Thursday, February 19, 2015

No surprise here: WH is wary of trusting Natanyahu with details of the Iran nuclear negotiations

Quoting David Sanger of the New York Times:
"With the Obama administration racing to negotiate the outlines of a nuclear deal with Iran by the end of March, aides to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel have charged in recent days that they are being deliberately left in the dark about the details of the talks. . . ."
What a surprise !!!   Netanyahu didn't see fit to share with President Obama or Secretary of State the fact, much less the details, of his planned address to the United States Congress in joint session, with full pomp and ceremony.    Why would we trust him with details of the delicate negotiations that he has vowed to try to derail because he thinks it's a "bad deal?" 


In response, White House spokesman Josh Earnest criticized Israel's:
"continued practice of cherry-picking specific pieces of information and using them out of context to distort the negotiating position of the United States. . . .There's no question that some of the things that the Israelis have said in characterizing our negotiating position have not been accurate.  There's no question about that.
"But I think it is fair to say that the United States is mindful of the need to not negotiate in public and ensure that information that's discussed in the negotiating table is not taken out of context and publicized in a way that distorts the negotiating position of the United States and our allies."
This would be great fun to watch -- if the stakes between the United States and Israel were not so vital and so high.    Coming on top of the still unresolved problem of the Boehner-Netanyahu caper about speaking to congress, Natanyahu comes across as being dangerous and manipulative.

Ralph

No comments:

Post a Comment