What the Leaked Zarif Interview Says About the Power Dynamic of Iranian Leadership
Plus, what to make of the Iranian foreign minister’s claim that John Kerry told him of Israeli covert operations.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. (Photograph by How Hwee Young/Getty Images.)
A three-hour interview containing Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s seemingly unfettered commentary on his political colleagues and superiors circulated Sunday, offering a unique look into the inner-workings of the regime. “I sacrificed diplomacy for the battlefield,” Zarif, Tehran’s “friendly face” to the West, said in the audio obtained by Iran International. “In the Islamic Republic, the battlefield rules.”
Brief Analysis
Experts discuss how the two allies can work more closely on everything from artificial intelligence to missile defense, ideally with help from emerging Arab partners.
On May 5, The Washington Institute held a virtual Policy Forum with Michael Eisenstadt, Lt. Gen. Henry “Trey” Obering III, Samantha Ravich, and David Pollock. Eisenstadt and Pollock are senior fellows at the Institute and coauthors of its recent study “Asset Test 2021: How the U.S. Can Keep Benefiting from Its Alliance with Israel.” Obering retired from the U.S. Air Force after more than thirty-five years of service, including a stint as director of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency. Ravich is chair of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The following is a rapporteur’s summary of their remarks.
US eyes major rollback in Iran sanctions to revive nuke deal April 28, 2021 at 8:03 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) The Biden administration is considering a near wholesale rollback of some of the most stringent Trump-era sanctions imposed on Iran in a bid to get the Islamic Republic to return to compliance with a landmark 2015 nuclear accord, according to current and former U.S. officials and others familiar with the matter.
As indirect talks continue this week in Vienna to explore the possibility of reviving the nuclear deal, American officials have become increasingly expansive about what they might be prepared to offer Iran, which has been driving a hard line on sanctions relief, demanding that all U.S. penalties be removed, according to these people.)
April 29, 2021 Share
The Biden administration is considering a near wholesale rollback of some of the most stringent Trump-era sanctions imposed on Iran in a bid to get the Islamic Republic to return to compliance with a landmark 2015 nuclear accord, according to current and former U.S. officials and others familiar with the matter.
As indirect talks continue this week in Vienna to explore the possibility of reviving the nuclear deal, American officials have become increasingly expansive about what they might be prepared to offer Iran, which they say has been driving a hard line on sanctions relief, demanding that all U.S. penalties be removed.
An investigation into an incident in which three young Arab men attempted to break into the Kirya the IDF’s.
“So Israel understandably wants clear guidance from the US on its own rules,” he continued. “The Biden administration still has work to do to establish a comprehensive set of its own rules and a comprehensive set of alternatives for allies like Israel who forego cooperation with China.”
At the conference, the INSS presented some of the public recommendations which will be published in a few months on the proposal of a bilateral interagency on China. The recommendations are the result of a working group with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).