Flynt Leverett, former Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, discusses the latest negotiations on Iran’s nuclear enrichment program at the just-concluded P5+1 Baghdad summit; why the US will never agree to lift sanctions on Iran, no matter the concessions; how the US negotiating position makes Obama look like an idiot; Richard Nixon’s observation that the same political price is paid for going half way as all the way – so you might as well go to China; why...

Flynt Leverett, former Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, discusses his article “Hype or Reality: Will Israel Attack Iran Before the U.S. Presidential Election;” Israel’s inability to cripple Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities without putting boots on the ground; why the US may not join the fight if Iran’s response is limited and doesn’t result in American casualties; how Obama’s “feckless” style of leadership is failing to dissuade Bibi Netanyahu from...

Flynt Leverett, former Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, discusses Iran’s threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, as a response to sanctions that may eventually cut off Iran’s oil exports; why the US and Israel don’t really have a problem with Iranian nuclear weapons, just Iran’s refusal to submit to US regional hegemony; Israel’s “red line” on Iran’s uranium enrichment at Qom; why US foreign policy planners don’t learn from prior mistakes (because...

Flynt Leverett, former Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, discusses how the most crucial part of the IAEA report on Iran – that declared nuclear material isn’t being diverted to weapons manufacturing – has been buried under a heap of unsubstantiated rumors and accusations; the evidence that new IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano is much more cozy with the US than his predecessor Mohamed ElBaradei; why those who defend Iran’s rights under the NPT aren’t...

Flynt Leverett, former Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, discusses why the IAEA’s job in Iran is verifying the non-diversion of nuclear materials for making weapons, not publicizing the assertions of foreign intelligence agencies; how “journalist” David Sanger of the NY Times continues his personal crusade against Iran, truth be damned; why Iran’s alleged theoretical study of nuclear weapons, including the testing of high explosives, still does not...

Flynt Leverett, former Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, discusses the Iran uranium swap negotiations in 2009-10; a reminder that the Tehran Research Reactor was supplied by the US in the 1960s, and reconfigured after the 1979 revolution to use far-less enriched uranium (reducing weapons proliferation risks); how the initial swap offer by the US asked Iran to hand over its low-enriched uranium, with no collateral, and trust France to provide fuel rods a...

Flynt Leverett, former Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, discusses his article “Iranian ‘plots’ and American hubris;” why the strange assassination plot is at cross-purposes with Iran’s policy objectives (but syncs perfectly with Israel’s); Iran’s reliance on foreign proxy groups and asymmetric warfare for national defense, in lieu of a powerful conventional military; US policy towards Iran that says, in essence, a meaningful defensive deterrence is...

Flynt Leverett, former Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, discusses how Israel is getting all its ducks in a row for a 2011-2012 attack on Iran, the lack of evidence that Iran ever had a nuclear weapons program (even prior to 2003), the unsettling prospect that the US will go to war with Iran over uranium enrichment and why the delayed release of the new Iran NIE means there is some disagreement among the intelligence agencies.