If the tunes that followed each speech on Sunday at the AIPAC policy conference had been chosen along interpretive lines, President Barack Obama might have walked from the podium serenaded by the Rolling Stones’ chorus, “You …
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Israelis Like What They Heard in Obama’s AIPAC Speech
Israeli television went live with President Obama’s speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Sunday night. It amounted to theater here, high drama framed by, rather than the proscenium, a kind of structural …
Iran’s Elections: Conservatives Battle Each Other, While the Ayatullah ‘Runs’ Against the U.S.
For those seeking to understand Iran’s parliamentary elections, an unlikely analogy might be the GOP presidential primary race: Iran’s poll is a fiercely competitive, bare-knuckled fight for power. Like the GOP primary, the slate …
Why Netanyahu’s Visit to Discuss Iran Puts Obama in a Political Minefield
President Barack Obama’s reelection bid could face a stern test when he addresses the annual conference of the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on Sunday, and then meets with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin …
Ballot-Box Watch: Your Guide to March Elections
Global Spin previews upcoming polls from around the world
Hamas Signals Break with Iran, But Is That Good for Israel?
A popular Washington illusion once held that the right combination of incentives and punishments might “peel off” Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad from Iran’s “Axis of Resistance,” but nobody would have predicted that the weak …
Can Syria’s Assad Fight His Way to Political Survival?
Despite the death and destruction his security forces are raining down on opposition-held neighborhoods in Syria, President Bashar Assad is unlikely to succeed in crushing a year-old rebellion. International revulsion at the …
What Iran’s Inspection Rebuff Says About Prospects for Nuclear Diplomacy
To those mesmerized by the drumbeat for war with Iran, Tehran’s rejection on Tuesday of an International Atomic Energy Agency request to visit a sensitive military site signaled grim prospects for diplomacy resolving the nuclear …
The U.S. and Other ‘Friends of Syria’ Still Search for a Strategy to Oust Assad
“It is time we gave them the wherewithal to fight back and stop the slaughter,” said Senator John McCain on Monday, referring to Syria’s opposition amid the carnage being wrought by the Assad regime’s efforts to quash a year-old …
A Diplomatic Solution to the Iran Nuclear Standoff? That May Depend On Achieving Compromises
Sanctions on Iran are beginning to work, goes the argument from the Obama Administration, and they should be given more time to bring Tehran to heel. The primary audience for this argument is the leadership of Israel, whom the …
How to Interpret Iran’s New Nuclear Advances
The nuclear advances announced Wednesday by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are a prelude to an expected new round of talks between Tehran and Western powers — and also a moment of electioneering by a political faction …
Must-Reads from Around the World: February 15, 2012
Nuclear Achievements – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad confirmed additions to the country’s nuclear program Wednesday. The Daily Telegraph reports Iran’s state television unveiled faster carbon fiber centrifuges and fuel …
Peacekeepers for Syria? Not While There’s No Peace to Keep
As Arab and Western diplomats work to fashion tools to pressure the Syrian regime to end its military response to a year-old rebellion, an unrelenting artillery exacts a terrible daily toll on the residents of rebel-held Sunni …