The latest on U.S. secret meetings with Iran

WND/ Reza Kahlili

Obama said to need diplomatic victory badly after Benghazi.

The United States and Iran are moving forward with secret negotiations, despite denying earlier meetings took place, according to a source highly placed in the Islamic government.

The source, who remains anonymous for security reasons, added that teams from both sides will resume the talks in the coming days with the hope of reaching agreement to announce a breakthrough before the U.S. elections.

The source said the Obama administration seems to need a diplomatic victory before the elections in the wake of the attack in Libya that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans because the administration failed to adequately protect the Benghazi consulate.

If President Obama is not re-elected, however, the source contends any agreement reached after the elections will be announced and enforced while he is still in office, once Iran’s supreme leader receives written guarantees from Obama.

The source adds, on a related note, that President Obama chose not to destroy the American, sensitive-technology RQ-170 stealth drone, which was captured by the Iranian forces after it crashed in Iran in December of 2011, because he feared jeopardizing the ongoing secret negotiations.

The negotiations to date have reportedly gone beyond the Iranian nuclear program to include such issues as South America, the Persian Gulf and Syria. On the latter issue, the U.S. has already stepped back from its demand that President Bashar Assad be removed. The source added that both parties have agreed on a broad range of incentives that have been offered to the Islamic regime and which will be revealed in time.

The source said the revelation of the secret meetings has caused internal rifts between Iranian factions. The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has already alerted the Americans that he might remove President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and establish an emergency government. He has already seized authority over much of the affairs of the country, including international matters.

Khamenei has decided to push for Ali Akbar Velayati, the former foreign minister and the current close adviser to the supreme leader on international affairs, as the new president in the upcoming Iranian presidential elections next June, the source added. The American negotiators have already signed off on that.

Velayati is wanted by Argentina for the Jewish community center bombing in Buenos Aires in 1994 that killed 85 people.  More on WND.com  >>