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This editorial in the Washington Post describes the ballistic missile test by Iran in December 2015, and says the Obama administration has not responded effectively to this because of President Obama's effort to protect his legacy in the nuclear agreement.

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Ajami makes the point that opinions and attitudes -after the Obama efforts to improve America's standing in the Muslim world - havent changed much since the Bush days. He cites the Pew Global Attitudes Survey for 2009- In Turkey after the Obama Anakra visit favorable rating is only 14%, 69% are unreconciled. In Egypt 27% have favorable view 70% do not, in Pakistan unfavorables actally went up from 63% to 68%. He also points to the situation in Iran where the protester for the fraud in the election of Ahmadinejad did not receive much supprt from Obama, as the Obama administration decided to engage with Ahmadinejad to achieve nuclear settlement. In effect the rhetoric from Obama has not been matched with courage of convicitions , and lacks the courage to turn a new chapter by breaking from the past not just with talk but in real policy changes. And says Ajami the Arabs havve stopped listening to the rhetoric as little has been accomplished by way of change. At the same time false expectations may have been aroused because the Cairo speech was made at the University with the aging Mubarak at Obama's side, and beyond addressing these students the feeling clearly must be that the US would simply continue its policies of supporting old regimes that tolerate no dissent of any kind such as Mubarak's. ...

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This WSJ editorial says the Corker-Cardin compromise that requires the U.S. president to submit any nuclear deal with Iran to the U.S. Congress for debate, is the best option for both Democrats and Republicans who are skeptical of such a deal. It says amendments by senators Cruz and Rubio will not be effective. What the Corker-Cardin compromise developed by senators Corker and Cardin of the Foreign Relations Committee accomplishes, is letting the American people through their elected representatives get a full and complete debate on the merits and demerits of the deal. Democrats in the Senate are also concerned about their election chances after Mr. Obama leaves office, and will want to have a fair debate of the pros and cons before voting, says the Journal. This debate will bring more light to the questions that worry critics the most- how will compliance by Iran be secured, and can snapback sanctions work if China, Russia and other European nations go the other way. Congressional review puts a higher level of scrutiny for any agreement before it moves forward. A requirement that the government submit a review every 90 days on compliance to Congress also gives president Obama's successor a chance to reassess the situation....

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Experts at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Nuclear Policy Program describe what to look for and in what time frame in the 2012 negotiations between Iran and the U.S. and other European countries in Istanbul, Turkey over Iran's nuclear program.

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U.S. president Obama invited NYT's columnist Thomas Friedman to the White House for an interview on Saturday afternoon April 4, 2015. Here Friedman gives president Obama's response to his questions, and Obama's concerns about the heated rhetoric in the U.S. and Israel on the negotiations with Iran detracting and distracting from his key goals of protecting U.S. interests and Israel. On the Sunni states, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Obama points out that there are some tough conversations needed about changes inside their societies which pose a greater threat to the governments than Iran. Obama says he understands perfectly that Israel and the Jewish people after their experience of the last hundred years are determined to not let Iran develop a nuclear weapon, and their right to be concerned that the agreement could let Iran clandestinely develop one. Obama says the verification is extensive and covers any facility in Iran, any suspicion about secret facilities, yet it leaves the subsequent decisions if Iran created difficulties, to a international body over which the U.S., UK, France, have no control. This is a principal issue for critics of the negotiated agreement. No mention is made of why Iran simply discarded the option of sending the atomic material to Russia to be processed into nuclear rods for the Bushehr nuclear plant built by Russia only a few days before the final outline was developed. And why the U.S., with allies Germany, France, UK and Japan, did not offer the Iranians an economic aid package if needed in return for the billions Iranians invested for that atomic material, to ensure that the atomic materials are shipped out of the country- to create a nuclear agreement that would be credible to all parties. The economic aid would benefit Iran modernize its oil industry, including refining operations, meet basic import needs, and provide tangible proof to the Iranian people of our best intentions for the future, that president Obama strongly espouses in the interview. The interview does show the quandary president Obama faces in Iran for strong action, that is a result of failed policies with Iran since the Eisenhower administration's intervention 1953 during the Cold War that displaced the elected government of Mosaddegh in Iran and setup the Shah's regime in 1956, the support of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in the war against Iran, which Obama mentions in this intervew. In the light of the repeated failures of the U.S. policies a Democratic party leader faces increasing reservations for taking strong action against Iran's development of nuclear weapons capabilities, preferring to exhaust every diplomatic channel, and take risks in the hope that time will give the Iranian people an opportunity to to reintegrate in the global community and pursue the peaceful development of nuclear energy. This strain in president Obama's thinking is evident throughout the interview with Friedman. Other aspects of president Obama's policy in the Middle East shared in the interview are about supporting the Sunni states in some areas, and Iran in some areas, at the same time as the nuclear issue is "put in a box" and separated from the regional conflicts. Friedman presents this as the Obama doctrine, yet it appears to be coming after a series of improvisations in foreign policy following a failure to act in 2011-2013, when the "once in a lifetime" opportunities presented by the Arab Spring were not taken up by the Obama administration, leading to the region's current disintegration....

