Nice article on the secret early days of getting the Iran deal

[karynnj]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/03/us/politics/for-hillary-clinton-and-john-kerry-divergent-paths-to-iran-nuclear-talks.html

Some new detail, including that Kerry worked behind the scenes with Oman to get the three hikers who strayed into Iran released. No real surprises, Kerry was a strong advocate, while Clinton was cautious and slow to move towards anything.

[MBS]

1. Wow, this is fascinating.

Very revealing.
No way to know if this is 100% accurate, of course, but, for whatever it's worth, it rings true to me.
I really look forward to eventually reading the memoirs of both Sec. Kerry and Pres. Obama.

[karynnj]

2. Same here

It matches with other things that have been said over time. Particularly it matches what we always knew as the differences between Obama and Clinton. It is interesting that it was Tom Donilon who Kerry worked with on this. He had many kind words for Kerry when he was named diplomat of the year by foreign policy.

I credit HRC for JUST one thing on the Iran deal, other than the sanctions - and that was that she backed it after the deal was made. I do not think she helped get the votes in favor of it, BUT had she been against it or ambivalent, it would likely have allowed enough Democrats to vote against it to kill it.

It is interesting that the anonymous "people in the WH" were concerned that Kerry could over promise. In the first place, it is pretty obvious that he is a very careful negotiator and would not risk something like that because it would lead to no deal -- as the first step even for an outline of a deal would be to get internal approval. Not to mention, HILLARY's own people suggest that she made the decision (that really only the President could make) to allow low level enrichment in the various articles that describe how the deal stemmed from her, Jake Sullivan's and William Burns' work.

It appears from the new details in this article, that she was dragging her SoS feet as much as possible - waiting 18 months to even take up an opportunity to sent people to talk! This is equivalent to suggesting that her "hunting down the Chinese" was key to the US/China pact - rather than that it nearly precluded ANY diplomacy on that issue.

Let's hope she is better at being President than she is at diplomacy!

[MBS]

3. " " " " " n/t

[karynnj]

4. An article that goes beyond the NYT

This is a source that the Israel/Palestine forum hates. It is to the left and hates Netanyahu. http://mondoweiss.net/2016/05/hillary-clinton-would/

However, this article is fascinating as it points out that the NYT did NOT print this article or his article from (I think) last week on how HRC became a hawk until the NY primary was safely over. While supportive of the NYT article, it does somewhat chafe at the adjectives and characterizations, even though a quick look at twitter (or DU from the limited comments) show that people themselves got the point. The Iran deal almost certainly would not have happened had Clinton won in 2008.

I liked a tweet, that rephrased the difference between Kerry and Clinton as - John Kerry showed foresight and initiative in pursuing the Iran nuclear deal, and Hillary Clinton didn't.

I think the NYT article was fine and it is the first time I have NOT been annoyed by one of their writers speaking of how "administration officials" were concerned about Kerry's actions. The reason is that it is pretty clear that, both in that tentative beginning, then in 2011/2012, and in the end -- Kerry can now be clearly seen as having been correct. His accomplishments include both the negotiations with Iran et al AND his work to keep Obama's backing.

This article essentially says that Kerry and Obama went against much of the FP power structure in DC, which had quietly enabled so many of the neo con adventures.