Obama’s “Secret” Plan on Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Issue and Why (Even the Saudis Tell You) It Will Fail

by Barry Rubin

Hey, there’s no hurry! The negotiations with Iran have just been postponed a month. What’s another month after the current U.S. government has given Iran 38 of them to keep developing nuclear weapons?

The problem with the Obama administration is that it wants to pursue policies acceptable to the day-dreaming cultural elite, but not to regimes that are full of cunning and deceit, like the Iranian regime, whose primary objectives do not include development, openness, humanitarian values, the well-being of its citizens, or even religious tolerance; rather, all that the Iranian regime – and the ideology behind it – cares about is expansion and infiltrating other countries.

Oops! I didn’t write that last paragraph and there’s no plagiarism intended ! These are the words of Tariq Alhomayed, editor-in-chief of al-Sharq al-Awsat in that Saudi-backed newspaper’s April 15 issue. He once again illustrates a point I keep trying to make: anti-Islamist and moderate Arab states, intellectuals, and democratic opposition movements are just as upset with the Obama Administration as I am. And they are just as endangered by current U.S. policies as Israel is.

Alhomayed is horrified by reports that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says she thinks there are signs that Iran is moderating on the nuclear weapons issue and is going to negotiate seriously.

Iran, Alhomayed continued, has been working for three decades to “infiltrate our region” and “divide Arab states from within.” As examples he cites Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon as well as the Palestinians. He even claims Tehran at times works with al-Qaida today, an accusation incidentally that U.S. intelligence reporting has confirmed. So why, Alhomayed asks, would anyone trust Iran?

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Barry Rubin

Source: http://www.gloria-center.org/2012/04/obama%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Csecret%E2%80%9D-plan-on-iran%E2%80%99s-nuclear-weapons-issue-and-why-even-the-saudis-tell-you-it-will-fail/

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