via Lobe Log
by Wayne White
Sen. John McCain’s berating of former Sen. Chuck Hagel for “yes or no” answers as to whether the latter would support intervention in Syria or providing arms to anti-regime fighters reveals just how little McCain understands about how agonizingly complex these issues have been — and remain — [...]
via Lobe Log
By Erich C. Ferrari and Samuel Cutler
Contained in the Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2013, and signed into law by President Obama on January 2, are sweeping new sanctions targeting Iran over its disputed nuclear program. The new measures target foreign entities engaging in a wide array of transactions with [...]
via Lobe Log
By Robin Yassin-Kassab
In August 2012 Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi attended a meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Tehran. His presence at the conference was something of a diplomatic victory for the Iranian leadership, whose relations with Egypt, the pivotal Arab state, had been at the lowest of ebbs since [...]
via Lobe Log
As former top State Department intelligence specialist Wayne White points out for Lobe Log, in the absence of a tenable ceasefire agreement, the quagmire that is the Syrian civil war will likely intensify, thereby only worsening post-Assad scenarios.
“The bottom line is that a sort of Catch-22 situation is [...]
via Lobe Log
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) published a report on December 6 titled “Iran’s Ballistic Missile and Space Launch Programs,” which the Federation of American Scientists has posted. It casts doubt on a long-held view by the US Intelligence Community that Iran could test-fly an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) by 2015 if [...]
via Lobe Log
Laura Rozen reports that the six world power negotiating team may not be revamping its package to be more generous with Iran as many were hoping (Russia has not even signed on to the new version yet) ahead of resumed talks which likely won’t take place until January.
[...]
via Lobe Log
President Obama’s re-election last month raised hopes that the US government would at last be in a position, politically, to work with Iran towards a negotiated settlement centred on confidence-building and the provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This was the basis of the understanding reached this April in Istanbul. It was therefore [...]
via IPS News
Graphic: The figures signify the number of times each country was mentioned in the Oct. 22 presidential debate. Credit: Zachary Fleischmann/IPS
U.S. strategy in the Greater Middle East, which has dominated foreign policy-making since the 9/11 attacks more than 11 years ago, similarly dominated the third and last debate between [...]
via IPS News
It was exactly 50 years ago when then-President John F. Kennedy took to the airwaves to inform the world that the Soviet Union was introducing nuclear-armed missiles into Cuba and that he had ordered a blockade of the island – and would consider stronger action – to force their removal.
[...]
via Lobe Log
The always thorough Mark Hibbs has a smart piece regarding the meaning of the resolution passed last week by the International Atomic Energy Association’s (IAEA) Board of Governors regarding Iran’s nuclear program. The resolution was initiated by the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council [...]
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