AUGUST 2012
Content Type
Iran news update: Israel raises the temperature
A flurry of media reports in the past week have sounded the alarm over purported advancements in Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons programme and Israel’s willingness to launch a first strike to prevent Iran obtaining a bomb. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak have raised the stakes in the full knowledge that the U.S. is less than three months from a presidential election.
Book review of “The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir”
In The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir, Seyed Hossein Mousavian gives us a rich history of Iran’s nuclear programme and describes his own attempts to achieve a “grand bargain” with the West. He offers a combination of text book and personal accounts but, more importantly, a political analysis of the behavior of all actors involved both past and present.
BASIC Trident Commission Reports
The Commission published its final report on 1 July 2014. The report was also accompanied by a series of background briefings that were released on the same day.
Evidence submitted by UNA-UK
The United Nations Association of the UK has submitted evidence to the BASIC Trident Commission, seeking to address two of the Commission's main questions that it is investigating.
Iran sanctions bill
The U.S. Congress is poised to consider an Iran sanctions bill this week that may shut down any transactions with the Iranian oil industry and tighten financial loopholes as part of tough international moves aimed at pressuring Tehran to curb its nuclear program.
Obama and Romney on U.S. Foreign Policy
Today, Barack Obama will speak about foreign policy at the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention, followed by Mitt Romney who will speak at the same convention tomorrow. Romney, who has been criticized in the press for his lack of foreign policy and national security experience, is then scheduled to travel abroad, in an attempt to strengthen his reputation on foreign issues. He will go to London to speak at the start of the Olympics—an opportunity to build on the transatlantic relationship—and then to Israel and Palestine to speak with representatives of both nations.