Robert Fisk in the Independent.

For that was the collective sin of Misses Nasr and Guy. What they said might have made Israel's supporters angry. And that will never do. The reality is that CNN should have told Israel's lobbyists to get lost, and the Foreign Office -- which was indeed upbraided by the Israeli foreign ministry -- should have asked the Israeli government when it is going to stop thieving Arab land. But as my old mate Rami Khoury put it in the Jordanian press this week, "We in the Middle East are used to this sort of racist intellectual terrorism. American and British citizens who occasionally dare to speak accurately about the Middle East and its people are still learning about the full price of the truth when Israeli interests are in the room."

Which brings us, of course, to the Grovel of the Week, the unctuous, weak-willed, cringing figure of Barack "Change" Obama as he strode the White House lawn with Netanyahu himself. For here was the champion of the underdog, the "understanding" president who could fix the Middle East -- finding it "harder that he thought", according to his spokesman -- proving that mid-term elections are more important than all the injustice in the Middle East. It is more than a year now since Netanyahu responded in cabinet to Obama's first criticisms with the remark: "This guy doesn't get it, does he?" (The quote comes from an excellent Israeli source of mine.) Ever since, Netanyahu has been McChrystalling Obama on a near-weekly basis, and Obama has been alternatively hissing and purring, banning Netanyahu from photo calls, but then -- as those elections draw nearer -- rolling over and talking about how the brave Netanyahu, whose government has just destroyed some more Arab homes in East Jerusalem, is taking "risks for peace".

Transcript of Mearsheimer's speech on antiwar.com.

[...] there's no accountability for Israel on any issue. You don't need opacity. If I went to the Middle East, and visited Israel, and I was killed, somebody shot me, do you think there would be any accountability? Seriously. If any of you went to the Middle East and were killed, do you think there would be accountability? There wouldn't be. This is how outrageous this situation is. Just think about the [USS] Liberty, think about Rachel Corrie, think about this Turkish-American who was just killed on the flotilla.

There's no accountability.

Jerusalem Post report.

Although it is obvious that the Pentagon has contingency plans for all possible scenarios, one Israeli official said this was "the first time that the public is getting word of practical preparations of military activity."

Kuwait Times report.

Construction began yesterday on doubling the size of the US Navy base in Bahrain, with digging beginning on a 70-acre site leased from the Bahraini government. The four-phase, $580 million project will massively increase the military capabilities of the US 5th Fleet based there, according to US officials. "The 60-year long relationship the US Navy has had with Bahrain has benefited the US, Bahrain, and the entire region. Today's ceremony is a demonstration of America's commitment to a common shared future," US Ambassador to Bahrain, Adam Ereli, said during the ground breaking ceremony at Mina Salman port.

Robert Dreyfuss in the Nation.

If President Obama knew about this, authorized it and still supports it, then Obama has crossed a red line, and the president will stand revealed as an aggressive, militaristic liberal interventionist who bears a closer resemblance to the president he succeeded than to the ephemeral reformer that he pretended to be in 2008, when he ran for office. If he didn't know, if he didn't understand the order, and if he's unwilling to cancel it now that it's been publicized, then Obama is a feckless incompetent. Take your pick.

Independent report.

Iran today warned the US to back its nuclear fuel swap offer or lose an "historic" chance of improving relations between the countries.

Washington has denounced the Iranian offer - brokered last week by Brazil and Turkey - as a ploy to avoid a new round of UN sanctions over its controversial nuclear programme, which the West fears is geared toward nuclear weapons.

The Leveretts comment.

When, in an Op Ed published in The New York Times in May 2009, we first criticized President Obama's early decision to continue covert anti-Iranian programs he inherited from George W. Bush, some expressed disbelief that Obama would undermine his own rhetoric about engaging Tehran in a climate of mutual respect by conducting a dirty war against the Islamic Republic. But, in an important piece of reporting published today in The New York Times, Mark Mazzetti documents that Obama has not just failed to roll back covert anti-Iranian programs he inherited from his predecessor--he is instead presiding over a dramatic intensification of America's covert war against the Islamic Republic. And, in a manner powerfully reminiscent of Bush and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the intensification of America's covert war against Iran is taking place through the efforts of General David Petraeus and CENTCOM--because military intelligence operations are not subject to the same congressional oversight and reporting requirements as the Central Intelligence Agency.

New York Times report.

The top American commander in the Middle East has ordered a broad expansion of clandestine military activity in an effort to disrupt militant groups or counter threats in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and other countries in the region, according to defense officials and military documents.

Washington Times article.

[...] a U.S. air-war planner in the Persian Gulf War tells The Washington Times he does not think Israel's relatively small air force -- compared with the United States huge bomber and cruise-missile fleet -- has the firepower to properly hit all the necessary Iranian targets.

The only real way to stop Iran's atomic bomb, said retired Air Force Col. John Warden, is for the U.S. to shut down Iran's electric generation for the foreseeable future -- a strategy not currently on the Pentagon's table.

Andy Worthington writes.

President Obama's hopes of closing Guantánamo, which were already gravely wounded by his inability to meet his self-imposed deadline of a year for the prison's closure, now appear to have been killed off by lawmakers in Congress.

Juan Cole writes.

Obama mysteriously has ceased leading on the Iran issue and is instead showing himself willing to be led. Thus have the pragmatic hawks (with the war hawks waiting in the wings) defeated the Realists and the liberal internationalists. Obama stabbed Turkey and Brazil in the back after asking them to risk their face for him. Obama is giving Iran the impression that he is indecisive. All of this backtracking for the sake of a sanctions regime that is highly unlikely actually to change Iran's behavior, contrary to the express hopes of Secretary Gates. Obama's current Iran policy cannot be explained in the terms of US-Iranian relations. It must be driven by something else. The Israel lobbies and dealings with the Netanyahu government are the likeliest candidates in explaining the abandonment of a Realist approach.

From Israel national News.

Iran on Tuesday night said it had fired several Fajr 5 missiles during its war games in the Strait of Hormuz, capable of sinking American warships.

Roger Cohen writeing in the New York Times.

Obama could instead have said: "Pressure works! Iran blinked on the eve of new U.N. sanctions. It's come back to our offer. We need to be prudent, given past Iranian duplicity, but this is progress. Isolation serves Iranian hard-liners."

No wonder Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, is angry. I believe him when he says Obama and U.S. officials encouraged Turkey earlier this year to revive the deal: "What they wanted us to do was give the confidence to Iran to do the swap. We have done our duty."

IMEMC report.

The United States Senate approved the American President's plan to grant Israel more than $200 Million meant for the development of Israel's Iron Dome that intercepts short-range missiles.

The Leveretts comment.

Now that Tehran has accepted the main elements of the Baradei proposal--the transfer of 1,200 kilos of low-enriched uranium out of Iran in exchange for new fuel for the TRR--the United States has unilaterally changed the game.

Gary Sick comments.

According to Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, he had been in "constant contact" with Clinton herself and with national security adviser James Jones, while his prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had face-to-face encouragement from President Obama in December and April.

[...]

The Turks and Brazilians, who felt they had "delivered" Iran on the terms demanded by the United States, were surprised and disappointed at the negative reactions from Washington. Little did they know that their success in Tehran, which had been given a 0-30 percent chance just days earlier, came just as the Americans were putting the final touches on a package of sanctions to be presented to the UN Security Council. The Tehran agreement was as welcome as a pothole in the fast lane, and the Americans were not reluctant to let their displeasure be known.