Update If the U.S. can't sabotage the ITB agreement, it will do its best to ignore it. According to the Guardian. Hmmm. I would speculate that the United States was very anxious to get this draft circulated in order to counteract the news of the ITB agreement. So maybe some hurried caving in to Chinese... Read More

The deal for to provide fuel plates for the Tehran Research Reactor, brokered by Turkey and Brazil, has been signed. The deal threatens to derail the push for Iran sanctions, which is apparently the be-all and end-all of America's strategy. No question what Turkey--a non-permanent member of the Security Council this year--thinks: The Washington Post's... Read More

The U.S. is apparently dead serious about shutting off Iran's avenues of negotiation. Case in point: putting the kibosh on Turkey's initiative to midwife the LEU for fuel plates swap for the Tehran Research Reactor. Courtesy of Hurriyet/AFP, the tick-tock is reproduced below. I would think it would be difficult for the United States to... Read More

I have an article up at Asia Times entitled China fine-tunes its Iran strategy. I read the Chinese tea leaves (People’s Daily and Global Times) to come to the conclusion that China wishes to avoid a UN Security Council vote on Iran sanctions. Beijing fears that any UN vote, with a Chinese yea vote or... Read More

Iran may have hoped that China would step into the nuclear dispute on its side, perhaps by agreeing to serve as middleman for the fuel exchange. It looks like they'll be disappointed. But today Beijing also sent the message that U.S.-Chinese relations would suffer another blow from an aggressive Western push on Iran coupled with... Read More