Reps. Ed Royce (R-CA) and Eliot Engel (D-NY) – respectively the chairman and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee – on Tuesday released the text of a bipartisan letter that they indicated would soon be sent to President Barack Obama “noting that Congress played a central role in...

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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani traveled to the Iraqi border on June 18 to pledge his country will do whatever it takes to protect the holiest sites in Shia Islam, which are located in southern Iraq. Rouhani said there are petitions from Iranians who are willing “to destroy the terrorists and...

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As talks between Iran and the P5+1 global powers resumed this week in Vienna, the Los Angeles Times published comments from one senior State Department official stating that “significant differences” remain as the parties approach the July 20 deadline set by the interim Joint Plan of Action (JPA) passes: “There are...

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A Monday morning interview between Yahoo! News and Secretary of State John Kerry generated a firestorm of controversy – along with a series of retractions and clarifications from various Obama administration officials – after Kerry seemed to imply to interviewer Katie Couric that he was open to cooperating militarily with...

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The Obama administration’s approach toward nuclear talks with Iran is generating unease among Washington’s traditional Arab and Israeli allies – and will at a minimum need to be counterbalanced by robust pushback against other elements of Iran’s foreign policy – according to [PDF] testimony submitted last Thursday to the Senate Committee on Foreign...

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In an op-ed that appeared in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, former U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley argues that the “technocratic” Palestinian unity government is “a transparent trick meant to keep the dollars coming.” In Time for U.S. to Stop Funding Terrorists, Berkley, a Democrat, outlines the dangers that the joint Fatah-Hamas...

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After multiple rockets from Gaza landed in Israeli territory on Saturday, Israel retaliated against Gaza-based launch sites late Saturday night. The Times of Israel reports: “In response to the three rockets fired earlier this evening at Israel an IAF aircraft targeted three terror activity sites, two weapon storage and manufacturing facilities...

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Reuters on Thursday published an extensive evaluation – double bylined by the outlet’s veteran U.S. foreign policy correspondent Arshad Mohammed and its energy & environment correspondent Timothy Gardner – conveying new responses from the Obama administration to concerns over what outside experts have evaluated as seven straight months of Iran...

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Reuters on Thursday conveyed comments made at a Rome conference by Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi threatening that the Islamic republic “will return to 20 percent enrichment if a deal cannot be reached” between Tehran and the P5+1 global powers, which have in recent days reportedly stumbled over issues...

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Gains being made across Iraq by the radical Sunni group the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) – Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul on Tuesday, Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit on Wednesday, and what appeared to be further gains aimed at marching on Baghdad on Thursday –...

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