Vatanka Reports
News and Analysis on the Greater Middle East 
 

As the world awaits the outcome of the June 30 deadline for a deal between Tehran and the P5+1, the Iranians continue to weigh their options.

Most observers of the current nuclear negotiations with Iran have focused on the scope and timing of sanctions relief. Tehran insists that sanctions be immediately lifted once a final deal is reached; Washington seeks a gradual phase-out. Lost in the discussion is the fact that few countries have as much at stake in the outcome as Oman. For this state on the horn of the Arabian Peninsula, the diplomatic and economic risks are high.

Relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia have always been thorny, but rarely has the state of affairs been as venomous as it is today.

Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, was on his way back to Tehran from Lausanne as accolades began to pile up.

President Hassan Rouhani’s recent trip to Turkmenistan cannot be dismissed as a one-off.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to the Congress this week was as eagerly anticipated in Tehran as it was in Washington.

When the Houthis, a Shia rebel group in Yemen, forced the country’s pro-Western president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, to flee the capital this past January

These four Iranian capabilities keep Saudi leaders awake at night.

The recent visit to Tehran by Sergei Shoigu was notable in that it was the first time in fifteen years that a Russian defense minister had visited Tehran.

On the last day of 2014, the Pentagon confirmed that five inmates from Guantanamo Bay prison had been transferred to Kazakhstan.

The late January visit to Armenia by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif got little media attention, but it could have significant ramifications for geopolitics in Eurasia.

At a time when the direction of America’s foreign policy is generating abundant global bewilderment, policymakers in Congress and the administration must be mindful not to alienate more allies and increase doubt and distrust of America’s promises.