Iran and North Korea Continue Testing Obama Administration

Iran continues pursuing its agenda regardless of what the Obama Administration does and is willing to concede. The Administration is willing to drop conditions on Iran's nuclear enrichment program.

The Obama administration and its European allies are preparing proposals that would shift strategy toward Iran by dropping a longstanding American insistence that Tehran rapidly shut down nuclear facilities during the early phases of negotiations over its atomic program, according to officials involved in the discussions.

The proposals, exchanged in confidential strategy sessions with European allies, would press Tehran to open up its nuclear program gradually to wide-ranging inspection. But the proposals would also allow Iran to continue enriching uranium for some period during the talks. That would be a sharp break from the approach taken by the Bush administration, which had demanded that Iran halt its enrichment activities, at least briefly to initiate negotiations.

The proposals under consideration would go somewhat beyond President Obama’s promise, during the presidential campaign, to open negotiations with Iran “without preconditions.” Officials involved in the discussion said they were being fashioned to draw Iran into nuclear talks that it had so far shunned.

What could possibly go wrong? Iran wants nuclear weapons and any deal that allows Iran to continue working their centrifuges is one that furthers the Iranian agenda. Under the Administration's position, Iran will be a nuclear power before long, regardless of the consequences to the region and the world.

Iran is seeing the US being led by a weak-willed neophyte who doesn't understand power politics and the Iranians are going to take full advantage of the situation. They've been testing the Administration since day one, including trying several Americans on trumped up charges of espionage.

Iran is trying an American journalist, Roxana Saberi on charges of espionage in a secret trial. Yet, there's next to no outcry from the Obama Administration as to her treatment, or that of two other Americans being held, the Alaei brothers. The State Department calls the charges baseless, but yet the Administration is pursuing talks on the nuclear front? No wonder the Iranians are laughing.

On Tuesday, Reuters quoted a spokesman for the Iranian judiciary, Ali-Reza Jamshidi, saying that a verdict can be expected “soon, perhaps in the next two or three weeks.”

Mr. Jamshidi also lashed out at calls for Ms. Saberi’s release from American officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. According to Reuters, Mr. Jamshidi said: “Giving an opinion on a case, by an individual or a government, without being informed about the facts in it, is utterly ridiculous.”

How about a quid pro quo - no talks unless the three Americans are released? Where is the outcry from the human rights groups? Instead, the Iranians will continue to gin up bogus controversies in order to push their agenda and the US is a step behind.

Want more proof of the Administration's folly and the world's rogue nations taking advantage of the Administration? North Korea is vowing to restart its nuclear program and thumbed its nose at the UN efforts to disarm the nuclear power.

UPDATE:
It took them long enough, but the New York Times to its credit has put the Saberi trial on the front page above the fold of its website.

UPDATE:
It will take time for the North Koreans to move forward on their threat, but that's to extract still more concessions from the Six Party talks and the US in particular.

You can bet that the North Koreans are seeing what the Iranians are doing (and getting from the US in way of concessions) and itching to get some more of their own (and vice versa).

Obama is being triangulated by the Axis of Evil and he probably doesn't even know it.