The west is eagerly awaiting the results of the upcoming June presidential elections in Iran to determine whom they will be working with in Tehran for the foreseeable future. Certainly the nuclear issue will remain a high priority for world powers and Iran. Over a decade of negotiations with Tehran, world powers have challenged Iran’s legitimate rights for enrichment under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), yielding no outcome. The world powers have continued hitting the hammer on the same nail and it is time for a renewed look at the status quo.

Israel's latest air strike in Syria has been called an "act of war" by Syrian officials and brought calls from Iran for the Arab world to "take a united stand". That makes pushing the throttle further a risky proposition for Israel as it shifts the focus from civil war to inter-state conflict.

This never ending battle between systems of power and modes of resistance is the topic of On the Arab Revolts and the Iranian Revolution which proclaims the end times of monoliths such as “west” and “east” as you rightly point out. I simply don’t think that after the revolts of the past years, in the Arab world, in southern Europe and the various Occupy Movements in the UK and the USA which evolved in a distinctly global field, it is analytically prudent to think in terms of geographical entities. Threats such as terrorism, environmental deprivation and hyper-neoliberal capitalism are truly global. 

The controversy over Iran’s nuclear activities has at least as much to do with the future of international order as it does with nonproliferation.  For this reason, all of the BRICS have much at stake in how the Iranian nuclear issue is handled.

UN Security Council resolutions that Iran must stop 'all' enrichment activities are outmoded, unrealistic, and hurt the Iran talks. A new resolution should promise to lift sanctions if the parties reach a reasonable agreement on Iran's nuclear program.

Sanji & Fiona Gunasekara believe: “There is a woeful misperception about Iran in many Western countries including New Zealand. We believe that one way to counter these myths is by sharing travel experiences of visitors that have actually experienced Iran for themselves.” 

The new US defence secretary, Chuck Hagel, is due to make his first visit to Israel on Sunday amid fresh warnings from the country’s leaders that time is running out to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat. Here, in a provocative article based on his controversial new book, Peter Oborne shows how the West turned down a precious opportunity to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis eight years ago, and argues that it is western rather than Iranian intransigence that prevents a deal being struck today.

Israeli initiation of a war with Iran would be, even under the most charitable interpretation of Israeli motives, for the purpose of maintaining Israel's regional nuclear weapons monopoly. It also would serve the Israeli government's purpose of spoiling any chance for the foreseeable future of rapprochement between Washington and Tehran, thereby helping to sustain Israel's claim that it warrants special treatment as the only reliable American partner in the Middle East.

The EU should make preparations now for a post-sanctions phase. If or when the sanctions go, they will leave a vacuum in EU-Iran relations.

On April 10, 2013, Sweden’s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt spoke at The Carnegie Nuclear Policy Conference held in Washington on the matter of assessing the efficacy of sanctions for non-proliferation. Among other things, FM Bildt admitted to be among those less convinced about the general usefulness of sanctions. He also referred to the sanctions imposed on Iran and its nuclear programme.