Israel Matzav

Hassan Rohani in his own words

As new Iranian President Hassan Rohani heads to the United Nations for his charm offensive, and a possible meeting with American President Hussein Obama, it is worth recalling just who Rohani is.

As Ambassador John Bolton had said at an EMET seminar on August 28th, in the years between 2003 and 2005, Mr. Rouhani was in charge of the Iran's nuclear negotiations, he offered the Europeans a diplomatic opening, and has subsequently boasted on how he played them:

Hassan Rouhani says, in his own words, "The day that we invited the three European ministers [to the talks], only 10 centrifuges were spinning at [the Iranian nuclear facility of] Natanz... We could not produce one gram of U4 or U6 [uranium hexafluoride]... We did not have the heavy-water production. We could not produce yellow cake. Our total production of centrifuges inside the country was 150."

Rouhani continues: "We wanted to complete all of these -- we needed time." He actually called the Europeans "human shields" against American efforts to halt the Iranian nuclear program. He then boasted that after he took responsibility for negotiations, the nuclear project grew to 1700 centrifuges, and that "We did not stop (negotiations), until we completed the project."

Leopards do not change their spots. Mr. Rouhani had been a strong confidant and devotee of Ayatollah Khomeini, and true believer of the Iranian revolution. He is using the old ruse of playing the West over our desire to negotiate, which he has developed into an advanced art form.

Labels: Hassan Rohani, Iranian nuclear threat, United Nations General Assembly

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:44 AM