Iranian Atomic Urgency
• Reading the tea leaves, AP says there are signs of an Israeli-US rift over Iran.
• As US-Iran ties thaw, Irish Times columnist Paul Gillespie confuses Israeli wariness with maliciousness.
That should not be obscured by disbelief in Israel and Saudi Arabia, the two states whose leaders have a deep interest in spoiling change . . .
A US-Iranian grand bargain along these lines would force Israel to deal seriously with the Palestinian question and abandon creeping annexation of their land.
• For more commentary/analysis, see the Daily Telegraph and Katerina Dalacoura (Financial Times, via Google News).
Rest O’ the Roundup
• The Daily Beast‘s Eli Lake rightly asks: Why the heck did Israel pursue rapprochement with Ankara — even after Turkey blew the lid on the Mossad’s Iranian activities?
Spoiler alert: It may have been Bibi’s desire to stay on good terms with Barack Obama.
• Steven Cook (Council of Foreign Relations) says Turkey undermined not only the Mossad, but the US as well:
We have crossed the line of reasonable disagreement and arrived at a point where Turkey is very clearly and very actively working to subvert American aims in the Middle East on a host of issues. That Erdogan and/or his intelligence chief, Hakan Fidan, were willing to undermine a broad Western effort to stop Iran’s nuclear development for no other reason than to stick it to Israel should be a wake-up call as to whether the current Turkish government can be trusted as a partner on anything.
• More headaches for Saudi Arabia at the UN: It’s the kingdom’s turn to undergo the scrutiny of the U.N. Human Rights Council’s universal periodic review. Human rights groups say the Saudis haven’t implemented a single recommendation from the UNHRC’s 2009 review of the Saudis. Rights groups are piling on over Saudi discrimination against women, abuse of migrant workers, arbitrary detention and unfair trials for political dissidence, plus torture, and capital punishment. More at the Voice of America.
• For more commentary/analysis of the Saudi UN Security Council snub, see the Jerusalem Post, plus staff-eds in the Wall St. Journal (click via Google News) and the NY Daily News.
• Hannah Allam and a Washington Post staff-ed weigh in on the Syrian situation.
(Image of brain via Flickr/opensourceway, Turkish flag via Shutterstock/Nicolas Raymond)
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream.
