Obama challenged at home and abroad over Iran talks
Obama challenged at home and abroad over Iran talks | The Times of Israel.
Congressional hardliners and anxious international allies wonder if US president’s drive for a diplomatic solution will lead to a bad deal
November 12, 2013, 12:48 pm 
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s hopes for a nuclear deal with Iran now depend in part on his ability to keep a lid on both hard-liners in Congress and anxious allies abroad, including Israel, the Persian Gulf states and even France.
Each of the wary parties is guided in some measure by domestic political interests. But they also share concerns that Obama may want a breakthrough with Iran so badly that he would be willing to accept a deal that prematurely eases economic pressure on Iran and gives the Islamic republic space to pursue a nuclear weapon.
“All of us want to see diplomacy,” Republican Sen. Bob Corker told NBC News. “But we’re also concerned about an administration that seems really ready to jump into the arms of folks and potentially deal away some of the leverage we have.”
Indeed, there’s little question Obama desires a deal with Iran, which could give him a boost during a shaky stretch in his presidency that has included the deeply flawed rollout of his signature health care law, new revelations about US government spying and falling approval ratings. Successful negotiations with Iran also could validate Obama’s long-held belief that the US should be willing to talk to adversaries without preconditions.
Obama and his advisers reject the notion that they are naive about Iran’s intentions. And they insist the world must test whether new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is serious about his announced desire for improved relations with the West.
Colin Kahl, who served as a top Pentagon Middle East official during Obama’s first term, said the very fact that the success or failure of a nuclear agreement would be so critical to Obama’s presidency ensures the administration won’t sign off on a subpar agreement with Tehran.
“The president sees preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon as not only central to vital US national security interests, but also to his own legacy,” said Kahl, now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “They’re not going to accept a bad deal.”
Talks between Iran and six world powers — the US, France, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and Germany — ended over the weekend without an agreement on a preliminary deal that would have set the stage for broader talks. Diplomats said talks broke down in part because the international powers refused to formally recognize Iran’s right to enrich uranium.
France also expressed concerns that proposed limits on Iran’s ability to make nuclear fuel don’t go far enough. France also sounded alarms over a planned heavy water reactor that would produce greater amounts of byproduct plutonium, which can be used in nuclear weapons production. Western officials later tried to gloss over the French concerns, but their public comments raised questions about cracks in the international coalition.
Iran insists it is not pursuing a bomb and only wants to enrich uranium for energy and medical applications.
Negotiations are due to resume in Geneva on Nov. 20. In exchange for nuclear concessions from Iran, the US and world powers are offering Tehran limited and reversible relief from economic sanctions that have strained its economy.
In the days leading up to the next round of Geneva talks, Obama is likely to confront renewed skepticism from congressional lawmakers and allies overseas.
Some US lawmakers oppose the president’s willingness to ease sanctions on Iran, even temporarily, and instead want to layer on new economic penalties. At the Obama administration’s request, a sanctions bill in the Senate Banking Committee was put on hold, but it’s unclear how much longer lawmakers are willing to wait.
Obama personally placed a call last week to Republican Sen. Mark Kirk, a key sanctions drafter, to ask that legislation be stopped. Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and White House chief of staff Denis McDonough have all talked with lawmakers in recent days. And the White House is dispatching Kerry to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to implore the Senate Banking Committee to pause the legislation once again.
The US also is being squeezed abroad by allies, most notably Israel, which sees Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon as an existential threat. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu characterized the outlines of an agreement that had appeared to be emerging last week as “the deal of the century” for Iran.
His comment prompted a call from Obama to reassure the Israeli leader that the US still agrees about the need to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Wendy Sherman, the top US nuclear negotiator, also traveled to Jerusalem following the Geneva talks to try to assuage Netanyahu’s fears. And there are certain to be more high-level discussions between the US and Israel over the next 10 days.
The Obama administration also is trying to ease concerns among allies in the Gulf, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which have expressed wariness about interim agreements that would allow Iran to keep enriching uranium. Kerry visited Saudi Arabia last week and stopped in Abu Dhabi on Monday.
After decades of frozen relations, Obama has rapidly ratcheted up diplomacy with Iran in recent months, making little secret of his desire to test the waters for nuclear negotiations.
Obama reached out to Rouhani through a series of letters this summer, sparking speculation that the two might meet face-to-face while they both attended meetings at the United Nations in September. When that meeting failed to transpire, the White House made clear that it was Rouhani, not Obama, who balked at the last minute.
Days later, Obama and Rouhani spoke by phone, a historic call that marked the first direct conversation between a US and Iranian leader in more than 30 years. There have since been several lower-level meetings between American and Iranian officials.
Polling shows Americans back Obama’s call for direct negotiations with Iran. A CNN/ORC International poll conducted in late September found 76 percent of Americans favored direct diplomatic negotiations with Iran aimed at preventing the Islamic republic from developing a nuclear weapon. Twenty-one percent opposed direct negotiations.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.
Explore posts in the same categories: Uncategorized
WarSclerotic 
November 12, 2013 at 4:08 PM
This whole process is a huge embarrassment for most American people. Here we have a man (questionable) who goes by the name of John F. Kerry (JFK) negotiating on our behalf with a country who has repeatedly attacked us, namely Iran. A man who surrendered in the Vietnam War long before the war ended. A man who once claimed he threw away nine medals in protest and then lied about the incident in his presidential campaign. A man who gave the North Vietcong a reason to back away from the negotiating tables. Yep, that’s our boy…negotiating with Mullahs on our behalf.
Welcome to the Obama administration. Please be sure to buckle your seat belts. It’s going to be rough ride over the next three years. Meanwhile, please sit quietly like good little boys and girls and focus your attention of getting your medical insurance activated. We’ll do the rest for you.
