A WikiLeaks cable reported this week suggested that the main Iranian obstacle to striking a nuclear fuel swap deal with the West was not the deal itself (or the Western countries involved), but internal Iranian politics. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad… Continue Reading
Our IPS colleague Omid Memarian has a piece up at the wire explaining Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s sudden Monday firing of his foreign minister, Manoucher Mottaki. Memarian’s piece draws on Iranian sources to describe the political context of, and gauge reactions… Continue Reading
Does the selection of Iran’s nuclear czar as its new (interim) foreign minister say anything about nuclear negotiations between Iran and the West? We don’t really know, and given that the next round of talks is only a month away, we might… Continue Reading
Earlier this week, Ambassador Chas W. Freeman offered some invaluable insights on WikiLeaks, which Jim Lobe and I wrote about in this IPS piece and I shared here. I thought I’d take another chance to empty my notebook of more of… Continue Reading
At a release event for the U.S. Institute of Peace’s (USIP) Iran Primer: Power, Politics and U.S. Power — an exhaustive collection of new writings on the country — the opening address came from Dennis Ross, a top national security adviser to President Barack Obama… Continue Reading