QOTD: Anatomy of the Rope-a-Dope Negotiations

From the outset, the Americans kept telling the Europeans, 'The Iranians are lying and deceiving you and they have not told you everything.' The Europeans used to respond, 'We trust them'

- Hassan Rowhani

I wonder why the MSM doesn't think former Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani's admission that the negotiations with the "EU Three" were just a delaying tactic is not newsworthy. Luckily, the UK Telegraph disagrees and has this excellent report from their Washington correspondent Philip Sherwell:

The man who for two years led Iran's nuclear negotiations has laid out in unprecedented detail how the regime took advantage of talks with Britain, France and Germany to forge ahead with its secret atomic programme.

In a speech to a closed meeting of leading Islamic clerics and academics, Hassan Rowhani, who headed talks with the so-called EU3 until last year, revealed how Teheran played for time and tried to dupe the West after its secret nuclear programme was uncovered by the Iranian opposition in 2002.

He boasted that while talks were taking place in Teheran, Iran was able to complete the installation of equipment for conversion of yellowcake - a key stage in the nuclear fuel process - at its Isfahan plant but at the same time convince European diplomats that nothing was afoot.

Iran is now threatening the US with "harm and pain" for pressing the UNSC to act on Iran's nuclear weapons program. Somehow I don't see threats working where lies and deception have failed. Call me a psychic, but I see air strikes in Iran's future.

Technorati Tags: Hassan Rowhani, Iran, Iranian nuclear weapons