Friends and Foes Confused by Obama Haphazard Approach

Obama Started Contacts with Iran, Al Qaeda Before Election

President Barack Obama has ordered the intelligence community to facilitate a U.S. reconciliation dialogue with Iran.

Officials said Obama, in one of his first acts as president, has ordered the CIA and other members of the 16-agency community to assess Iran’s response to any U.S. reconciliation effort. They said the order would be a key task of incoming National Intelligence director.

Obama has worked through unofficial consultants to launch a secret dialogue with Iran and Syria even before he was elected. The effort has been described as haphazard. Analyst point out there is a vast difference between political campaigning in America and foreign policy – not to understand that is at best foolish and at worst fatal.

Government and political sources said the dialogue was initiated soon after Obama became the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party around August 2008. The sources said the dialogue intensified after Obama’s election as president in November.

“While policymakers need to understand anti-American leaders, policies and actions in Iran, the intelligence community can also help policymakers identify and understand other leaders and political forces, so that it is possible to work toward a future in both our interests,” [Ret.] Adm. Dennis Blair, Obama’s nominee for national intelligence chief, said. “Identifying these opportunities for American policy and statecraft is as important as predicting hostile threats.”

In a Jan. 22 statement to the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, Blair highlighted the importance of a U.S. dialogue with Iran that would reduce tension and resolve the nuclear crisis. At the same time, Blair did not cite Iran as a key threat to the United States.

“The United States is engaged in three campaigns in which there are immediate threats to American lives, properties and interests,” Blair said. “First is the campaign against anti-American terrorists with global reach who seek to harm us or our allies, partners and friends. These groups include Al Qaida and other extremist organizations as well as the groups they inspire but do not control. The second campaign is in Iraq and the third in Afghanistan, where the United States has deployed troops, diplomats, and nation builders. Providing intelligence support for these three campaigns consumes the largest share of intelligence community resources.”

The Obama directive came amid the release of a report by a commission created by Congress that warned of Iran’s nuclear program and the prospect of similar efforts throughout the Middle East.

“Of particular concern is the interest by some states in acquiring a nuclear fuel cycle, particularly Iran’s efforts to build uranium-enrichment facilities and North Korea’s efforts to reprocess the plutonium associated with spent nuclear fuel,” the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Detruction Proliferation and Terrorism, said in a report released on Jan. 22.

“If such facilities spread, so will the number of states with the knowledge and capability to produce nuclear weapons. Such facilities would also increase the risk that fissile materials could be diverted to, or stolen by, terrorist groups.”

In contrast, Blair grouped Iran’s nuclear weapons program with that of North Korea and Pakistan. He also termed the Israeli-Palestinian a “near-term concern.”

“Additional near-term issues of concern are many,” Blair said. “They include North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs; Iran’s nuclear capabilities and intentions, as well as its missile program; the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal; and peace and stability in South Asia. They include Israeli-Palestinian violence, with its possibilities for escalation, and its implications for regional stability.”

Officials said a U.S. reconciliation effort with Iran would be the key foreign policy goal of the Obama administration. They said Obama has received messages from elements in the Iranian regime since his election in November 2008.

“Under Obama, the State Department and intelligence community, particularly the CIA, would be focused on Iran and avenues of cooperation,” an official said. “The president sees Iran as the key to a rapid and smooth withdrawal from both Afghanistan and Iraq.”

“Obama has several sets of advisers, the closest of them who have so far not been brought into the administration,” a political source said of of the then-candidate’s overtures to Iran and other organizations. “They were the first to be in contact with Iran and Syria. Since then, others have bolstered the dialogue.”

Obama’s leading adviser on the Middle East, the sources said, was former State Department official Robert Malley. They said Malley used his contacts in the Arab and Muslim world to send out feelers to Egypt, Iran and Syria even before Obama was elected president.

At the same time, Obama also employed separate efforts by U.S. think tanks in sending messages to Teheran, Middle East Newsline reported. One such effort was conducted by the Pugwash group, which met Iranian officials in Europe throughout late 2008. The Pugwash effort was headed by former Defense Secretary William Perry.

The sources said Obama drew from the secret discussions with Iran when he appealed for a dialogue with Teheran. In his first television interview — with the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya satellite channel — Obama said he was launching a reconciliation effort with Iran.

“I do think that it is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are, but where there are potential avenues for progress,” Obama said on Jan. 26. “And we will over the next several months be laying out our general framework and approach. And as I said during my inauguration speech, if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us.”

The sources said Obama has also used longtime colleagues as well as think tanks for a dialogue with Syria, Iran’s leading ally. The United States Institute of Peace, financed by Congress, told a Jan. 29 news conference that a delegation met Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus in late January. The delegation included Ellen Laipson, a member of the Obama transition team.

Meanwhile in Iraq, the good news is that the elections clearly reflected a more stable and orderly Iraqi society. On a serious note, however, the elections were facilitated by the U.S. military and other expressions of U.S. resolve. Could Iraq, threatened by ethnic tensions and neighboring Iran, conduct such elections without a major U.S. military presence?

Remove the U.S. troops in 2009 and Iraq — and the rest of the region — could slide backward into chaos.

In addition to heading Pacific Command, Blair was the associate director of central intelligence for military support, coordinating intelligence and military operations during the Clinton administration. He retired from the Navy in 2002.

Blair graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1968 as did Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen and former Marine Corps Commandant Michael Hagee.