Obama

The myth of Iran's 'isolation'

By Charles Krauthammer

In announcing the passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Iran, President Obama stressed not once but twice Iran's increasing "isolation" from the world. This claim is not surprising considering that after 16 months of an "extended hand" policy, in response to which Iran accelerated its nuclear program -- more centrifuges, more enrichment sites, higher enrichment levels -- Iranian "isolation" is about the only achievement to which the administration can even plausibly lay claim. READ MORE

Moscow Objects to Patriots in Poland

By Pavel Felgenhauer

US-Russian relations were dominated by the arrival and deployment of US soldiers with Patriot missiles in Poland near the Russian border. The Patriot deployment was agreed between Warsaw and Washington to offset possible Russian threats to station Iskander ballistic missiles in Kaliningrad in response to the deployment of US Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) interceptor missiles in Poland and the BMD radar in the Czech Republic. Last September, US President, Barack Obama, scrapped existing BMD plans for deployment in Poland and the Czech Republic and President, Dmitry Medvedev, announced that Iskander missiles would not be deployed in Kaliningrad. However, the plans to deploy Patriots in Poland did not change, apparently in order to calm Polish irritation over the BMD reversal and fear of Russia. READ MORE

New U.S. Strategy Focuses on Managing Threats

By David E. Sanger and Peter Baker

President Obama’s first formal national security strategy describes a coming era in which the United States will have to learn to live within its limits — a world in which two wars cannot be sustained for much longer and the rising powers inevitably begin to erode some elements of American influence around the globe. READ MORE

Turkey Prioritizes Independent Regional Policies in the Middle East and the South Caucasus

By Saban Kardas

Turkey continued its regional diplomacy, following the historic visit by Russian President Medvedev to Ankara. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan paid back-to-back trips to Greece, Iran and Azerbaijan, which underscored Turkey’s rising activism in its neighborhood, as well as highlighting divergence with the United States. READ MORE

Russia opens a new pipeline of diplomacy

By M K Bhadrakumar

Russian diplomacy has been on a roll in recent months, the revival of ties with Ukraine being the most dramatic manifestation. But a string of successes, major and minor, sung and unsung, has been notched up below that high point - in Poland, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Norway and Syria. READ MORE

Will Iran Ease Its Line under the Pressure of Russia?

Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov warned that Iran will face serious consequences if keeps acting freely within a nuclear issue. Russia also declared that it doesn’t support the final document adopted during the international conference on nuclear disarmament in Teheran. At the background of the development of new UN sanctions to be imposed towards Iran, the tension in the relations of Moscow and Teheran attracted a special focus of international community. READ MORE