Iran

Obama’s Secret Role in the Iran Talks

By Karen Tumulty | October 19, 2009 | +

Our colleague Massimo Calabresi has this terrific exclusive on TIME.com.

Related Topics: Barack Obama, Iran

  • Latest on Swampland

    From left: AP; ABACAUSA
    2012 Election May 25, 2012

    The Phony War: Obama and Romney Are Debating Character, Not Policy

    More than five months from Election Day, the back-and-forth about Mitt Romney’s record at Bain already feels played out. Unfortunately, there’s good reason to expect the campaign continues in this vein indefinitely. Neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney are terribly interested in dwelling on policy platforms. Romney’s plan to slash spending and keep taxes low on the wealthy isn’t especially popular, at least not at any level of detail beyond a blithe promise to shrink the deficit. Meanwhile, Obama’s signature first-term achievements, like health care, the stimulus and Wall Street reform, are all unpopular or tricky to sell. (The Dodd-Frank bill is the most popular of these, but hyping it means offending wealthy donors.) So what we’re getting instead is a superficial duel about character–and, worse, one that’s based on the largely false premise that the better man can better “manage” the economy back to health.

    From our Partners

    Obama Administration Blocks Global Health Fund To Fight Disease In Developing NationsHuffPost Politics

    Barack Obama May 25, 2012

    Audacity of Dope: Tales of a Toking Teenage Obama

    We knew Barack Obama smoked weed in high school because he wrote about it in his books. What we didn’t know, until Buzzfeed posted these choice nuggets (I’m so sorry) from David Maraniss’s new book on the President’s younger years, were the giggle-worthy details of his “Choom Gang” lifestyle, which are right out of a buddy stoner flick. Obama and his friends drove around the lush Hawaii countryside, hot-boxing their VW bus and re-upping with a long-haired pizza-tossing dealer named Ray, whom Obama thanked in his yearbook “for all the good times.”

  • nflfoghorn

    What does BO stand to lose respect-in-the-world-wise, if the nuke talks go south? And what if the Iranians, as some state, accuse us of trying to destabilize their government?

  • cfukara

    I am waiting – but not holding my breatjhe – for “Our colleague Massimo Calabresi” to post the following:

    “That’s because, Administration sources tell TIME, Obama personally weighed in three times during secret, multiparty negotiations with the Israelis over the last four months — in what has become not just a test of Israel’s nuclear intentions but also a test of Obama’s effort to limit Israel’s nuclear ambitions through a combination of sanctions, threats and incentives.”

    Else we read targeted malice/cruelty, near-toothless bluster and a hint of age-old euro-supremacism and devious anglo-racism in all this lurid show …

  • grape_crush

    …Obama personally weighed in three times during secret, multiparty negotiations with the Iranians over the last four months…

    Wingnut response #1: “Well, he had to do something to validate winning the Nobel Peace Prize after he won it back in February…”

    Wingnut response #2: “Why is he negotiating with a terrorist state like Iran? We should be nuking that country into a parking lot.”

    Wingnut response #3: “So? It’s not a done deal yet, despite the work that has been done to this point…Obama isn’t getting any results in his 9 months in office; he hasn’t done anything at all.”

    Wingnut response #4: “Of course Obama is going to be able to negotiate with his fellow Muslim extremists.”

    Wingnut response #5: “It’s a set-up, and Obama is letting himself get played…just watch!”

  • square1

    Pssst. Obama plans to sell Iran weapons and funnel the money to ACORN. Michelle Malkin told me. Pass it on.

  • rustyreturns

    “We very quickly saw an opening here,” says a senior Administration official involved in the multiparty negotiations that ensued, speaking on condition of anonymity.

    .
    Anonymity. Is that anything like, “this is total bull-crap we are giving you TIME, but go ahead and print it anyways”?

  • stuartzechman

    How can we trust anything that comes from this kind of inexplicably anonymously-sourced stenography?

  • bitterpill8

    Puzzled by a series of stories here, in the Post and NYT coming out of a collection of anonymous sources. Why can’t journalists find people who will speak on the record? People who are not authorised to speak on the record appear to be a favoured species. The down side? lazy journalism.

  • http://theblindspotsofgod.wordpress.com lawyermommy

    “Despite the top-level diplomatic work, U.S. officials were not particularly optimistic ahead of Monday’s meeting in Vienna”.

    I do not know whether they are deliberately downplaying expectations because judging from the article it appears the Obama folks have reason to be quite optimistic.

    Well, hopefully the secrets will be leaked out in full again and we will all know the outcome of the high level confidential meetings. :)

    LM

    http://theblindspotsofgod.wordpress.com

  • Friar Tuck

    Will whoever kidnapped KT and replaced her with somebody from the marketing department please return her immediately?

    Thank you.

  • slowp

    Boy, the Nobel Committee is looking pretty darn smart right now, aren’t they?

  • Cliff

    “We very quickly saw an opening here,” says a senior Administration official involved in the multiparty negotiations that ensued, speaking on condition of anonymity.

    Mmm, now that’s some high quality propaganda right there, KT. Any guesses why Calabresi didn’t give any reasons for allowing this guy anonymity?

  • spob
  • cfukara

    OK, you want a fair scenario -> I’ll give you another scenario.
    “… Obama personally weighed in … during secret, multiparty negotiations with the Israelis over the last four months — in what has become not just a test of Israel’s imperial expansionist intentions but also a test of Obama’s effort to limit Israel’s territorial ambitions and crimes against humanity through a combination of sanctions, threats and incentives.”
    Another tough one. Would Israel comply or would those settlers/squatters in Palestine thumb their noses at the Americans – Rahm Emmanuel style?
    How would you, dear patriot, feel about your brave compatriots who would sacrifice themselves as suicide bombers if your lands were occupied by an invading foreign force? Would you condemn them or would they be your heroes, your peoples’ martyrs – the fodder for your peoples’ folk lore?
    Is it unfair to prod the USA to go head-to-head with a de facto leading super-power …

  • cfukara

    meaning?
    Tell us what YOU are looking at ..

blog comments powered by Disqus