The Counter-deception Blog

November 7, 2005 NYTimes.com International / Middle East:

Iran Reports Making Bid to Resume Nuclear Talks

By NAZILA FATHI

Iran said that it had asked the three European countries involved in stalled negotiations over its nuclear program to resume the talks.

Full Story

Iran has played an on-again, off-again game with these E-3 talks since they began in 2003, with the timing of the Iranian waxing and waning suspiciously linked to regional political events (somewhat like the coincidence of Bush Admin Terror Alerts and Bush poll numbers).

The conjunction of the Iranian “let’s talk” ploy this week in conjunction with the visit to Teheran last week of Ahmed Chalabi (Iraqi pol, NeoCon pal, AND Iranian pal) is just too blatant to pass unnoted.

Rumor this weekend had it Chalabi would be carrying a back-channel message from Iran (that should get him Oval Office face time—watch for gaps in that WH calendar).

Watch for the “one-ahead” ploy: Chalabi may have claimed to US contacts last week to have some special influence with Iran, offered to demonstrate, and then “lo-and-behold, presto-chango” Iran does this week what Chalabi predicted he would get them to do last week. Such is how bogus bona fides are manufactured.

Cause-and-effect is just so hard to keep straight in these games.