November 12, 2013 at 7:08 PM
Should be called KFC (Kerry fried chicken).
My sympathy with the American people who have to put up with this barrage of crap.
They have to suffer under this “leadership from Obavez’ behind”.
I hope that they somehow get rid of this bunch of criminals or at least that they prevent them from doing further harm to this great country.
I’ve heard from some conservative talk show hosts that the Democrats will be slaughtered in the 2014 elections. I hope that they are right.
The Americans and the world deserve better.
November 12, 2013 at 9:26 PM
A case for a nuclear ultimatum with Iran….
http://www.michaelsavage.wnd.com/2013/11/repairing-the-world-through-the-righteous-use-of-nuclear-weapons/
Interesting to say the least.
November 12, 2013 at 10:07 PM
Thanks Steve, my thoughts exactly. I watched Kerry, the compulsive liar, since the hearing on Vietnam and today my worst fears have come true.
November 12, 2013 at 8:55 PM
The quintessence of the US-Israel split on Iran
http://www.madisdead.blogspot.co.il/2013/11/the-quintessence-of-us-israel-split-on.html
The difference on Iran between Israel and the US is fundamental. Netanyahu understands that the Mutually Assured Destruction MAD doctrine is inapplicable to Iran and therefore the threat from Iran is global and orders of magnitude more severe than if this were not the case.
The US apparently believes Bernard Lewis is some looney professor who has no idea what he is talking about.
November 13, 2013 at 5:45 AM
The Real Barack Obama
Obama finally explains his wise, astute foreign policy
It’s all 1960s hippie culture. Just BRILLIANT!
In a nutshell here is Obama’s ENTIRE FOREIGN POLICY.
Peace, dude! Yo ma brutha! Dig on it! Right arm, brutha, right ARM. Peace an powuh! 1,2,3,4! We don’t wantcher racist war! Cuz I be like YO! Iran is the leader of the pistachio trade. All they want is medical isotopes. And pistachios! So that be like PEACE! I be be-bopping down for to smoke the hashish peace pipe with the pistachio dude, wuz up, get down! Do you know we’re riding on the Marrakesh Express? Muslims? THEY be cool! Chill out! Hey check it OUT bro! Is Rouhani for peace? He be DOIN it! Yo yo yo yo yo. DIG on it!
Here is White House spokesman Jay Carney EXPLAINING Obama’s ENTIRE MASTER STRATEGY: WE DON’T WANT A MARCH TO WAR!
Obama and Kerry are fresh back from the anti-war march and they got it all figured OUT! We don’t want a march to war! Those lousy warmonger right wing Jews! If it wasn’t for THEM we’d have no problems! The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world! It MUST be! My Iranian girlfriend Valerie Jarrett, who runs my White House, said so!
Because me? I ain’t a-marchin’ anymore! Just like that 1960s Phil Ochs anti-war hippie song SAID! Here it is! This is the answer to EVERYTHING!
I’m not a COWARD! I just don’t like war! Just like in that OTHER Phil Ochs song:
And while we’re at it, here’s some MORE of my foreign policy! All we need is some folk songs from Phil Ochs and Pete Seeger and we’re good to go! Seeger came from a New England Calvinist Protestant family. Why, he’s almost Jewish! Like, luv me one o’ my favorite Seeger songs, THE LION SLEEPS TONIGHT. Just like I said to Rouhani RIGHT off! Yo man! In the jungle the mighty jungle the lion sleeps tonight! And Rouhani said, “You know what? You’re RIGHT! I’m gonna turn over a new leaf! Just like that!”
Here’s The Tokens explaining how Obama solved ALL THE PROBLEMS IN THE WORLD! He just WENT to the Moozlims and TOLD em that the lion was going to lie down with the lamb! And it worked! Just like that! War has finally weemed its last weem away!
And don’t forget Crosby, Stills & Nash’s “Marrakesh Express”! Why the moment I went on a trip to a Moozlim country I just KNEW that they were cool! I made a speech in Cairo and got a Nobel Prize! You see how EASY it is? Peace dude! Just sing along and there won’t be any more wars in the Middle East EVER AGAIN!
Hey! Moozlims are cool! They beat their wives senseless and kill them for walking through a courtyard that had men there and won’t let them have doctors because they aren’t about to let a man touch their wife even to save her life! They’re LIBERALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Okay, HONORARY liberals. But still! They’re just so KIND! Hangin out smokin the water pipe! THEY be cool! Dig on it! If Iran is getting the bomb me and Kerry will solve EVERYTHING just by sayin, “Go easy, man. Be cool!” And it WORKED! I be hangin out with the Iranians and they be chillin out!
It’s peace in our time!
Hippie power.
November 13, 2013 at 6:30 AM
I think the approach of this article doesnt fit reality : Mr Obama running the WH is in my opinion simply not possible. never was there someone in the Oval Office more weak and less trustworthy, total lack of transparency (2nd term in Office& still no credible birthcertificate / is he Indonesian or US citizen / is he muslim or Christian / what about the neverending stories of his sexual tendencies – of his former membership in the extremist, antisemitic Organisation TUCC ? ) , lack of professional qualification ( what did he study / what professional experience has he ? ). C’mon , no company would hire a person like him – but to run the USA he is good enough ???
Nobody can really believe that – nobody ! To me its totally clear that Mr Obama is the New World Order puppet in the WH, reading word by word from his indispensible telepromter what his masters told him to say / doing exactly what his masters told him to do ! A Person like him could never ever run the WH – its just not possible ! The grounds for marshall law have been prepared ( BHO was told to do so, so he did it ), whats needed is just another crisis ( no problem, thats the WH speciality worldwide ) and there we go ! WAKE UP US CITIZENS – YOUR HOUSE IS ON FULL FIRE !