In an interview last week for his new book The Iran Wars, Jay Solomon of the Wall Street Journal told Andrea Mitchell that Iran in 2013 had threatened to pull out of nuclear talks if the United States hit Bashar al-Assad’s forces over the Syrian dictator’s use of chemical weapons. The Obama administration quickly denied this. “Not true,” tweeted White House aide Ned Price.
Of course it’s true. And if it weren’t, Barack Obama would have a lot of explaining to do. Why else did he allow Assad to violate Obama’s own “red line” with impunity? Why did he jeopardize American interests and endanger allies throughout the Middle East? Why else did he allow a refugee crisis to destabilize Europe? Why has he done nothing to stop the slaughter of nearly half a million Syrians?
Obama himself publicly acknowledged that he won’t interfere with Iranian interests in Syria. In a December 2015 White House press conference, the president spoke of respecting Iranian “equities” in the Levant. That means preservation of the Assad regime, a vital Iranian interest since it serves as a supply line for Iranian weapons earmarked for Hezbollah in Lebanon. The White House was so serious about respecting this particular “equity” that it repeatedly leaked details of Israeli strikes on Iranian arms convoys. Obama wanted to show the Iranians his bona fides as a negotiating partner.
A nuclear deal with Iran has been Obama’s foreign policy priority since he first sat in the Oval Office. The agreement would pave the way for a broader realignment in the Middle East – downgrading traditional American allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia and upgrading Iran – and thus allow the United States to minimize its footprint in the region. With so much at stake, including his hunger for a personal legacy, Obama didn’t dare risk alienating Iran by targeting Assad.
The real deal that Obama made with the mullahs has been clear for some time now: They got to keep their client in Syria, and Obama got his “historic” achievement. So why not just spin the press and claim that laying off Assad was part of the price America paid for Obama’s stunning diplomatic triumph? Indeed, last we heard from Ned Price, the White House aide was bragging to the New York Times Magazine about manipulating the media. “The easiest way for the White House to shape the news,” Price explained,
is from the briefing podiums, each of which has its own dedicated press corps. “But then there are sort of these force multipliers,” he said, adding, “We have our compadres, I will reach out to a couple people, and you know I wouldn’t want to name them – “ …“And the next thing I know, lots of these guys are in the dot-com publishing space, and have huge Twitter followings, and they’ll be putting this message out on their own.”
