The White House is denying a report in the New York Times claiming that they will conduct one-on-one talks with Iran over their nuclear program. The bilateral negotiations, the fruit of a secret back-channel process according to the Times, would not occur until after the Presidential election, at the Iranian’s request, so they can have [...]

Reports indicate fresh clashes with riot police inside Tehran, Iran today, but they do not have necessarily the same rationale as the Arab uprising. These stem from the collapse of the Iranian currency, a direct result of international sanctions on the Islamic Republic over their nuclear program. Clashes erupted in the center of the Iranian [...]

When you talk about tail risk for the US economy, sweeping away the European crisis and the fiscal cliff, perhaps the biggest potential comes from an oil price shock. Combined with any fiscal tightening, that could easily snap the US into recession. And the biggest threat of this stems not from the protests outside US [...]

In addition to the tragic situation in Libya, another international incident simmered last night, on the subject of Israel and Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a speech claiming that the US had “no moral right” to intervene in a potential Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, unless they too set a “red line” [...]

A startling report in Israeli paper Haaretz claims that Defense Minister Ehud Barak has now flipped and opposes a strike on Iranian nuclear sites, after supporting the project as recently as a couple months ago. There are suggestions in the piece that pressure from American generals has moved him in that direction: Word is that [...]

Since the beginning of the Iranian oil embargo imposed by the EU July 1, the press reports have sought to increase tensions between Iran and the West rather than reduce them. Witness today’s story about Iran disguising its oil tankers to get around the embargo, proving their duplicity and desperation. Or witness the highlighting of [...]

With significant factions on both sides rooting for failure in the Iranian nuclear talks, it should come as no surprise that they came up short after wrapping up last night. A U.S. administration official said that after so many hours of tough exchanges, the parties need to talk to each other, parse what had been [...]

A new round of talks on the Iranian nuclear program opened in Moscow today, and Iran has already made an opening bid: Three hours after the talks began, a report on state-controlled Iranian television said that Iran would not consider curtailing the enrichment of uranium to 20 percent — a key goal for international mediators [...]

After a couple weeks of hope, there are more troubling signs about the future of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. It appeared that the IAEA had struck a deal with Iran for future inspections of previously uninspected sites. Now, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano has announced new talks, as well as a revelation about satellite images [...]

Hopes that last week’s diplomatic round between the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany) and Iran would produce progress on the nuclear question have begun to wane, hampered by a media pushback from hardliners on both sides. From the West, we’ve had a series of somewhat dubious articles about [...]

Negotiations between Iran and the P5+1, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, wrapped up today in Baghdad and the best news from the meeting is that there will be another round of talks, in Moscow, next month. As long as the two sides keep talking, something good could transpire. The [...]