(Commentary) Michael Rubin - In Iran, the supreme leader wields the ultimate authority. One of the problems with the ongoing nuclear negotiations is that the supreme leader never blessed nuclear deal-making. Nor, contrary to President Obama's claims, has he ever issued a nuclear fatwa - at least one he bothered to write down for inspection. So, for all the progress being claimed, it's not clear the world powers are negotiating with anyone empowered to make a decision. There's a pattern among rogue regimes in which negotiators reach agreements, rogue leaders refuse to abide by the agreements their negotiators supposedly produced, and then the regimes pocket the concessions that were meant to be final, transforming them into the starting point for new talks. The writer is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
2014-05-09 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive