Obama Talked With Syrian and Iranian Leaders Before Election

Obama made a great spectacle of announcing that he was not going to comment on world and national events in the months between the election and the inauguration because there was only "one president at a time". Now we find out that he was having discussions with two problem nations before the election:

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama has already used experts within the last few months to hold high-level but discreet talks with both Iran and Syria, organizers of the meetings told AFP.

Officially, Obama's overtures toward both Tehran and Damascus have remained limited.

In an interview broadcast Monday, Obama said the United States would offer arch-foe Iran an extended hand of diplomacy if the Islamic Republic's leaders "unclenched their fist."

Meanwhile, his secretary of state Hillary Clinton warned that the Israeli-Syrian track of the Middle East peace negotiations took a back seat to the Israeli-Palestinian track, especially because of the recent war in Gaza.

However, even before winning the November 4 election, Obama unofficially used what experts call "track two" discussions to approach America's two foes in the region.

Think about the chutzpah of doing that. Obama talked with a nation that wishes us harm without any portfolio to do so. It sounds like they got played pretty much like a violin as well.

That's dangerous and if not illegal, definitely shady. What if what he discussed damaged any back channel discussions the Bush administration was conducting? Imagine the media outrage if George W. Bush's reps had contacted Somalian or Chinese leadership in October of 2000 and had secret discussions. They'd have been outraged and it would have been national news for days--and rightfully so.

Obama is not only an elitist but a dangerous one at that.