Obama's creativity (ElderToons)

On Friday, the NYT reported:

Iran’s foreign minister raised the prospect on Friday of unlimited Iranian atomic fuel enrichment if the final phase of talks with the United States and other big powers on Iran’s disputed nuclear program does not achieve an agreement by a June 30 deadline, with all sanctions dropped.

The foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, also said the Americans had diverged from a framework agreement reached on April 2 by publishing what they described as a fact sheet about the framework’s basic provisions. Contrary to that assertion, Mr. Zarif said, there would be no phased removal of sanctions to ensure Iranian compliance.

Soon after, it reported:

President Obama on Friday directed his diplomats to use “creative negotiations” to bridge a sharp divide with Iran over the fate of sanctions if it agrees to curb its nuclear program, signaling flexibility in hopes of keeping a tentative agreement from unraveling.

Mr. Obama did not repeat past American assertions that sanctions would be removed only in phases as Tehran follows through on obligations to scale back its nuclear facilities.

Instead, Mr. Obama suggested that negotiators seek a solution that would seem “more acceptable” to Iran’s political constituencies, while preserving leverage to force the government to abide by the deal. Rather than the timing and structure of sanctions relief, he said his priority was creating a system for reimposing the punitive measures if Iran is caught cheating.

“How sanctions are lessened, how we snap back sanctions if there’s a violation, there are a lot of different mechanisms and ways to do that,” Mr. Obama said at a White House news conference alongside the Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi. The negotiators, Mr. Obama said, need to “find formulas that get to our main concerns while allowing the other side to make a presentation to their body politic that is more acceptable.”

“Our main concern here is making sure that if Iran doesn’t abide by its agreement, that we don’t have to jump through a whole bunch of hoops in order to reinstate sanctions,” Mr. Obama continued. “That’s our main concern.”

With Secretary of State John Kerry seated in front of him in the East Room, the president said: “And it will require some creative negotiations by John Kerry and others. And I’m confident we will be successful.”

It is truly amazing. Iran is acting as if it has the White House over a barrel, and Obama agrees with them! 

This may go down as the single most incompetent public negotiation in the history of mankind. it would be funny if the consequences weren't so huge.

Here's the real translation of  what the White House calls "creativity:"