav

Iran thumbs its nose at a desperate Obama

President Obumbler is desperate for a deal - any deal - with Iran. In fact, he is so desperate, according to the New York Times, that he even sent back channel messages to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that sending Iran's uranium to fellow up and coming Islamist Turkey is acceptable. And Ahmadinejad is laughing in Obama's face all the way to the bank.

The Obama administration, attempting to salvage a faltering nuclear deal with Iran, has told Iran’s leaders in back-channel messages that it is willing to allow the country to send its stockpile of enriched uranium to any of several nations, including Turkey, for temporary safekeeping, according to administration officials and diplomats involved in the exchanges.

But the overtures, made through the International Atomic Energy Agency over the past two weeks, have all been ignored, the officials said. Instead, they said, the Iranians have revived an old counterproposal: that international arms inspectors take custody of much of Iran’s fuel, but keep it on Kish, a Persian Gulf resort island that is part of Iran.

A senior Obama administration official said that proposal had been rejected because leaving the nuclear material on Iranian territory would allow for the possibility that the Iranians could evict the international inspectors at any moment. That happened in North Korea in 2003, and within months the country had converted its fuel into the material for several nuclear weapons.

The intermediary in the exchanges between Washington and Tehran has been Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the energy agency. He confirmed some of the proposals — including one to send Iran’s fuel to Turkey, which has nurtured close relations with Iran — in interviews in New York late last week.

And what are the Israelis doing about this?

Officials in Israel, which feels the most threatened by Iran, have hinted that if Iran does not accept the Geneva deal they will revive their consideration of a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Mr. Obama’s own aides say they cannot determine whether the Israelis are bluffing.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is visiting the White House on Monday evening. I heard he is going to give President Obama a couple of baseballs as a gift.

Heh.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:15 AM