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Vali Reza Nasr, a senior Obama administration advisor on Iran, has come to Iran. Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani and former parliament speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel may be behind the visit. "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was informed well after Nasr entered the country," Tabnak reported on Wednesday. Nasr was appointed senior advisor to Richard Holbrooke -- the special US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Tabnak and Fararu claim the unannounced trip by the US official to be linked to the recent release of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi.

The insider-account of the damaging divisions between the White House and the State Department comes as diplomats around the world wait to see if John Kerry, the new US secretary of state, can persuade Mr Obama to greater engagement on Syria, Egypt and the wider Middle East. Vali Nasr, a university professor who was seconded in 2009 to work with Richard Holbrooke, Mr Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, records his profound disillusion at how a "Berlin Wall" of domestic-focused advisers was erected to protect Mr Obama. "The president had a truly disturbing habit of funnelling major foreign policy...

"My time in the Obama administration turned out to be a deeply disillusioning experience." It was close to midnight on Jan. 20, 2009, and I was about to go to sleep when my iPhone beeped. There was a new text message. It was from Richard Holbrooke. It said, "Are you up, can you talk?" When I called, he told me that Barack Obama had asked him to serve as envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He would work out of the State Department, and he wanted me to join his team. "No one knows this yet. Don't tell anyone. Well, maybe...

.........................The United States, which had only small numbers of C.I.A. officers in Libya during the tumult of the rebellion, provided little oversight of the arms shipments. Within weeks of endorsing Qatar’s plan to send weapons there in spring 2011, the White House began receiving reports that they were going to Islamic militant groups. They were “more antidemocratic, more hard-line, closer to an extreme version of Islam” than the main rebel alliance in Libya, said a former Defense Department official. The Qatari assistance to fighters viewed as hostile by the United States demonstrates the Obama administration’s continuing struggles in dealing with...

The Ayatollah watching over Ahmadinejad Article Last Updated: 12/16/2007 WHEN most Americans think of Iran, they think of its incendiary president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Since his election in 2005, Ahmadinejad gleefully has shocked the world with his defiance over Iran's nuclear programs, ravings about a Shiite messiah, jeremiads against Israel and denial that the Holocaust occurred. But while Ahmadinejad is the regime's face, he's not its boss. Since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's death in 1989, the real power in Tehran has belonged to the country's supreme leader and top cleric, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ahmadinejad makes all the noise, but Khamenei holds the...

What We Can Learn From Britain About Iran By VALI NASR and RAY TAKEYH April 5, 2007 THROUGH the capture of and subsequent announcement that it would release 15 British sailors and marines, the Islamic Republic of Iran sent its adversaries a pointed message: just as Iran will meet confrontation with confrontation, it will respond to what it perceives as flexibility with pragmatism. This message is worth heeding as the United States and Iran seem to be moving inexorably toward conflict. The timing of the Britons’ capture was no accident. The incident followed the passage of a United Nations resolution...

Weekend Talk Show Preview - Analysis for August 19th and 20thA quick note about the show web sites.  MTP's web site has excellent resources and links to provide background on the guests and they're tending to get it posted earlier on Fridays than they used to.  I want to commend Fox for the new Coming Up on FOX News Sunday feature on their web site.  It gives a good overview and intro to the show.  Maybe they've been reading our stuff?  ABC is doing a good job of posting on their site, including a semi informative intro beyond just the...

Weekend Talk Show Preview - Analysis for August 12th and 13th, 2006On the shows this weekend I'm most interested by Vali Nasr, on CNN, and Ken Mehlman, on Meet The Press.  I think we'll learn more about the events in the Middle East from Nasr and more about the coming campaign from Mehlman than all of the other guests, combined.  Nasr is an expert, from Iran, on the issues of conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.  I actually view this as our best hope of winning the coming world war.  Just as Communists and Nazis joined forces to start World...