The Associated Press reported yesterday on political high drama unfolding in Tehran, where Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif briefly checked himself into a hospital citing physical pain caused by what he insists were fabricated statements attributed to him by the hardline newspaper Kayhan. The daily had quoted Zarif walking...

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Among the security assurances given to Israel at the end of its 2006 war with Hezbollah was that an enlarged United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) – the peacekeeping force along the Israeli-Lebanese border – would fan across southern Lebanon to prevent Hezbollah from smuggling weapons into the region....

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The Wall Street Journal last night broke the details on the package of concessions that Iran is preparing to offer the West in upcoming talks. The offer will, if accurately described, fall short of explicit U.S. demands outlined in recent weeks, which were underlined by repeated statements from top State...

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CNN last night announced that they had a bit of a scooplet about Egypt, and that the White House planned to cut off aid to Cairo in the wake of the army’s July move to depose the country’s Muslim Brotherhood-linked former president Mohammed Morsi. The news came as a surprise...

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Khaled Meshaal, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, had until recently never visited the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Over the years there had been many justifications – a primary one being that it kept him beyond the Israelis’ range – but the upshot was always that he remained physically separated from...

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North Korea announced yesterday that it was placing its military on high alert. It warnedthe United States of “disastrous consequences” and an “unexpected horrible disaster” after the U.S. moved naval assets, including an aircraft carrier, into a South Korean port for what officials described as a routine trilateral search and...

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National Security Adviser Susan Rice has stated that the administration will not accept any deal would “let Iran enrich its own uranium.” The State Department’s top figures, including Secretary of State John Kerry, subsequently stated multiple times that it considers no deal better than a deal that falls short of...

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Analysts have worried since literally the first hours after the election of Iranian president Hassan Rouhani that the revolutionary-era cleric, who ran on a platform more moderate than his fellow regime-approved candidates, would be hamstrung by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The Supreme Leader controls Iran’s nuclear policy, and had...

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Iranian ex-pats living in Israel have evaluated claims suggesting that the Islamic republic’s newly inaugurated president Hassan Rouhani will moderate Iran’s foreign and domestic policies. “Deeply skeptical” is how the Jerusalem Post described their reactions: Salome Worch was born in Iran, grew up and spent most of her adult life...

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Analysts and journalists continued today to chew over recently posted footage showing Iranian president Hassan Rouhani boasting that he used negotiations with the West during the 2000’s to stall for time while Iran locked in its nuclear infrastructure. The Times of Israel, which brought renewed attention to the video, also...

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