Iranian officials today disclosed details of a letter that was secretly passed to the leadership in Iran by the Obama administration.
According to the Iranian state-owned media, Mehr News, MP Ali Motahhari disclosed today that President Obama stated in his letter that closing of the Strait of Hormuz is a red line, but at the same time, indicated that Obama is ready to negotiate to find a resolution to their mutual disagreements.
However, MP Hojjatoleslam Hossein Ebrahimi disclosed much more details in the letter. He stated that Obama clearly indicated that U.S. will not take any hostile action against Iran and is interested in cooperation.
Ebrahimi continued that the letter covered several subjects. Among them: a section about using the international waterways in the Persian Gulf; how it is the right of every country to use the waterway; and that the closure of the waterway was America’s red line.
In other parts of the letter, Ebbrahimi continued, Obama mentioned that cooperation and negotiation is based on the mutual interests of the two countries, and assured Iran that America will not take any action against the Islamic regime.
Ebrahimi concluded that, the letter shows the power of the Islamic republic and how America fears it.
This is not the first letter sent to the leaders of Iran by President Obama, Ebrahimi said. “He has repeatedly spoken in a soft tone about the Islamic Republic of Iran, but in practice, he has not acted accordingly.”
He added that the important issue today is that, “without the permission of the Islamic regime in Iran, no country can benefit from the Persian Gulf.”
The disclosure of the contents of Obama’s letter and the subsequent ridicule of it could only have come from the very top of the Iranian leadership – Supreme Leader Khamenei – and is clearly meant to embarrass Obama. The White House has denied the existence of the letter.
At the same time, the deputy commander of the Iranian armed forces, Rear Admiral Farhad Amiri, announced that Iranian submarines can easily torpedo U.S. carriers. He added that the Iranian submarines are covered with a special coating that does not allow detection by sound waves sent by the enemy vessels’ sonar system. Amiri said that the Iranian submarines could lie on the sea bed without detection and become America’s worst nightmare sinking their carriers.
It is noteworthy to mention that during the Iranian uprisings of 2009, President Obama sent a letter to the Iranian leaders requesting negotiations, hoping that he could resolve the nuclear impasse by rapprochement. He chose to turn his back on the millions of Iranians who had come to the streets demanding change. Had President Obama backed the Persian Spring then, we would not need to worry about the closure of the Strait of Hormuz or nuclear bombs in the hands of a Jihadist regime today!
Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the author of the award winning book, A Time to Betray. He is a senior Fellow with EMPact America and teaches at the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy (JCITA).
Join the conversation as a VIP Member