Why Obama Let Iran's Green Revolution Fail

[Valin]

Bloomberg:

Eli Lake

Aug. 24 2016

 

One of the great hypotheticals of Barack Obama's presidency involves the Iranian uprising that began on June 12, 2009, after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was announced the winner of contested presidential elections. What if the president had done more to help the protesters when the regime appeared to be teetering?

 

It's well known he was slow to react. Obama publicly downplayed the prospect of real change at first, saying the candidates whom hundreds of thousands of Iranians were risking their lives to support did not represent fundamental change. When he finally did speak out, he couldn't bring himself to say the election was stolen: "The world is watching and inspired by their participation, regardless of what the ultimate outcome of the election was."

 

But Obama wasn't just reluctant to show solidarity in 2009, he feared the demonstrations would sabotage his secret outreach to Iran. In his new book, "The Iran Wars," Wall Street Journal reporter Jay Solomon uncovers new details on how far Obama went to avoid helping Iran's green movement. Behind the scenes, Obama overruled advisers who wanted to do what America had done at similar transitions from dictatorship to democracy, and signal America's support.

 

Solomon reports that Obama ordered the CIA to sever contacts it had with the green movement's supporters. "The Agency has contingency plans for supporting democratic uprisings anywhere in the world. This includes providing dissidents with communications, money, and in extreme cases even arms," Solomon writes. "But in this case the White House ordered it to stand down."

 

(Snip)

 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

The Iran Wars: Spy Games, Bank Battles, and the Secret Deals That Reshaped the Middle East Kindle Edition

by Jay Solomon

 

 

[Valin]

Deal with the Devil
Lee Smith
Sep 05, 2016

n an interview last week for his new book The Iran Wars, Jay Solomon of the Wall Street Journal told Andrea Mitchell that Iran in 2013 had threatened to pull out of nuclear talks if the United States hit Bashar al-Assad’s forces over the Syrian dictator's use of chemical weapons. The Obama administration quickly denied this. "Not true," tweeted White House aide Ned Price.

Of course it's true. And if it weren't, Barack Obama would have a lot of explaining to do. Why else did he allow Assad to violate Obama's own "red line" with impunity? Why did he jeopardize American interests and endanger allies throughout the Middle East? Why else did he allow a refugee crisis to destabilize Europe? Why has he done nothing to stop the slaughter of nearly half a million Syrians?

Obama himself publicly acknowledged that he won't interfere with Iranian interests in Syria. In a December 2015 White House press conference, the president spoke of respecting Iranian "equities" in the Levant. That means preservation of the Assad regime, a vital Iranian interest since it serves as a supply line for Iranian weapons earmarked for Hezbollah in Lebanon. The White House was so serious about respecting this particular "equity" that it repeatedly leaked details of Israeli strikes on Iranian arms convoys. Obama wanted to show the Iranians his bona fides as a negotiating partner.

A nuclear deal with Iran has been Obama's foreign policy priority since he first sat in the Oval Office. The agreement would pave the way for a broader realignment in the Middle East—downgrading traditional American allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia and upgrading Iran—and thus allow the United States to minimize its footprint in the region. With so much at stake, including his hunger for a personal legacy, Obama didn't dare risk alienating Iran by targeting Assad.

 

(Snip)