I was struck by an article by Nathan Guttman in the legendary Jewish Daily Forward about Dennis Ross and George Mitchell jockeying for the position of Obama Administration’s point-person in the Middle East peace process. The whole thing is a fascinating read, but this line really jumped out at me:
Others have [...]
All four of the ambassadors who received recess appointments from President Obama were considered fully qualified by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who approved their nominations and sent them to the full Senate for confirmation. All have been kept from taking up their diplomatic posts on by unilateral actions on the part of one or two senators, who prevented their appointments from reaching the Senate floor for the votes that almost certainly would have confirmed them.
Does the selection of Iran’s nuclear czar as its new (interim) foreign minister say anything about nuclear negotiations between Iran and the West? We don’t really know, and given that the next round of talks is only a month away, we might not know until news breaks from Istanbul.
Let’s get caught up with [...]
Two days of talks between Iran and the P5+1 — the permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany — came to a close on Tuesday in Geneva. It’s no surprise that there was no agreement, given how far apart the sides started off. Incoming report indicate there was progress as both sides made [...]
Columbia professor and Iran expert Gary Sick offers a simple reason why U.S. President Barack Obama’s engagement plan with Iran has thus far failed: “It has yet to be tried.”
In our IPS piece, Jim Lobe and I quoted much of this portion of Sick’s blogged reactions to the lastest WikiLeaks document dump:
[...]
Earlier today on National Review‘s The Corner blog, Foundation for Defense of Democracies head honcho Cliff May wrote:
I’m now hearing from more than one source on the Hill that the Obama administration has just added a new argument in favor of lame-duck ratification: failure to adopt START will “hurt Israel.”
May demurs, naturally [...]
It looks that way — or the Israelis could simply want people to think that. But, whatever the truth, they seem to be coyly admitting to this summer’s massive cyber-attack against Iran.
The New York Times looks back at Stuxnet, the worm that targeted computers in Iran, specifically, those linked to Iran’s centrifuge work [...]
In a move on Wednesday that some analysts consider a concession to Iran ahead of the upcoming negotiations on its nuclear program, the U.S. State Department labeled the Iranian Sunni militant group, Jundullah, a “Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.”
The catch? For years the United States has been accused [...]
News and views relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 26, 2010:
Politico: Laura Rozen reports on Dennis Ross‘, a top Obama adviser on Iran and the peace process, presentation to an AIPAC conference earlier this week. Ross addressed the administration’s efforts to pressure Iran, prioritize sanctions and conduct the “creative and persistent” diplomacy [...]
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ECI blasts Dem Sens and AIPAC for Supporting START
Where does the Emergency Committee for Israel get off complaining that AIPAC shouldn’t support New START because it’s outside of the “pro-Israel” purview? Who knows. But that’s exactly what they did.
ECI, the partisan “pro-Israel” group set up by Bill Kristol, Gary Bauer and Rachel Abrams (wife of Elliott), [...]