Reversing assurances given last week to the Pulitzer Prize winning site PolitiFact by a National Security Council (NSC) source, the White House yesterday admitted to the Washington Free Beacon that an Iranian ballistic missile test would not put Tehran in violation of the recently signed Geneva agreement. “That statement on ballistic missiles is incorrect,”...

Politico reports that testimony given today by Secretary of State John Kerry to the House Foreign Affairs Committee fell far short of convincing lawmakers to adopt the administration’s perspective on Iran, with Kerry not only stumbling in answering questions regarding the consistency of the White House’s read on Iranian calculations – administration...

Reuters yesterday reported on declarations from a top Hamas figure asserting that the Palestinian terror group had “resumed” its relations with Iran, after several months in which the organization was estranged from its long-time sponsor in Tehran due to sectarian tensions generated by the almost three-year Syrian conflict. “Relations between Hamas and...

Foreign Policy Magazine’s The Complex yesterday outlined legislative efforts, written by Congress into the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), to respond to Turkey’s controversial decision to purchase missile defense assets from a Chinese company blacklisted by Washington. Turkey stunned U.S. officials in September when it reached a provisional deal worth up...

A new poll – conducted on behalf of the news websites Al-Masdar.net and TheTower.org, and released this afternoon after it was presented to reporters by pollster Frank Luntz – concludes that lopsided majorities of Americans from both political parties overwhelmingly favor deepening sanctions against the Iranian government, regardless of current...

Israel’s left-leaning Haaretz revealed last night that U.S. officials have privately conceded to Israeli counterparts that the Obama administration “greatly underestimated the economic benefits Tehran would reap” from the recently signed Geneva accord between the P5+1 global powers and Iran, and that the Islamic republic stands to receive a windfall totaling roughly $20 billion from...

English-language Turkish media reported yesterday that the country’s parliament, which the Daily News described as “dominated by deputies from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP),” rejected an opposition-filed censure motion filed against AKP Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu over his role in generating the recent precipitous decline in Turkey’s regional stature. The motion cited...

Hezbollah and Syrian army forces battling on behalf of the Bashar al-Assad regime are close to seizing the town of Nabuk, one of the last areas in the Lebanon-adjacent Qalamoun region still controlled by opposition forces, amid renewed concerns from Lebanese officials that blowback generated by Hezbollah’s participation in Syria’s...

Palestinian leaders today doubled down on weekend declarations in which they categorically rejected U.S. bridging proposals designed to balance Israeli security needs – including Jerusalem’s concerns about a security vacuum that might emerge in the strategically important Jordan Valley in the context of a comprehensive peace deal – with Palestinian demands for...

Reuters yesterday reported on accelerating efforts in the Senate to pass legislation that would impose new sanctions on Iran if progress in dismantling the country’s atomic program stalls over a coming six-month interim period, during which global powers are to negotiate with Tehran over what is widely believed to be Iran’s drive...