On the US push for sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program, he wrote: “The time when they can imagine they can do Iran any harm is over.” The US cannot dominate the Middle East without Iran, he added. “The nuclear issue veils America’s real intentions.”
debkafile’s Iranian sources reveal that the Iranian president’s comment on the veil over America’s real intentions refers to the Obama administration’s behind-the-scenes contacts with Iran in which they are engaged in drawing the dividing lines of influence between the US and Iran in the Middle East and Persian Gulf. This is going on behind Obama’s strong public condemnations of Tehran.
The discreet dialogue surfaced in the Iranian leader’s avowed willingness to cooperate with Obama, hinting at an arrangement acknowledging Iran’s supremacy as the regional power at Israel’s expense.
Israeli leaders have failed so far to initiate assertive steps to counter-balance this unspoken process.
Ahmadinejad is clearly encouraged by the anti-Israeli rhetoric he hears from President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the way administration officials link the Netanyahu government’s policies towards the Palestinians with the loss of American lives in Afghanistan and Iraq.
debkafile’s Middle East sources stress that US-Iranian cooperation is already well in progress in Beirut, where Tehran’s surrogate, Hizballah, has been co-opted to government and parliament with veto powers over their decisions; in Yemen, where Iran withdrew its backing from the Houthi rebels in a deal brokered by Syria; and in Baghdad, where Iyad Allawi, whose Al Iraqiya part won the general elections, was left no choice but to travel to Tehran to obtain Iran’s blessing for his government coalition.
While still militarily present in Iraq, Washington has come to terms with the fact that even a pro-western Iraqi ruler who won office in a US-sponsored election cannot form a stable government without presenting himself cap in hand in Tehran.
Ahmadinejad is clearly willing to expand this profitable “cooperation” with the Obama administration to other Middle East spheres and so avoid a showdown over Iran’s nuclear aspirations.
Where does this leave Israel?
