Trial Balloons: White House Floating “Leaks” To Test Surprise….

…… This is a Test

…. This is only a Test

…. Do Not attempt to adjust your vote… (yet)

The White House is throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks in the right place(s).
A “foreign Policy” debate scheduled for Monday,… in Boca Raton,…. amid the largest Jewish voter base in the Key “Swing State” of Florida,…. with the biggest ongoing policy issue being Iran threatening Israel with Nuclear Weapons,…. after Obama blew it with his non-support of the Iranian Freedom Movement (Green Party)
And all of a sudden,…. the Left-Wing New York Times is “leaking”,… on a Saturday,…..  In advance of the “Sunday Talk Shows”,……  That Iran and President Obama “might have” come to an agreement to stave off military action and defuse the situation….

All unbeknownst to Israel….

Um, Ohhhh-kaaaaaay

Got It !

Could they be any more friggin obvious with this super-sized Trial Balloon?.



Here is the New York Times -  The United States and Iran have agreed for the first time to one-on-one negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, according to Obama administration officials, setting the stage for what could be a last-ditch diplomatic effort to avert a military strike on Iran.
Iranian officials have insisted that the talks wait until after the presidential election, a senior administration official said, telling their American counterparts that they want to know which American president they would be negotiating with.
News of the agreement — a result of intense, secret exchanges between American and Iranian officials that date almost to the beginning of President Obama’s term — comes at a critical moment in the presidential contest, just two weeks before Election Day and a day before the final debate, which is to focus on national security and foreign policy.
Israeli officials initially expressed an awareness of, and openness to, a diplomatic initiative. But when asked for a response on Saturday, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Michael B. Oren, said the administration had not informed Israel, and that the Israeli government feared Iran would use new talks to “advance their nuclear weapons program.”
“We do not think Iran should be rewarded with direct talks,” he said, “rather that sanctions and all other possible pressures on Iran must be increased.”Direct talks would also have implications for an existing series of negotiations involving a coalition of major powers, including the United States. These countries have imposed sanctions to pressure Iran over its nuclear program, which Tehran insists is for peaceful purposes but which Israel and many in the West believe is aimed at producing a weapon.
                                                                                           

Dennis B. Ross, who oversaw Iran policy for the White House until early 2012, says one reason direct talks would make sense after the election is that the current major-power negotiations are bogged down in incremental efforts, which may not achieve a solution in time to prevent a military strike.

Mr. Ross said the United States could make Iran an “endgame proposal,” under which Tehran would be allowed to maintain a civil nuclear power industry. Such a deal would resolve, in one stroke, issues like Iran’s enrichment of uranium and the monitoring of its nuclear facilities.

Within the administration, there is debate over just how much uranium the United States would allow Iran to enrich inside the country. Among those involved in the deliberations, an official said, are Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, two of her deputies — William J. Burns and Wendy Sherman — and key White House officials, including the national security adviser, Tom Donilon, and two of his lieutenants, Denis R. McDonough and Gary Samore.

Iran’s capacity to enrich uranium bears on another key difference between Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney: whether to tolerate Iran’s enrichment program short of producing a nuclear weapon, as long as inspectors can keep a close eye on it, versus prohibiting Iran from enriching uranium at all. Obama administration officials say they could imagine some circumstances under which low-level enrichment might be permitted; Mr. Romney has said that would be too risky.

But Mr. Romney’s position has shifted back and forth. In September, he told ABC News that his “red line” on Iran was the same as Mr. Obama’s — that Iran may not have a nuclear weapon. But his campaign later edited its Web site to include the line, “Mitt Romney believes that it is unacceptable for Iran to possess nuclear weapons capability.”

For years, Iran has rejected one-on-one talks with the United States, reflecting what experts say are internal power struggles. A key tug of war is between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ali Larijani, Iran’s former nuclear negotiator and now the chairman of the Parliament.

Iran, which views its nuclear program as a vital national interest, has also shied away from direct negotiations because the ruling mullahs did not want to appear as if they were sitting down with a country they have long demonized as the Great Satan.

But economic pressure may be forcing their hand. In June, when the major powers met in Moscow, American officials say that Iran was desperate to stave off a crippling European oil embargo. After that failed, these officials now say, Iranian officials delivered a message that Tehran would be willing to hold direct talks.

In New York in September, Mr. Ahmadinejad hinted at the reasoning. “Experience has shown that important and key decisions are not made in the U.S. leading up to the national elections,” he said.

A senior American official said that the prospect of direct talks is why there has not been another meeting of the major-powers group on Iran.

In the meantime, pain from the sanctions has deepened. Iran’s currency, the rial, plummeted 40 percent in early October.