Yedioth Ahronoth: WH sends back channel message to Iran

[Winehole23]

The United States has indirectly informed Iran, via two European nations, that it would not back an Israeli strike against the country's nuclear facilities, as long as Tehran refrains from attacking American interests in the Persian Gulf, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Monday.
According to the report, Washington used covert back-channels in Europe to clarify that the US does not intend to back Israel in a strike that may spark a regional conflict.

In return, Washington reportedly expects Iran to steer clear of strategic American assets in the Persian Gulf, such as military bases and aircraft carriers.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...276276,00.html

[CosmicCowboy]

I saw that. No surprise. One would think that they would be denied Iraqi air space making an attack infinitely more difficult.

[Winehole23]

The White House also denied an Israeli newspaper report that accused Washington of secretly negotiating with Tehran to keep the United States out of a future Israel-Iran war.

"It's incorrect, completely incorrect," White House spokesman Jay Carney told Reuters while accompanying President Barack Obama on a campaign trip in Ohio. "The report is false and we don't talk about hypotheticals."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...276757,00.html

[boutons_deux]

and Sheldon Adelson sends another $20M to gecko, most of whose foreign policy staff are neocons from dubya/ head's regime, still thirsting after Iranian oil (and their dividends from the MIC investments)

[Drachen]

Good, now let's shut off the aid, and get the outta there.

[Fabbs]

"Washington used covert back-channels in Europe to clarify that the US does not intend to back Israel in a strike"..

Yet this "covert" information made it to the postings of SpursTalk.

*not aiming this at you Winehole.
plus i see the update the Whitehouse catagorically denies.

[Winehole23]

then of course, there was Joint Chief CHMN Martin Dempsey's front channel remarks last week:

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey told reporters in Britain last Thursday that an Israeli strike would be ineffective, and then said, "I don't want to be complicit if they [the Israelis] choose to do it."

It was the first time that a senior US official had made such an explicit statement indicating the administration's unwillingness to be a party to a war provoked by a unilateral Israeli attack.

Dempsey had conveyed such a warning during meetings with Israeli leaders last January, as IPS reported February 1, but a series of moves by the administration over the next several months, including the adoption of Israeli demands during two rounds of negotiations with Iran on the nuclear issue in May and June, appeared to represent a retreat from that private warning.

Dempsey's warning was followed by an as-yet unconfirmed report by Time magazine that the Pentagon has decided to sharply cut back on its participation in the largest-ever joint-military exercise with Israel designed to test the two countries' missile-defense systems in late October.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NI06Ak03.html

[Winehole23]

The Israeli army is making a series of high-level appointments, including naming a new operations chief, after previously delaying the top-level reshuffle amid talk of a possible Israeli military strike on Iran.


News of the fresh appointments, released on Tuesday, was interpreted by military commentators as an indication that the likelihood of an imminent Israeli military strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities had receded. “You don’t appoint a brand new operations chief when you’re about to go to war,” said Alon Ben-David, military analyst at Israel’s Channel 10 News.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli...f-iran-attack/