The New York Times features an Atlantic Council panel on the Iranian negotiations in an article about the French Ambassador to the United States, Gérard Araud :
You’d think, after our “Freedom Fries” silliness, when we didn’t listen to France about the folly of an Iraq invasion, we would heed a warning on Iran, a country with a talent for cheating.
But John Kerry was angry at Araud’s bluntness. Still, the ambassador doubled down at a recent panel at the Atlantic Council think tank, asserting that there had been too much focus on Iran’s “chest-banging” and demands at the start of the negotations, and predicting: “It’s very likely that we don’t have an agreement before the end of June, or even after June.” That made news and drew a rebuke from the State Department’s lead negotiator.
“Wendy Sherman called me, and she was livid. ‘Gérard, what do you say?’ ” Araud told me, with a charming smirk. He sent out a dutiful tweet, clarifying that he simply meant that the Iranians would wait until the last minute, as they have done before.