Tehran has gained recognition of its big power status from a conversation between its senior negotiator Jalili and the EU’s Catherine Ashton without even having to attend the next negotiating session in Moscow.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives in Baku, Azerbaijan Wednesday, June 6, amid Ali Khamenei and Vladimir Putin’s deep disapproval of President Ilam Aliyav’s pro-Western orientation and fast-growing ties with Israel. Frictions center on Baku’s $1.6 billion arms transaction with Israel and even more, debkafile reports, on the fact that the deal is matched by expanding Azerbaijani investment in Israel’s Mediterranean gas and oil projects. This tradeoff is marked for expansion.

After the “achievements” gained for its nuclear program from diplomacy with the West, Iran now wants sanctions lifted. European sources expect the Obama administration to soon start ending sanctions in stages. Israel’s drive against a nuclear Iran is assuming personal overtones: Three Israeli researchers question the evidence of a 2005 fatwa supposedly issued by Supreme Ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei prohibiting Muslims from building a nuclear weapon. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has held it up as “an entryway into negotiations.”

Tuesday night, April 10, after Damascus skipped the truce laid down in the UN-Arab envoy Kofi Annan’s plan and escalated its attacks on the Syrian population, a change of tone was detected in Washington, reflecting the feeling that America can no longer stay aloof from the Syrian tragedy. One plan discussed is for a US air strike against an Assad regime and/or military target to show his loyal troops and the Syrian opposition that the Syrian ruler is fallible. Thursday, the UN Security Council will hear Annan's report.

Russian-Iranian solidarity was dented this week by Tehran’s games to stall the nuclear talks scheduled for mid-April. Moscow wants diplomacy started without delay because Middle East tensions are close to boiling point. Iran vetoes Istanbul as the venue and refuses to talk under military or financial pressure.

At the Friends of Syria 2 in Istanbul, opposition representative Prof. George Sabra failed to convince US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that a US-protected token safe haven village near Idlib would start splintering the hard face of army loyalty to Bashar Assad. The meeting ended as it began with a US commitment of funding for humanitarian aid and “communications gear for opposition forces” (to fight Assad’s tanks?), leaving Assad under no compulsion to implement any part of the Annan peace plan.

Iran, Syria and Hizballah are celebrating Assad’s victory over the 12-month uprising against him and counting the advantages it confers on Tehran against the US and Saudi Arabia. The Iran-Syria-Hizballlah axis is now successfully shored up against the Obama administration’s strategy of isolation and sanctions for squeezing Iran into making concessions at the nuclear negotiations in two weeks.  Both are fading. It also serves as a warning to those Israelis who advocate passing the buck for preempting a nuclear Iran to Washington.

Obama’s Grand Diplomatic Offensive for using a pacified Syria to persuade Iran to be accommodating at the coming nuclear negotiations is not yet in the bag. It is dogged by Saudi objections and problems with its policy Syria due to flawed US intelligence both about Assad’s survivability and the ...

Iran and Russia poured out every kind of assistance to shore Assad up – military, intelligence, financial, diplomatic and strategic as well as a supply of arms for crushing the opposition. Iran’s reward is the substantial strengthening of its alliance with Syria, Hizballah and Palestinian extremists. Hamas ...

After learning in a caustic exchange with Hillary Clinton that Obama had turned down the safe havens military plan Syria, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal offered Arab air forces for an operation against Assad. Riyadh also stepped up arms deliveries to Syrian rebels.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal marched out of the Friends of Syria conference in Tunis Friday, Feb. 24, after representatives of 70 nations fell in behind US plans designed to avoid direct action against Syria’s Bashar Assad. Riyadh accuses Washington of reducing Assad’s butchery of his opponents to the level of a humanitarian issue to save his regime and keep Iran on track for nuclear negotiations. The “safe haven” plan is seen as giving the Syrian ruler international immunity. 

The masters of Egyptian intelligence, who are still in power, disguised their anti-US sentiments as long as Hosni Mubarak was president. Today, they prefer to deal with the Islamists who expect to win power in Cairo and are ready to ditch Egypt's ties with America.

President Bashar Assad Sunday, Jan. 30, pulled in the Syrian Republican Guard and the 4th armored division commanded by his brother Maher Assad from the north to Damascus, debkafile reports exclusively. He deployed them in battle positions in the capital for the first time following an intelligence tipoff that one of the armored division commanders had been won over by Western powers and persuaded to stage a coup d'etat in time for Tuesday's UN Security Council meeting on Syria.

Retired presidential adviser Dennis Ross in his first public appearance reveals that Barack Obama has charted a new Mid East policy which cares fully for Israeli, Saudi security needs but freezes them out of Washington policy-making. The Palestinian issue is put on ice indefinitely.

Tuesday, Dec. 6, the US, France and Britain went into concerted action to contain the Syrian crisis before it detonates a regional conflict and deteriorates into civil strife. At the same time, Syria and its neighbors sharply intensified their war preparations, fully expecting diplomacy to fail.  In Geneva, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the leaders of Syrian opposition groups that the Obama administration had stepped up its pressure on Assad and now referred to his regime as the "Assad gang." 

Libya may well be plunged in even bloodier strife after Muammar Qaddafi's passing. The meddling foreign hands backing rival individuals, militias and tribes will only exacerbate the divisions and animosities riddling the interim government of the NTC and the country at large.

The Israel-Hamas prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit and the exposure of the plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador opened two new US fronts against Iran: The relocation of Hamas HQ from Damascus to Cairo which deprived Iran and Syria of their Palestinian lever and a pretext for the Saudis ...

The Obama administration has never wavered from its ambition to see the Muslim Brotherhood in government in Egypt or its policy of linking Egypt's destiny with a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  It hopes to discourage the burgeoning Muslim Brotherhood from casting its fate with Tehran on the grounds that Iran has no influence on Israel whereas American leverage on Jerusalem is substantial.

By ordering Turkish warships to escort aid ships to Gaza and stop Israel's offshore gas exploitation, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is muscling his way into the eastern Mediterranean and taking his dispute with Israel to the brink. He is also challenging Greece and Cyprus. Cairo and Riyadh are ...

After ruling out direct military intervention, most governments concerned in the drive to oust Bashar Assad find that arming the rebels and pumping thousands of Sunni volunteers into Syria are the only feasible option.  But before this plan is up and running, he is expected to preemptively employ the Lebanese ...