from ZeroHedge:

A small cadre of former Obama administration officials have been counseling Iranian Government officials since 2016 on how to deal with the Trump administration, according to the Daily Beast, which notes that Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zerif has been involved in the ongoing discussions.

The message? “Don’t take Trump’s bait. Stay calm.”

Conversations between former Obama officials and Iranian government officials have been ongoing since November 2016. Zarif, who visits the U.S. every year for the U.N. General Assembly in New York, usually meets with lawmakers, think tanks, journalists, and former officials when he is in town.

But the recent round of conversations, which took place over the phone and in person over the last two months, came as lines of communication between the U.S. and Iran, through intermediaries in Europe and elsewhere, deteriorated. –Daily Beast

“It’s not just about what they were saying to the Iranians,” an aide told the Beast. “It’s about what they were saying to their political allies back here in the U.S. Their strategy was to divide and isolate the Trump administration just as the Trump administration was trying to re-establish deterrence with Iran. In the current highly partisan political environment, the only safe course is to signal national unity—and they contributed to eroding that at home and abroad.”

In September, former Secretary of State John Kerry admitted to meeting with Zarif “three or four times” since Donald Trump took office, a move which drew condemnation from conservatives who said Kerry was “coaching” the Iranian FM on how to deal with the White House.

John Kerry had illegal meetings with the very hostile Iranian Regime, which can only serve to undercut our great work to the detriment of the American people. He told them to wait out the Trump Administration! Was he registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act? BAD!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 14 September 2018

In response, some Republican lawmakers levied charges that Kerry is engaged in rogue diplomacy and is undermining the active, elected administration.

Kerry defended the meetings, saying: “What I have done is tried to elicit from him what Iran might be willing to do in order to change the dynamic in the Middle East for the better.”

Tensions between the US and Iran have increased recently, after Iran warned that it would increase its stockpile of nuclear-related materials – though the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a quarterly report seen on Friday by the Wall Street Journal that Tehran remains in compliance with its main commitments under the 2015 nuclear agreement. On May 8, the one-year anniversary of President Trump pulling out of the nuclear deal, Iran said that it would begin to scale up its nuclear program, and would disregard limits on its stockpiles of enriched uranium and heavy water.

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