Reza Kahlili: History of Failed Negotiations Shows Iran Won't Deal

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 US Department of Defense’s Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy (JCITA). 

President Obama, in his State of the Union Address, said he will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons and that all options to prevent that are on the table.

More importantly, Obama said the Islamic regime, which fuels terrorism worldwide and oppresses its own people at home, could still rejoin the international community “if it changes course and meets its obligations.” That is not going to happen – despite glimmers of hope after a trip of UN nuclear inspectors to Iran this week.

As a former CIA spy in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, I wrote a cautionary, open letter to President Obama when he took office three years ago. I said I was worried that he failed to see the realities of the regime’s fanaticism.

In offering to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear program, Mr. Obama must have believed that the aggressive policies of his predecessor, George W. Bush, were to blame for the lack of progress. But I reminded the new president of the long history of attempted rapprochement by every US administration, each attempt ending in failure...