This week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other Obama Administration officials complained publicly that Iran was "meddling" and "interfering" in events in the Middle East which are threatening the downfall of one U.S. ally after another. But the Obama Administration's response to the latest flashpoint -- Libya...

We take billionaire financier George Soros up the bet he proffered to CNN's Fareed Zakaria this week that "the Iranian regime will not be there in a year's time." In fact, we want to up the ante and wager that not only will the Islamic Republic still be Iran's government...

Sarah Palin -- former governor of Alaska and Senator John McCain's running mate in the 2008 U.S. presidential election -- published an op-ed in USA Today, that takes the most fanciful neoconservative myths about the Islamic Republic and turns them into a tortured argument for "truly 'crippling' sanctions",...

It seems like a bad Bush-era joke today that U.S. officials relied on information solicited from Iraqi defectors with code names like "curveball" to make their case for invading Iraq (and leaving at least 100,000 civilians dead). A significant portion of that information was funneled through the Defense Department's Office...

In the run-up to a new round of nuclear talks between the P5+1 and Iran on Monday, Western commentators are re-hashing old arguments that the Islamic Republic is either too politically divided or too dependent on hostility toward the United States for its legitimacy to be...

Twenty years ago, Harvard's Joseph Nye famously coined the term "soft power" to describe what he saw as an increasingly important factor in international politics -- the capacity of "getting others to want what you want", which he contrasted with the ability to coerce others through the exercise of "hard"...

Twenty years ago, Harvard's Joseph Nye famously coined the term "soft power" to describe what he saw as an increasingly important factor in international politics -- the capacity of "getting others to want what you want," which he contrasted with the ability to coerce others through the exercise of "hard"...

There has, of course, been much commentary about the "relaunch" of the Middle East peace process last week in Washington. Actually, the process is, at best, an Arab-Israeli peace process. And, to be even more accurate, the process that was relaunched last week is really the highly conditioned Israeli-Palestinian "track"...

In recent days, a good deal of attention has been focused on Iran's first nuclear power plant at Bushehr, still in its final stages of development. We believe that there are some important lessons to be learned from the Bushehr experiences that could help move U.S. policy on the Iranian...

Amid widespread skepticism that sanctions will stop Tehran's nuclear development and grudging, belated recognition that the Green Movement will not deliver a more pliable Iranian government, a growing number of commentators are asking the question, "What does President Obama do next on Iran?"

For hawks, the answer is war. Last...

We have argued for some time that the policy debate about Iran here in the United States is distorted by a number of "myths" -- myths about the Islamic Republic, its foreign policy, and its domestic politics. We were reminded of this by Jim Hoagland's column Sunday in...

Yesterday, President Obama called a small group of journalists into the White House to talk about Iran. According to the Washington Post's David Ignatius, Obama's agenda was to signal Iran that the United States might "accept a deal that allows Iran to maintain its civilian nuclear program, so...

Recently, there has been a torrent of high-profile calls for military strikes -- either by the United States or by Israel -- against Iranian nuclear targets. Amid this push for war with Iran, no one is asking -- much less answering -- what we believe is a critical and fundamental...

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki delivered a speech recently that underscores a risk we have been highlighting recently, see here and here--namely, that the present direction of U.S. policy is raising the risks of renewed civil war in Afghanistan, which would simultaneously be a regional "proxy...

Coverage of Shahram Amiri's departure from the United States and his return to Iran has focused, rather superficially, on the question of whether he was kidnapped or defected and then changed his mind. Frankly, we are more interested in what reports that the CIA tired to pay Amiri $5 million...

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's visit to the United States last week was capped off today with the broadcast of a previously-taped interview on Fox News Sunday. The interview covered a range of important topics, including the state of the U.S.-Israel relationship and prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace. But it is...

The Obama Administration's determination to simultaneously inflict "pain" on the Taliban and on Iran to force both parties to negotiating tables on American terms will backfire. It will, in fact, accelerate Afghanistan's descent into renewed civil war--with a regional "proxy" war between Iran, on the one hand, and Pakistan and...

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev meets today with President Obama in the Oval Office, in advance of the two leaders' participation in the G7/8 and G20 summits in Canada this coming weekend. Iran will undoubtedly be an important topic on the agenda for Medvedev's meeting with Obama.

Last...

President Obama's dismissal of General Stanley McChrystal as the senior U.S. and coalition military commander in Afghanistan -- prompted by critical remarks about senior civilian officials and the Obama administration's decision-making process from McChrystal and members of his staff, as reported in Rolling Stone magazine -- should focus...

President Obama's first half year in office was singularly focused on reviving America's desultory standing in the Muslim world. Last week marked the first anniversary of Obama's Cairo speech -- his widely heralded address "to the Muslim world" -- which was intended as the culmination of a series...