Obama Pressured Europeans to Give in to Iran on the Nuclear Deal

Shocking news from the Wall Street Journal. It has long been known that France was much more concerned over an Iranian nuke than Washington was. Nicolas Sarkozy when he was president even made a speech about Iran as a problem at the UN General Assembly [see here about Iranian insults & threats to Sarkozy's wife]. Now we find out this:

One of the toughest of the country’s hard-nosed security experts, Bruno Tertrais, wrote last month in the Canadian newspaper Le Devoir that “with pressure from the Obama administration” European negotiators’ original intent deteriorated from a rollback of Iran’s nuclear ambitions to their containment. [John Vinocur in the Wall Street Journal, 24 August 2015]

So Obama's administration pressured the  supposed "Western allies" of the USA to go easy on Iran and give in to Iranian demands rather than forcing Iran to give in to Western demands, through sanctions for instance. Moreover, Obama's Iran nuke deal is:

. . . . what France knows is a lousy Iran nuclear deal. [same article, John Vinocur in the Wall Street Journal, 24 August 2015]

A French negotiator at the P5 + 1 talks with Iran was one Jacques Audibert. He met two American congressmen visiting France and told them that if Congress voted down the deal it would most likely NOT mean war. Rather, congressional disapproval of the deal would likely lead to renewed negotiations and a better deal. Here is the story from Bloomberg:

Top French Official Contradicts Kerry on Iran Deal

532 JUL 31, 2015 3:04 PM EDT

By Josh Rogin

Secretary of State John Kerry has been painting an apocalyptic picture of what would happen if Congress killed the Iran nuclear deal. Among other things, he has warned that “our friends in this effort will desert us." But the top national security official from one of those nations involved in the negotiations, France, has a totally different view: He told two senior U.S. lawmakers that he thinks a Congressional no vote might actually be helpful.

His analysis is already having an effect on how members of Congress, especially House Democrats, are thinking about the deal.

The French official, Jacques Audibert, is now the senior diplomatic adviser to President Francois Hollande. Before that, as the director general for political affairs in the Foreign Ministry from 2009 to 2014, he led the French diplomatic team in the discussions with Iran and the P5+1 group. Earlier this month, he met with Democrat Loretta Sanchez and Republican Mike Turner, both top members of the House Armed Services Committee, to discuss the Iran deal. The U.S. ambassador to France, Jane Hartley, was also in the room.

According to both lawmakers, Audibert expressed support for the deal overall, but also directly disputed Kerry’s claim that a Congressional rejection of the Iran deal would result in the worst of all worlds, the collapse of sanctions and Iran racing to the bomb without restrictions.

“He basically said, if Congress votes this down, there will be some saber-rattling and some chaos for a year or two, but in the end nothing will change and Iran will come back to the table to negotiate again and that would be to our advantage,” Sanchez told me in an interview. “He thought if the Congress voted it down, that we could get a better deal.”

. . . . . . . .

Audibert's comments as recounted by the lawmakers are a direct rebuttal to Kerry, who in remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations on July 24 said that if Congress voted down the deal, there would no chance to restart negotiations in search of a tougher pact. Kerry also said that Congressional rejection of the Iran deal would erode the U.S. credibility to strike any type of international agreement in the future. “Do you think the Ayatollah is going to come back to the table if Congress refuses this and negotiate again? Do you think that they're going to sit there and other people in the world are going to say, hey, let's go negotiate with the United States, they have 535 secretaries of State?” Kerry said. “I mean, please.”

This argument is being echoed by a throng of U.S. commentators and former Obama administration officials who support the deal. . . . . .

Audibert also wasn’t happy with some of the terms of the deal itself, according to Sanchez and Turner. He said he thought it should have been negotiated to last forever, not start to expire in as few as 10 years. He also said he didn’t understand why Iran needed more than 5,000 centrifuges for a peaceful nuclear program. He also expressed concerns about the robustness of the inspections and verification regime under the deal, according to the lawmakers. . . . .

When the lawmakers returned to Washington, news of their conversation with Audibert spread among their colleagues. Turner confronted Kerry with Audibert’s statements during a July 22 closed-door briefing with Kerry and more than 300 House lawmakers. The briefing was classified, but Turner’s questions to Kerry were not.

“Are you surprised Jacques Audibert believes we could have gotten a better deal?” Turner asked Kerry, according to Turner.

“The secretary appeared surprised and had no good answer as to why the national security adviser of France had a completely different position than what the secretary told us the same day,” Turner told me.

Sanchez was not at that briefing, but since then, many lawmakers have asked her about the information, especially Democrats, she told me. “It’s one piece of information that people will use to decide where they are,” she explained. [Josh Rogin, Bloomberg,  31 July 2015]

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France's position before capitulating to Obama administration pressure [here]

Saudi Arabia's stance against an Iranian nuke was clear but disregarded by Obama, as was Israel opposition [go to link and go down toward the bottom].

Italian Middle East expert, Carlo Panella, foresaw in 2009 that Obama and his crowd would capitulate to Iran on the nuclear issue [here]