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Watch key moments of King Charles Address to the US Congress April 28 2026. This is the most warmly and most embraced speech in the US Congress in decades. The last time a British monarch was in the US, and addressed the US Congress was Queen Elizabeth in the Suez crisis of 1956. Looking back the Suez crisis was precipitated by a Arab nationalist military officer taking over (nationalizing) the Suez Canal in Egypt from British and French control. As this was when the British and French Empires existed in Africa and Asia, and the US was for freeing people requiring breakup of these Empires.  It should be remembered American General Stilwell carried out this policy in China by fighting the Japanese Empire in China, and also India. America was never on the side of Empires as some would have us believe, and there is no better example of American spirit and generous heart than General Joe Stilwell in China for 1900-1950. Today Keir Starmer and Macron's move to represent the British and French as innocent bystanders is anything but, as the British and French created 50 years of wars in the Middle East by creating the artificial states of Lebanon, Syria and Iraq of Shia and Sunni people out of the defeated Ottoman Empire by 1921. King Charles was making the best of the bad situation in his speech as he supports US position of naval blockade to prevent Iran (or for that matter any place in the Middle East a powder keg of a region like the Balkans in 1914 that started WWI) from getting nuclear weapons. ...

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In efforts to get Iran to end its uranium enrichment program a package of incentives includes full involvement in Iran's oil and gas industry, and full integration into organizations like the WTO. It includes offering state of the art light water reactor technologies for electricity generation, and a substantive package of nuclear R&D cooperation. This is a set of terms offered by the US and European partners as a combination and presented to Iran by the EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana. Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani stated in response that Iran was ready to enter a another round of talks to reach a balanced conclusion and Bush called it a positive response. Robert Einhorn, a proliferation expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, argues that the main issues for Iran are prestige and security. And the only way the U.S. can address this he said is for the Bush administration to restore normalized relations with Iran.

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Iran attributed the shooting down of a Ukrainian passenger plane at Tehran airport to an "unintentional human error." Of the 167 passengers 82 were Iranians, 57 Canadians, and 11 Ukrainians. The plane was on Tehran Kiev flight when it was mistaken for a hostile plane.

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Under the outlines of the nuclear agreement being reached with Iran in April 2015, Iran gets to keep all its nuclear facilities intact, and makes the concession of mothballing most of its centrifuges. The questions relate to Iranian intentions and monitoring of compliance with the agreement.

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Israelis from across the political spectrum say the nuclear deal with Iran in negotiations with the U.S., Britain and France, threatens Israel. Israel's nuclear experts say the 12 month breakout window for Iran to break the agreement and rush to develop a nuclear weapon in 12 months is not sufficient, because of the time it takes for detection and develop the response. Israelis have a deep distrust of Iran's intentions. On the other side of the Middle East the Saudis are also expressing serious concerns about the negotiations giving Iran enough leeway to keep the nuclear program and make a weapon at a future date. The proposed agreement creates further disagreement between prime minister Netanyahu and U.S. president Obama.

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Lt. Gen John Allen will succeed Gen Petraeus in leading the war effort in Afghanistan. Allen was the deputy commander in Anbar province, Iraq, from 2006-2008. He backed Colonel Sean MacFarland's efforts to get Sunni tribal leaders to join the U.S. against Al Quaeda militants- which came to be called the Sunni Awakening. Allen is close to Gen. Petraeus and has the skills and diplomacy that Petraeus is known for. He is described as someone who understands that the war in Afghanistan involves policy, politics, perceptions and diplomacy.

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The tense relations between Saudis and Iran in Jan 2016 with severing of diplomatic ties following the execution of a Shiite cleric from eastern Saudi Arabia.

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Sabotage of two tankers in the Persian Gulf and reports of activity of Iranian proxy forces in Iraq and Syria have led to an American response with the dispatch of a aircraft carrier and other forces to the region.  This report in the NYT says Defense Secretary Shanahan has prepared plans for deployment of American forces in the region with one plan calling for 120,000 troops to be dispatched to the region. As president Trump is against American involvement in land wars in distant places, the force is designed as a precaution in case of an Iranian attack through proxy forces in Syria or Iraq and not for a land operation. National Security Adviser Bolton has taken a strong position on Iran since the days of the Bush administration. The U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the sanctions on Iranian oil, are part of a new policy of the Trump administration. The European Union countries have followed a policy of preserving the nuclear deal of 2015, even though the U.S. is pressuring EU countries. The oil sanction have led to a sharp drop in oil exports and is hurting the Iranian economy. President Rouhani of Iran says Iran may withdraw from parts of the Iran nuclear deal and the Iranian response is leading to heightened tensions in the region.  It was only recently that the Democratic party Obama administration pursued the Iranian nuclear deal with opposition from Republicans in Congress and skepticism of Israel. The election of president Trump who says the deal was a bad one has reversed U.S. policy leading to a complete change in policy and a possible confrontation with Iran. U.S. policy can veer back and forth depending on the party or president in power who completely different perceptions of the region. Obama had sharp difference with Israel and Saudi Arabia, and a different perception of Iran. Trump and Bolton see Iran as a threat to the U.S. After Iran shipped most of its nuclear fuel out of the country in 2016 in exchange for lifting of economic sanctions under president Obama's nuclear deal it would take over a year for new uranium enrichment facilities to produce the materials for a nuclear bomb, according to this report in the NYT. When the Obama administration negotiated with Iran the window had shrunk to a few months.   ...

