Analysts have been warning for months that the Obama administration’s posture toward Egypt’s army-backed interim government – Washington has among other things frozen the delivery of some kinds of military assistance, including Apache helicopters of the type used by Egypt’s military in ongoing anti-terror campaigns – was risking a pivot...

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The logic behind White House efforts to delay a Senate push for new sanctions on Iran – that heightened pressure on the Islamic republic would cause Iranian negotiators to walk away from the table – had already drawn criticism in recent days from lawmakers, analysts, and journalists. Inasmuch as the...

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Members of Congress and a range of analysts are emphasizing the importance of existing and new sanctions on Iran, as the U.S. and the international community prepare to negotiate with the Islamic republic over its nuclear program, which is widely considered to have clandestine weaponization components. This morning’s Los Angeles...

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The Hill reported today on heightening bipartisan Congressional criticism of the Obama administration’s decision to temporarily freeze some military assistance to Egypt, a move made in response to – albeit months after – mass anti-government protests led the Egyptian army to depose the country’s Muslim Brotherhood-linked former president Mohammed Morsi....

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Washington Post associate editor David Ignatius expressed surprise yesterday at what he described as “the White House’s inability to convey [to Saudi Arabia]… desired reassurances” regarding U.S. policy in the Middle East, declaring that the Obama administration’s “lack of communication with the Saudis and other Arab allies is mystifying.” He...

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Israel’s new ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer last week made his first speech since taking up his post. The speech took place in Los Angeles and among other things outlined the contours of what a deal over Iran’s nuclear program would have to contain to robustly assure that Iran...

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Syrian National Coalition President Ahmad Jarba is signaling that elements of the Syrian opposition will boycott proposed peace talks unless the negotiations’ goal is to facilitate the removal from power of the Bashar al-Assad regime, after Assad stated that not only is he not considering stepping down, but that he sees no reason why he shouldn’t...

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Saudi Arabia intends to scale back the degree to which it cooperates with the United States in arming and training Syrian rebels, a decision that comes amid what the Wall Street Journal describes as “a growing dispute between the U.S. and one of its closest Arab allies over Syria, Iran and Egypt...

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Summer 2013 was, on the whole, unkind to Qatar’s international influence and stature. The Gulf country had aligned itself with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and with the Islamist Justice and Development party in Turkey. After the Brotherhood lost power, and alongside Turkey’s decline, Qatar saw its own position slip....

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Politico this morning chased down three top U.S. defense contractors to assess the effects they were feeling from the U.S.’s partial freeze on Egyptian military assistance. The conclusion of the article was that “if the U.S.-Egyptian relationship is patched up quickly enough,” then the impacts could at least be “manageable.”...

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