2. Tehran, Confident of Winning Election, Offers Package
With the arrogance of the victor, the head of Iran’s national security council, H.E. Hassan Rouhani, did not wait for the results of the February 20 parliamentary elections before dashing off a note to Washington offering an all-round deal. From his presumed position of strength, he practically crowed: “Now that it is clear that we (the hard-liners) will remain in power and gain a majority in the Majlis, and that neither revolution nor riots were able to unseat us, the time has come for us to reach an understanding.”
These are the terms on offer:
Iran will pull back from the brink of building a nuclear bomb.
Its nuclear production machinery will remain intact, including the centrifuges for uranium enrichment.
Iran will be taken off the list of nations subject to US sanctions laws, ISLA-1996.
In return, Iran offers the United States regional diplomatic, security, counter-terror and counter-insurgency cooperation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel.
This is the first time, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Iranian experts, that the Islamic republic has mentioned Israel in a communication to Washington. They interpret the reference as an offer by Tehran to join the Americans in a project to convert the Hizballah from a quasi-military terrorist group to a political party. Any such move would affect the Syrian president’s plans for keeping his army in Lebanon.
