U.S. lawmakers have already made clear what they consider to be the broad outlines of any meaningful deal surrounding Iran’s nuclear program, which is widely believed to include a clandestine weaponization component. Reflecting an emerging bipartisan consensus, Rep. Eliot Engel, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, recently...

When Secretary of State John Kerry announced the resumption of U.S.-backed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, he was explicit that success would rely on both sides not leaking details of the negotiations to journalists and diplomats. Kerry went even further and told reporters that “no one should consider any reports, articles, or...

Celebrated claims made by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani asserting that he has “full authority” to negotiate deals on behalf of Tehran may come under renewed scrutiny, after an even more celebrated phone call between Rouhani and President Barack Obama was criticized by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as “not appropriate.” Khamenei went on...

Policy debates over Iran have consistently – over the course of many years – been bound up with events in North Korea. The nuclear programs of both countries are deeply intertwined, with Iran helping to fund Pyongyang’s weapons development and the North Koreans providing a return on Iran’s investment in...

Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad recently gave an interview on Turkish TV in which he discussed Ankara’s support for opposition forces battling to overthrow the Assad regime. The Syrian strongman was less than measured, and he very pointedly threatened that Turkey would “pay very dearly.” Hezbollah media outlets were only too...

There has been confusion about Israeli sentiments regarding the country’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and skepticism which he has declared regarding diplomatic overtures toward the West being made by Iranian president Hassan Rouhani. Netanyahu had emphasized that the Iranians may be duplicitiously using the prospect for negotiations to lock in...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the Iranian people in a rare interview Thursday with BBC Persian. He emphasized that Iranian nuclear weapons acquisition would make it functionally impossible to challenge the regime either from within or from outside, and that the result would be tragedy: Israel’s prime minister says...

Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian war has allowed the Bashar al-Assad regime to steadily erode two years of rebel advances and seize the momentum in the conflict. The opposition stronghold of Qusayr fell to a campaign that combined ground troops from the Iran-backed terror group with air support from the...

There are pockets of the diplomatic world where characterizing Hamas as a moderate, pragmatic organization has become something of a cottage industry. Very occasionally, the Iran-backed group has banned particularly controversial policies and, thereby, provided material for that cottage industry. The last time Hamas executed someone for a criminal offense...

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has scheduled rallies for this Sunday in support of the Egypt’s Brotherhood-linked former President Mohammed Morsi. As part of the Brotherhood’s efforts to mobilize supporters, they have taken to excoriating the Egyptian military that – amid mass nation-wide protests calling for his resignation – acted to...