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Talabani, deputy prime minister under Iraq's new Abadi government, says centralization is not an option, as regional autonomy has to be respected. He says the toxic effects of the Maliki regime are only gradually being undone.

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The views of Anne-Marie Slaughter and other high ranking current and former officials in the Defense Department and State Department on the idea of a military strike by Israel or the U.S. on Iran and the unforeseen consequences.

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The uncertainty that hangs over Iraq after the American withdrawal. Religious reconciliation and sectarian reconciliation is fragile. There is a push for autonomy in the provinces. There is a fear of Iranian backed militias in some areas. A prominent Iraqi singer says "all of Iraq is sad."

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Bret Stephens of the WSJ describes the problems with the deal for removal of chemical weapons in Syria, and sees parallels in the situation with the Iran nuclear deal for inspecting weapons sites.

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France's foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, has sounded a warning about a nuclear agreement with Iran in the past. In 2013 he warned the West not to get drawn into a "fools game." In an intervew with the WSJ on May 31, 2015, he says without proper verification which includes military sites a nuclear agreement with Iran is meaningless. He points to the dangers of other countries in the region saying the agreement lacks clout and opting for developing nuclear weapons.

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Iran will discontinue the second phase of the subsidy reduction program as the currency depreciates drastically in October 2012.

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The UN security council document does not have sanctions against Iran's largest banks and is a watered down document after disagreements between members especially after the release of intelligence report from the USA that Iran gave up pursuing nuclear weapons in 2003. The goal appears to be to keep Iran on the right path even as direct negotiations take place.

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Both Iran and the US back the current government in Iraq run by the party of the Supreme Council.

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U.S. president Obama repeatedly compared the Iran nuclear deal vote in Congress to the 2002 vote to authorize the war in Iraq under president George W. Bush, in a speech at American University. President John Kennedy made a speech on a strategy for peace at American University in Washington D.C. on June 10, 1963, offering negotiations as away to a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union. Obama said the "choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy or some form of war." The nuclear deal faces bipartisan opposition in Congress on grounds of weak verification, doubts about Iran's intentions, lifting of a weapons embargo including ballistic missiles, and lifting of economic sanctions with snapback seen as unrealistic, and support limited to Democrats in Congress. Compared to the speech by Kennedy which was hopeful- " in the final analysis, our most common link is that we all inhabit this same planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future's. And we are all mortal." It was also a response to Soviet Union's head Nikita Krushchev's letter to Kennedy of Dec. 1962 following the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, saying "the time has come now to put an end once and for all to all nuclear tests." Compared to the enthusiasm with which the Kennedy speech was received, the Obama speech brought up the divisions of the wars in Afghanistan and Iran, in which many Democrats including Senator Hillary Clinton voted to support the Iraq war, and missed the power of president Kennedy's (and Krushchev's) words of 1962. The last minute inclusion of a lifting of an arms embargo including ballistic missiles," created doubts about Iran's intentions in the U.S. Congress, unlike Kruschev and Kennedy's decisive response on the nuclear issue which led to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The condition agreed to that the Iran nuclear deal of July could pass with only one third of Congess supporting it- based on a presidential veto if Congress did not approve it with a two thirds majority- created the prospect of the U.S. moving ahead on a major foreign policy issue with only limited support....

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Iraq is a clear example of how the oil reveues may be there but without the mechanism of getting the oil revenues to work creating infrastructure and jobs, and even the basic mechanism of a well functioning civil service and a financial and banking system to put the money to work, things can be quite bleak when they do not have to be. Some of it also is agreement between the communities and leadership to get a consensus on what should be done and how it should be spent. It shows how litttle can be taken for granted in war torn, civil dissension fractured places of the world, even in relatively literate and functioning societies like that of the Arab middle eastern states. See the links to this documenting the difficulties.