U.S. Secretly Traded Top Iranian Nuclear Scientist’s Release for THIS
Lt. Col. (Retired) Allen West — July 23, 2015
If you watched Chris Wallace interview Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Energy Ernest Moriz on Fox News Sunday, you watched the theater of the absurd. You watched Kerry and Moriz, who looks like a mad professor, struggle to explain the duplicitous contradictions emanating from the Obama administration on this Iranian nuclear agreement. They call this a joint compromise.
Now, it has to be of grave concern that President Obama and this band of submissives took this before the UN Security Council first, instead of waiting the 60 days allowed for the American people and their representatives to weigh in. This is yet another example of Obama’s surrender of U.S. sovereignty in order to do one thing – have his way. We’ve seen, once again, that Obama’s way shall not be deterred by the rule of law – or anything representing the will of the American people.What a sad indictment on those enticed by the soothsaying words – not once, but twice.
Well, it appears there’s been some serious backdoor wrangling between the Obama administration and Iran, which has come to light. You can never trust the American liberal progressive media to tell us the truth, so we must go elsewhere to find it.
As reported by the Times of Israel:
The secret back channel of negotiations between Iran and the United States, which led to this month’s interim deal in Geneva on Iran’s rogue nuclear program, has also seen a series of prisoner releases by both sides, which have played a central role in bridging the distance between the two nations, the Times of Israel has been told.
In the most dramatic of those releases, the US in April released a top Iranian scientist, Mojtaba Atarodi, who had been arrested in 2011 for attempting to acquire equipment that could be used for Iran’s military-nuclear programs.
American and Iranian officials have been meeting secretly in Oman on and off for years, according to a respected Israeli intelligence analyst, Ronen Solomon. And in the past three years as a consequence of those talks, Iran released three American prisoners, all via Oman, and the US responded in kind. Then, most critically, in April, when the back channel was reactivated in advance of the Geneva P5+1 meetings, the US released a fourth Iranian prisoner, high-ranking Iranian scientist Atarodi, who was arrested in California on charges that remain sealed but relate to his attempt to acquire what are known as dual-use technologies, or equipment that could be used for Iran’s military-nuclear programs. Iran has not reciprocated for that latest release.
Now, you ask, who are the three Americans the Iranians released? The answer will shock you. They were the three hikers the Iranians nabbed. Sarah Shourd, an American who apparently inadvertently crossed into Iran while hiking near the Iraqi border, was released in September 2010, for what were called humanitarian reasons. One year later, in September 2011, her fiancé and fellow hiker, Shane Bauer, was set free along with their friend, Josh Fattal. The two men were also received at in Oman at Muscat’s Seeb military airport by Ismaily before being flown back to the United States.
You may recall it was Oman that sent a plane to evacuate the U.S. Marines embassy security guards – after they destroyed their weapons – from Yemen. This was a complete breach of non-combatant evacuation and protocol for embassy shut down – evacuation – procedures. I’d previously detailed this travesty.
So now we know the Obama administration’s been doing backdoor deals with the Sultan of Oman – which is where several GITMO detainees have been released. This goes along with the other Persian Gulf state with which the Obama administration seems to have a comfortable relationship, Qatar. And we all know of Qatar’s financing of Sunni Islamic jihadism and terrorism.
The sad parallel is that the Obama administration traded, through Oman, three dumb hikers for an Iranian scientist implicated in supporting its nuclear ambitions. The same Obama administration traded, though Qatar, a deserter for five senior Taliban leaders.
Why the self-righteous indignation by President Obama when pressed about Saeed Abedini, Amir Hekmati, Jason Reznaian and Robert Levinson? If Obama’s been doing backdoor release deals, then why not for these four Americans? Or maybe I am all wet and they’ll be released soon – then again, is there another high value Iranian that will be set free? Obama states that we leave no one behind – funny, ask Marine SGT Andrew Tahmooressi about that.
What have the Iranians extracted through Oman in addition to this one scientist? Perhaps this is the reason why all of a sudden the lifting of the UN weapons embargo was part of this inane “deal.”
The evident question is, how can we trust President Obama and this cast of “Our Gang” to successfully negotiate anything? We got three doggone lost hikers for an Iranian nuclear scientist. We got a deserter for five senior Islamic terrorist leaders of the Taliban. I would say the Obama administration’s not doing so good with this negotiation thing. Sadly, four Americans still sit abandoned.
Oops, sorry, forgot some other real interesting details; don’t want to leave you folks hanging. See, the scientist Mojtaba Atarodi released this April was just the last of the folks Obama released. Check out this list folks, as written by the Times of Israel:
The US began reciprocating [prisoners] in August 2012. It freed Shahrzad Mir Gholikhan, an Iranian convicted on three counts of weapons trafficking. Next Nosratollah Tajik, a former Iranian ambassador to Jordan – who, like Gholikhan, had been initially apprehended abroad trying to buy night-vision goggles from US agents – was freed after the US opted not to follow up an extradition request it had submitted to the British. Then, in January 2013, Amir Hossein Seirafi was released, also via Oman, having been arrested in Frankfurt and convicted in the US of trying to buy specialized vacuum pumps that could be used in the Iranian nuclear program.
Finally, in April, came the release of Mojtaba Atarodi.
The facts of his case are still shrouded. On December 7, 2011, Atarodi, a faculty member at the prestigious Sharif University of Technology (SUT) in Tehran – a US-educated electrical engineer with a heart condition, a green card and a brother living in the US – arrived at LAX and was arrested by US federal officials.
So in essence, Obama has released set free serious actors and the United States got back three hikers. Is there any wonder why the Iranian leadership is cheering? We look like abject buffoons.
The indignation shown by Barack Obama because of Major Garrett’s question was nothing more than a Chicago politician worrying that his dealings would be uncovered. Obama cares little about the four Americans held in Iran; the lives that mattered were three wayward hikers. Stay tuned for more, quite sure there will be more to come – after all, we had to sign the deal to know what’s in it.
http://www.aim.org/guest-column/u-s-secretly-traded-top-iranian-nuclear-scientists-release-for-this/
