Negotiations to end the ongoing Yemeni civil war collapsed last week, after delegates of the Iran-backed Houthi Shiite militia refused to compromise on key issues. Yemeni Foreign Minister Riad Yassin stated that Houthi representatives acted like “ghosts” during the talks, opting to relax in their hotel rooms rather than engaging with delegates from other parties. Meanwhile, the...

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Iran’s parliament voted Sunday to approve legislation that would forbid international inspectors from accessing military sites as part of any nuclear accord with the West. The legislation, which is in line with pronouncements of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior Iranian officials, would block one of the...

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The Iranian government banned women from attending today’s volleyball match between Iran and the United States in Tehran, despite hopes among activists that women would be allowed to attend. NBC reported: Earlier this month, Iran’s Vice President for Women and Family Affairs Shahindokht Molaverdi announced that a limited number of women —...

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The Obama administration’s response to the new book by former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren is part of an opportunistic effort “to portray itself as a loyal friend to Israel,” Jonathan Tobin wrote Thursday in Commentary. The motives for these denunciations are obvious. The president knows that the truth about his hostility...

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The U.S. government’s internal monitoring organization has determined that the State Department is three years late in applying certain sanctions to Iran, Al-Monitor reported Wednesday. The report raises questions over whether the State Department is intentionally delaying sanctions on Iran as negotiations over its nuclear program continue. The report (.pdf), issued by the Government Accountability...

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Secretary of State John Kerry’s remark earlier this week that “We’re not fixated on Iran specifically accounting for what they did at one point in time or another” has caused concern among lawmakers that the White House has stepped back from its previous demand that Iran must come clean about its past...

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Police in Bahrain announced today that they had seized Iranian-made explosives intended for terrorist use against neighboring Saudi Arabia. Reuters reported: In a statement, police chief Major-General Tariq al-Hasan said the techniques used in the manufacture of the explosives bore “clear similarities” to methods used by what it called proxy groups of Iran’s Islamic...

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The emerging nuclear deal with Iran will not “end Iran’s ability and motivation to have a nuclear-weapons option” wrote Aaron David Miller, a State Department official in both Democratic and Republican administrations, in an analysis published today in Time. After noting that the likely result of the deal is the emergence of “a...

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AIPAC issued a statement calling Secretary of State John Kerry’s comments, apparently retreating from a demand that Iran come clean about all of its past nuclear work, “disturbing,” The Jerusalem Post reported today. AIPAC’s statement was one of concern that, after sealing a framework to a nuclear deal with Iran, the US was...

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President Barack Obama is considering appointing a “czar” to oversee an emerging nuclear deal with Iran, Politico reported Wednesday. But some critics are questioning whether such an appointment will be able to ensure that a nuclear deal would be effective. An Obama administration official confirmed that one option under consideration is having...

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