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This editorial in the WSJ reminds readers of China's warning about North Korea's nuclear weapons in April 2015, and says the nuclear agreements with North Korea never worked. It sees a similiar situation with the nuclear agreement the Obama administration is working out with Iran.

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WSJ looks at the 75 years of the US Saudi Arabia relationship that started when US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt met Saudi king Ibn Saud at Bitter Creek, Egypt, on a US Navy destroyer ship in 1945. It has gone through many phases over this period and mainly involved the Saudi kingdom maintaining its supply of oil to the US and Western Europe. This relationship went through an oil embargo during tense periods of Israeli Palestine conflict as in 1983 with an oil embargo that pushed up oil prices. What is different this time is the situation in Yemen where Iranian supported Houthi rebels near the border with Saudi Arabia are engaged in a conflict with the Saudis. Democratic administrations under first Obama and Biden today support reaching a deal with Iran on nuclear weapons development and limit US military support for the war in Yemen. The Saudis for their part are not keen on a regional war and turned down efforts by president Trump to respond to attacks from Yemen. Mr. Biden's envoy has arranged for a deal to reduce tensions between the Houthis in Yemen and Saudis. The diplomatic impasse in relations stems from the Kashoggi incident and president Biden's concern for the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia. Other factors making relations difficult are the economic interests of the two countries diverging. The relationship Roosevelt started in 1945 has changed in its fundamental character. Oil supplies for imports into the US is no longer a factor for the US which was the original interest of president Roosevelt in Saudi Arabia. This changed by 2015 as the US fracking industry enabled US to become self sufficient in oil and able to supply LNG to western Europe. Instead of the US Saudi oil now goes to China. Russian oil also goes to China as its industry expanded with American investment. This has led to a new Saudi relationship with China which has changed the dynamic of the American Saudi relationship. Some of the new aspects of this can also be seen in Saudi relationship with South Asia. Saudi ties have increased with India and India in 2021 was the first country to provide vaccine supplies to Saudi Arabia. Saudis, Qatar, United Arab Emirates are building relationships with India as a close neighbor in the region. Relationships are in some ways improving in the Asian region compared to the period when oil was simply exchanged as a commodity for defense supplies from the US without regard to cultural, educational and other changes in Saudi society. In a sense US and Western Europe paid little attention to the huge democracy of over 1 billion people right in the middle of Asia and followed policies that led to major investments in China and little or no investment in India, and without realizing it followed a policy that the British had pursued in the British Empire of treating different communities and religions as separate as opposed to one community of people in South Asia that were engaged in modernizing, building infrastructure and changing centuries old ways of living. The British Empire was sustained by this kind of thinking, and as long as Indians were complacent and lacked the will to make their aspirations for a better life and infrastructure for modernization this kind of thinking prevailed. The economic crises in Asia have reinforced the idea that there is one community entirely focused on development and modernization in South Asia. The people in South Asia care most about the cost of living and the infrastructure and services for the quality of life they live and their children can aspire for- same in European Union that chose the Greens and chancellor Scholz, and same in the US that chose president Biden to invest infrastructure and people, the same in China and the same in India and the rest of Asia. This is the situation that the US and Britain, and the European Union are now beginning to learn and adapt to that is a constructive aspect of these changes to rebuild the connections and supply chains that were sorely neglected before now. ...