Nuclear Issues

12 Items

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

Why Do So Many People Want So Little From the Agreement With Iran?

| September 15, 2015

"...[K]eeping Iran at arm's length (or worse) reduces U.S. diplomatic leverage and flexibility. As long as U.S. Middle East policy remains fixated on its 'special relationships' with Israel, Saudi Arabia, and to some extent Egypt, these states will continue to take U.S. support for granted and ignore U.S. preferences more often than we'd like. But if the United States had decent working relations with every state in the region — including Iran — it could work constructively with any or all of them."

Negotiations about Iranian Nuclear Program

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Analysis & Opinions

What do we learn from the Iran agreement experience?

| September 5, 2015

"Now that President Barack Obama has secured more than enough votes in the U.S. Senate to assure the implementation of the agreement with Iran on nuclear issues and sanctions, we can focus on the lessons learned from the process’ intense political dynamics. Three in particular stand out: U.S.-Israeli, U.S.-Saudi Arabian/Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and GCC-Iranian relations. U.S.-Israeli bilateral ties get the most attention these days, but all three are equally important, and turbulent in their own ways."

Smoke rises after an attack launched by Assad regime forces to the residential areas in Jobar municipality of Damascus, Syria on July 27, 2015.

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Analysis & Opinions - Agence Global

Remembering Hiroshima, amidst hell in Syria

| August 7, 2015

"Perhaps so much death and destruction take place around the Arab world, at the hands of Arabs, Israelis, Americans and others, because no serious process exists that holds individuals or governments accountable for the atrocities they commit. The International Criminal Court’s indictment of Sudanese President Omar Hassan Bashir for war crimes a few years ago has never been followed up by a serious effort to bring him to court for a fair trial..."

US Secretary of State John Kerry at a meeting with foreign ministers of the GCC in Doha, Qatar.

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Analysis & Opinions - Agence Global

Where there's smoke, there's Syria diplomacy

| August 5, 2015

"Certainly the most fascinating diplomatic move this week was the tripartite meeting in Doha Monday among the American, Russian and Saudi foreign ministers to discuss the situation in Syria. This means they also must have discussed — take a deep breath here — Iran, Lebanon, Hizbollah, Turkey, Yemen, Iraq, three different Kurdish political/military organizations, Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Hamas, Al-Qaeda, the United Arab Emirates military, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt and half a dozen other regional players who now play some role in the situation in and around Syria."

U.S. President Barack Obama talks to Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Amir of the State of Kuwait at the Gulf Cooperation Council-U.S. summit at Camp David.

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Analysis & Opinions - Aljazeera

US hosts Gulf allies in vain Camp David meeting

| May 19, 2015

"The Camp David summit last week among the United States and the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states ended with a fluffy communiqué whose mutual courtesies revealed no significant changes in either side’s positions. The troubling and ironic aspect of this event is that both sides were fixated on new security and military measures to address insecurities in the region — many of which exacerbated and some created by their own military policies and distorted threat perceptions. "

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

Bibi Blows Up the Special Relationship

| March 2, 2015

"...[A]nyone who questions the special relationship or the role the lobby plays in preserving it is still likely to be accused of anti-Semitism (if a gentile) or self-hatred (if Jewish). The special relationship has rested to some degree on intimidation, and as noted most people don't like being bullied. The question, therefore, is whether this flap will turn out to be an isolated incident or whether more people will begin to say what they really think."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks about Iran during a joint meeting of the United States Congress.

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Analysis & Opinions - Agence Global

A milestone in United States-Israel relations

| February 28, 2015

"The controversy over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before the U.S. Congress next week has generated intense reactions from Israelis and Americans of all political shades. Its long-term impact is unknown, but its significance to date is that it has provided us with a rare opportunity to see what happens when American congressmen and women are caught uncomfortably between two very powerful forces in their lives: standing with the American president, or standing with the leader of Israel regardless of what that leader does, including directly challenging the American president."

Marchers in San Francisco's Union Square wave American and pre-1979 Iranian Flags in February, 2011.

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Analysis & Opinions - Agence Global

U.S.-Iranian Leaders’ Dazzling Opportunity

| September 21, 2013

"The positive possibilities that could emanate from the escalating signs of a direct Iranian-American engagement are dazzling in their intensity and historic in their scope. Rarely in modern history has the Middle East region experienced such a hopeful moment as this, when one major diplomatic shift towards productive American-Iranian relations could positively impact half a dozen conflicts in the region."

Iranian President Hasan Rouhani, center left with white turban, leaves at the conclusion of a session of the parliament to debate on his proposed Cabinet in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2013.

(AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Analysis & Opinions - The Boston Globe

Obama has an opening with Iran

| August 15, 2013

With a speed few predicted, Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, has signaled his interest in negotiations this autumn on Iran’s controversial nuclear program," writes Nicholas Burns. "This could produce the first extensive contact between Washington and Tehran since diplomatic relations ruptured during the Jimmy Carter administration."