Biden administration and Iran holding secret talks

BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

SEE:https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/06/biden-adminstration-and-iran-holding-secret-talks;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

The Biden administration noted for disastrous failures such as the Afghanistan debacle and mishandled former negotiations with Iran, is now holding secret talks with Iran.

A key point:

President Joe Biden’s administration does not want to appear to be “giving concessions to Iran”, Mahjoob Zweiri, director of the Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University, said, especially ahead of next year’s presidential election.

But that’s exactly what the Biden administration is most likely doing, based on its history of bad negotiations. The secret talks are reminiscent of a 2016 report; Iran was believed to have received $33.6 BILLION in secret cash and gold payments facilitated by the Obama administration in an appeasement deal.

Trump and the Democrats were diametrically opposed on how to deal with Iran, the latter believing that appeasement and stuffing the pockets of the Iranian Islamic regime would somehow curb Iran’s ambitions. In January, the Biden administration still wanted to make a deal with the Iranian mullahs, despite the fact that by Iran’s own admission, the 2015 deal was based on lies. By February, the Biden administration gave Iran and Russia the green light to continue work at Iranian nuclear enrichment sites.

The new round of meetings between the Biden administration and Iran is disturbing at best. It will further serve the interests of Iran.

“US, Iran in talks to cool tensions with a mutual ‘understanding,'” by Parisa Hafezi, John Irish and Arshad Mohammed, Reuters, June 16, 2023:

DUBAI/PARIS, June 16 (Reuters) – The United States is holding talks with Iran to sketch out steps that could limit the Iranian nuclear programme, release some detained U.S. citizens and unfreeze some Iranian assets abroad, according to Iranian and Western officials.

These steps would be cast as an “understanding” rather than an agreement requiring review by the U.S. Congress, where many lawmakers oppose giving Iran benefits because of its military aid to Russia, its domestic repression and its support for proxies that have attacked U.S. interests in the region.

Having failed to revive a 2015 Iran nuclear deal, U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration hopes to restore some limits on Iran to keep it from getting a nuclear weapon that could threaten Israel and trigger a regional arms race. Iran says it has no ambition to develop a nuclear weapon.

The 2015 deal, which then-President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018, had capped Iran’s uranium enrichment at 3.67% purity and its stockpile of this material at 202.8 kg (447 pounds) – limits Tehran has since far exceeded.

U.S. and European officials have been searching for ways to curb Tehran’s nuclear efforts since the breakdown of indirect American-Iranian talks. The willingness to restart discussions illustrates the rising sense of urgency in Western capitals about Iran’s program.