Home » Obama’s secret negotiations with Iran

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Obama’s secret negotiations with Iran — 9 Comments

  1. Someone needs to do a film on media hypocricy WRT Obama and Trump and find a way to show it to lots of young people-especially those college-age idiots who think they know everything. Maybe it could be spread around on Facebook. It could include te latest FOIA info on Bengazi and info on te Russian uranium deal.

  2. in 2008, while he was running for the presidency, Barack Obama deliberately undermined American foreign policy by secretly encouraging Iran’s mullahs….

    Before Ronald Reagan was elected president in November 1980, the prevailing political wisdom about US Middle East policy went as follows: Although the Ayatollah Khomeini had thwarted Jimmy Carter at every turn, Carter’s failed Desert One rescue attempt might look mild in comparison to what Ronald Reagan was likely to do to gain the release of the American hostages being held in the US Embassy in Tehran

    Did Iran Delay Hostages Release To Ensure Reagan’s Election?
    by Richard Curtiss

    If this story turns out to be true, it would be the most diabolical intrigue of the century: a secret deal in 1980 between Ronald Reagan, George Bush and Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to keep 52 American hostages imprisoned in Tehran until that year’s election day, thus sealing Reagan’s march to the White House.

    And that isn’t all. Since the unproven allegations of a secret Reagan-Khomeini deal surfaced, a strange parade of gun-runners and global schemers has come forward to offer new and astonishing versions of the saga–including a charge that Bush, at a secret meeting with Iranian agents in Paris, agreed to pay Tehran $40 million as part of the deal

    1980 Deal Alleged : Leads, Leaps of Faith in Hostage TaleLAT – Oct 1988

  3. Let not forgot what The Iran-Contra AffairAs president, Reagan felt that “he had the duty to bring those Americans home,” and he convinced himself that he was not negotiating with terrorists. While shipping arms to Iran violated the embargo, dealing with terrorists violated Reagan’s campaign promise never to do so. Reagan had always been admired for his honesty.

  4. But even you concede that: “The Iranians held firm to their position, PERHAPS because they knew that help was on the way, in the form of a new president.” You then talk of a ‘secret channel’ via William G Miller.

    Michael Ledeen claims to have spoken to Miller. Yet that it is not a confirmation. Michael only writes: “Ambassador Miller has confirmed to me his conversations with Iranian leaders during the 2008 campaign.”

    What exactly was said?

    Are presidential candidates absolutely not allowed to give a nod to leaders of other countries that they might be easier to deal with? Remember Trump went down to Mexico during the campaign? Obviously Mexico is not Iran but without knowing exactly what transpired I am not sure one can confirm beyond a doubt that anything happened. [The same can be said for Trump and Russia – I will admit. But there is more evidence at this point].

    Also, if this assumption was true [or close to true] the Republicans would not have let it slide. Is there any evidence that the GOP attempted to make a big deal of this? Were they just clueless?

  5. (b) Iran is a far more irrational enemy

    Don’t confuse your distaste for them with irrationality. Nothing Iran does is irrational, nor even unpredictable. The mullahs have a policy line with respect to the US and they stick to it pretty steadily. That we don’t like their policy doesn’t make it irrational.

    Saddam Hussein was irrational — invading countries on the spur of the moment, faking WMDs. Iran isn’t close to behaviour like that. Putin is more likely to do things like that, in my opinion, than the mullahs (if nothing else, their regime has some internal checks that Putin does not face).

    I’ll accept that Iran is a more imminent threat, but not an irrational one.

    Compare them to North Korea, where everyone is genuinely scared that they might do something truly reckless.

  6. Chester Draws:

    You misunderstand what I meant by “more irrational.” You also misunderstand why I say it, and why I used the phrase I did.

    I did not say either country was especially irrational; I was just comparing and contrasting the two countries on that continuum, and I said that Iran was MORE irrational than Russia. This has nothing to do with whether they are more irrational than other countries, either (such as Iraq, North Korea, or any other country).

    I repeat that Iran is more irrational than Russia, and I say it mainly for one big reason: they are a fundamentalist Muslim theocracy. As such, they have different aims and concerns than the aims and concerns of a man such as Putin, who is wholly grounded in this world. As leaders, the Iranian mullahs are very concerned both with this world and with their point of view regarding the next world. They are probably willing to sacrifice more of their people in that endeavor. Their aims regarding Israel are more inscrutable for that reason as well, in particular what use they might make of nuclear weapons and for what reasons.

    For years people have discussed to what extent Iran is a rational actor in terms of what they are willing to do with atomic weapons. Reasonable people differ on that, but I am almost positive that the majority of people would probably agree with me that on that score the Iranian rulers are more irrational (more willing to take risks) than Putin’s Russia.

  7. SAD:
    My take is Reagan’s thrust in the Iran-Contra affair was a) to get Iran to get Hezbollah to release seven Americans held in Lebanon, and b) to end-run the (typically Democratic) Boland Amendment that prohibited direct (note the direct) US support of the Nicaraguan Contras (trying to overthrow the ultra-Left Sandinista regime).

    So Reagan was not negotiating with the hostage-taker, Hezbollah. You may deem that a distinction without a difference if you choose.

    The attempt to surmount the Boland (D-MA) Amendment and assist the help-deserving Contras take back their country by reimbursing Israel for its contributions to the Contras were in my view noble.

    The Dems have been totalitarian-bent for a long time, seeking to prevent or suppress liberties here and abroad.

  8. “Rational” (defined as “based on or in accordance with reason or logic”) is not a word I would use in conjunction with an apocalyptic Muslim theocracy.

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