Senior officials from the Biden administration held indirect talks last week with the Iranian regime in the Gulf state of Oman to avoid “escalation” in the region — even as Iran’s proxies continue to attack Israel and global shipping.
The effort is one of few diplomatic meetings between the U.S. and Iran, and recalls the secret meetings between President Barack Obama’s envoys and the Iranian regime in Oman in 2013 that set the stage for the Iran nuclear deal.
That agreement was widely viewed as favorable to Iran, allowing it to emerge after roughly a decade as a nuclear power. President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018; President Joe Biden has tried, in vain, to renew it.
The new talks in Oman could be interpreted as a way to avoid a larger regional war — or, given the Obama/Biden track record, as a way to reassure Iran that neither Israel nor the U.S. will target it in response to its aggression.
The Times of Israel reported:
Senior US officials held indirect talks with Iran this week in Oman regarding the potential for escalation in the Middle East following last month’s hostilities between the Islamic Republic and Israel.
According to a Friday Axios report, the Biden administration sent White House Middle East envoy Brett McGurk and acting special envoy on Iran Abram Paley for the first indirect talks held between the two countries since January.
An Israeli government official confirmed the report to The Times of Israel and added that McGurk was also in Saudi Arabia this week.
The Iranian regime launched some 300 missiles and drones against Israel last month, most of which were intercepted. The Biden administration urged Israel not to retaliate, and Israel responded by launching pinpoint attacks on Iranian air defenses near strategic sites, demonstrating its capacity to do far more in future.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
