Dangerous Dialogue
The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, spent a couple of hours gabbing with his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, on Monday. According to the prevailing political wisdom in Washington—and...
View ArticleIran: A Surprise Resignation
Today, Iran’s government announced that Ali Larijani, the country’s chief nuclear negotiator since 2005, had resigned, effective immediately. The official IRNA news agency stated that Saeed Jalili,...
View ArticleSqueezing Iran
EU foreign policy czar Javier Solana is in Rome today to meet with Said Jalili, the new Iranian nuclear negotiator, and to bid farewell to Jalili’s predecessor, Ali Larijani. It is doubtful that Solana...
View ArticleForked Tongues
What difference will it make now that Ali Larijani is no longer Iran’s nuclear negotiator? None, at least to Italian PM Romano Prodi. After welcoming Larijani and his successor, the ardent Mahdist...
View ArticleShould We “Engage”?
Since the release of the NIE summary on December 3, the case for engagement with Iran has grown in strength again. While engagement has been the principled tool for Western diplomacy with Tehran, has...
View ArticleNow Playing: Egypt and Iran
It seems as though Iran is making new inroads with key Arab states almost every few days. Three weeks ago, I wrote that Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie had called for a regional...
View ArticleA New Iranian Leader, A More Dangerous Iran
Yesterday, Ali Larijani was elected speaker of the Iranian parliament. In his new perch, the country’s former chief nuclear negotiator is bound to cause grief for his old rival, President Mahmoud...
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