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| Daily News Brief October 24, 2013 |
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Top of the Agenda: Official: Iran Slows Enrichment
Iran
has stopped enriching uranium to 20 percent, according to a senior
Iranian parliamentarian, a development that, if verified, would settle a
main concern over Tehran's nuclear program (Reuters).
While Washington allies Saudi Arabia and Israel share the objective of
denying Iran a nuclear weapon, both are concerned that United States
will allow Iran to keep its enrichment capabilities (LAT).
Influential Saudi prince Turki al-Faisal delivered strong criticism of
the Obama administration's Syria policy, highlighting a deepening rift between Washington and Riyadh (Express Tribune).
Analysis
"The
administration' lack of communication with the Saudis and other Arab
allies is mystifying at a time when the U.S. is exploring new policy
initiatives, such as working with the Russians on dismantling chemical
weapons in Syria and negotiating a possible nuclear deal with Iran. Those U.S. policy initiatives are sound,
in the view of many analysts (including me), but they worry the Saudis
and others—making close consultation all the more important," writes
David Ignatius in the Washington Post.
"In
a lawyerly way, the Obama administration has isolated the nuclear issue
from the broader context of Iran's behavior in the region. A new dawn
in the history of the theocracy has been proclaimed, but we will
ultimately discover that Iran's rulers are hellbent on pursuing a nuclear-weapons program while trying to rid themselves of economic sanctions," writes Fouad Ajami in the Wall Street Journal.
"By
keeping America out of Syria, President Obama may have preserved his
ability to intervene in Iran. I believe that he does not want Iran to
gain possession of a nuclear weapon; whether he can actually prevent
this from happening is another story. But he has a greater chance of
escaping that fate if he avoids over-extension in other parts of the Middle East," writes Jeffrey Goldberg for Bloomberg.
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