Via The Fanonite this Esquire (!) article is an interview with the two ex Bush administration officials who originally leaked the information about the US turning down talks with Iran in ’03. It’s worth a read (excusing some of the conservative and MSM talking points) some excerpts-
Months before September 11, Mann had been negotiating with the Iranian diplomat at the UN. After the attacks, the meetings continued, sometimes alone and sometimes with their Russian counterpart sitting in.
at the old UN building in Geneva, they hammered out plans for Iranian help in the war against the Taliban. The Iranians agreed to provide assistance if any American was shot down near their territory, agreed to let the U.S. send food in through their border, and even agreed to restrain some “really bad Afghanis,” like a rabidly anti-American warlord named Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, quietly putting him under house arrest in Tehran. These were significant concessions.
“This is off the record,” she says. “This is going to have to be on background.” She’s not allowed to talk about confidential documents or intelligence matters, but the topic of her negotiations with the Iranians is especially touchy. “As far as they’re concerned, the whole idea that there were talks is something I shouldn’t even be talking about,” she says.All ranks and ranking are out. “They don’t want there to be anything about the level of the talks or who was involved.”
“They won’t even let us say something like ‘senior’ or ‘important,’ ‘high-ranking,’ or ‘high-level,’” Leverett says. But the important thing is that the Iranians agreed to talk unconditionally
The fax was from the Swiss ambassador to Iran, which wasn’t unusual — since the U.S. had no formal relationship with Iran, the Swiss ambassador represented American interests there and often faxed over updates on what he was doing. This time he’d met with Sadeq Kharrazi, a well-connected Iranian who was the nephew of the foreign minister and son-in-law to the supreme leader. Amazingly, Kharrazi had presented the ambassador with a detailed proposal for peace in the Middle East, approved at the highest levels in Tehran. A two-page summary was attached. Scanning it, Mann was startled by one dramatic concession after another — “decisive action” against all terrorists in Iran, an end of support for Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, a promise to cease its nuclear program, and also an agreement to recognize Israel.
This was huge. Mann sat down and drafted a quick memo to her boss, Richard Haass. It was important to send a swift and positive response. Then she heard that the White House had already made up its mind — it was going to ignore the offer. Its only response was to lodge a formal complaint with the Swiss government about their ambassador’s meddling.
“The reason I have to be so careful now is that I’m legally on notice and they will prosecute things that I say or do,”
Please read it, it is clear long term plans are operating to attack Iran, to think we could let this happen again after Iraq showed how they lie and how disastrous their plans in the real world are is just unconscionable. Iran wanted to talk, the Bush administration rejected them, they plan on attacking Iran, they must be stopped.
