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 [...]

The Democratic platform on Iran has a mix of pleas for a diplomatic solution combined with the ever-present threats and vows of military force if required. It acknowledges straight-out that “Iran has yet to build a nuclear weapon” but adds that the country has “failed to meet its obligations under the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty). [...]

Looks like we’re scheduled to endure another round of hype about Iran’s nuclear program. David Sanger writes in today’s New York Times about an imminent IAEA report. International nuclear inspectors will soon report that Iran has installed hundreds of new centrifuges in recent months and may also be speeding up production of nuclear fuel while [...]

Rumors about a possible Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities forced US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to comment on the reports, but not in the most reassuring way, saying that Israel has not yet made their decision on an attack. “I don’t believe they’ve made a decision as to whether or not they will go [...]

Mitt Romney’s national security advisor Dan Senor caused a stir yesterday when he said the candidate would respect a decision by Israel to unilaterally strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities. This sent the Romney campaign into yet another round of damage control on this overseas tour. But the bigger issue was a separate statement said by [...]

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 [...]

Over the weekend the European Union inaugurated its embargo on Iranian oil, the most wide-reaching impediment to the Iranian economy of the recent sanctions. The EU as a market is bigger than the United States, so this is significant for Iran. And oil accounts for 80% of Iran’s total exports. Monday marks the first day [...]

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 [...]

Iran has agreed to discuss proposals to limit its uranium enrichment at talks in the next week in Moscow over its nuclear program. A tense exchange of letters between EU diplomats, who deal with Iran on behalf of the six powers, and Iranian officials had earlier appeared to suggest Tehran may be backtracking on its [...]