Al Jazeera report.

Speaking at a news conference on Monday in Riyadh with Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, Prince Saud al-Faisal said the threat posed by Iran's nuclear ambitions demanded a more immediate solution than sanctions.

Al-Faisal described sanctions as a long-term solution, and said the threat is more pressing.

"But we see the issue in the shorter term because we are closer to the threat. We need immediate resolution rather than gradual resolution," he said.

The minister did not identify a preferred short-term resolution.

Haaretz report.

The United States believes Iran's Revolutionary Guards are driving the country towards military dictatorship and should be targeted in any new UN sanctions, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday.

Times report.

The Obama Administration started an intense diplomatic push yesterday to achieve global isolation of Iran over its nuclear weapons programme. The move was spearheaded by Hillary Clinton, who landed in the Middle East to confer with Arab allies.

The diplomatic effort involves US officials fanning out across the region. It began as the White House said for the first time that China was close to backing a new round of UN sanctions against the regime. As America's top four diplomats landed in the region, General James Jones, President Obama's National Security Adviser, said that the US would press the UN to impose new sanctions this month.

Reuters report.

Acknowledging China's reluctance, Jim Jones, Obama's national security adviser, told the "Fox News Sunday" program: "We need to work on China a little more. On this issue they cannot be nonsupportive."

Laura Rozen in Politico.

After arriving in Doha today and meeting with the Turkish foreign minister and Qatari leaders, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton heads to Saudi Arabia where she will meet with Saudi King Abdullah and Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal.

What's on Clinton's Saudi agenda? Prodding Saudi leaders to offer the Chinese energy supply guarantees in exchange for Beijing's nod for Iran sanctions, AFP's Lachlan Carmichael posits.

Niall Ferguson in the Financial Times.

Yet even a casual look at the fiscal position of the federal government (not to mention the states) makes a nonsense of the phrase "safe haven". US government debt is a safe haven the way Pearl Harbor was a safe haven in 1941.

Even according to the White House's new budget projections, the gross federal debt will exceed 100 per cent of GDP in just two years' time. This year, like last year, the federal deficit will be around 10 per cent of GDP. The long-run projections of the Congressional Budget Office suggest that the US will never again run a balanced budget. That's right, never.

Haaretz report.

Israel may lack the military means for successful preemptive strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, former Chief of Staff Dan Halutz told Channel 2 news on Saturday.

[...]

"We are taking upon ourselves a task that is bigger than us" Halutz, who stepped down in 2007, said when asked about Israeli leaders' vows to "take care" of the perceived threat.

Reuters report.

Washington will hold preliminary talks with the Bulgarian government on hosting parts of a U.S. missile shield, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov said on Friday.

New York Times article.

With tensions over Iran's nuclear ambitions hitting new levels, the United States is mounting a diplomatic full-court press in the Middle East, sending four top diplomats, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, to confer with Arab and Israeli leaders.

The envoys' visits to Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar were planned separately in recent weeks, but they now have a common purpose, administration officials said: to reassure Iran's neighbors that the United States will stand firm against Tehran, and to enlist other countries in a global effort to put pressure on the Iranian authorities.

Laura Rozen in Politico.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is headed to Israel Sunday for meetings with his Israeli Defense Force counterparts on cooperation, Israeli daily Haaretz reports:

"During his visit, Admiral Mullen will meet with Minister of Defense Ehud Barak, IDF General Gabi Ashkenazi, as well as other senior IDF commanders to discuss the two countries mutual security concerns, including the situation in Iran," the paper said.

Nafeez Ahmed writes.

Despite his campaign promises, over a year into his presidency, Obama has been unable to deliver the change that Americans and the world alike had hoped for. Part of the problem is that neocon ideology is alive and well, reaching into the corridors of the White House, and dominating the airwaves.

Indeed, back in January 2009, after Obama had just announced his appointments, prominent neoconservative icons, intellectuals and ideologues were virtually jumping for joy.

Foreign Policy article.

As the United States shifts from engagement to sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Iranian opposition takes to the streets, a broad and diverse team of officials inside the Obama administration is working on the issue day in and day out.

Johann Hari in the Independent.

[...] a string of recent exposes has shown that Obama is in fact maintaining a battery of secret prisons where people are held without charge indefinitely -- and he is even expanding them. The Kabul-based journalist Anand Gopal has written a remarkable expose for The Nation magazine. His story begins in the Afghan village of Zaiwalat at 3.15am on the night of November 19th 2009. A platoon of US soldiers blasted their way into a house in search of Habib ur-Rahman, a young computer programmer and government employee who they had been told by someone, somewhere was a secret Talibanist. His two cousins came out to see what the noise was -- and they were shot to death. As the children of the house screamed, Habib was bundled into a helicopter and whisked away. He has never been seen since. His family do not know if he is alive or dead.

[...]

The Obama administration is appealing against US court rulings insisting the detainees have the right to make a legal case against their arbitrary imprisonment. And the White House is insisting they can forcibly snatch anyone they suspect from anywhere in the world -- with no legal process -- and take them there. Yes: Obama is fighting for the principles behind Guantanamo Bay. The frenzied debate about whether the actual camp in Cuba is closed is a distraction, since he is proposing to simply relocate it to less sunny climes.

[...]

Today, Bagram is being given a $60m expansion, allowing it to hold five times as many prisoners as Guantanamo Bay currently does. Gopal reports that the abuse is leaking out to other, more secretive sites across Afghanistan. They are so underground they are known only by the names given to them by released inmates -- the Salt Pit, the Prison of Darkness.

Laura Rozen in Politico.

Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns is heading to Lebanon and Syria, amid growing tensions between Israel and Lebanon and the U.S. considering returning a U.S. ambassador to Damascus.

A former senior U.S. official aware of the trip described its purpose as "Iran, what else?"

Trita Parsi and Alireza Nader in Foreign Policy.

History shows that intervention is easier said than done. Past U.S. attempts to sway Iranian internal affairs -- such as the CIA-fomented 1953 coup d'état against a democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh -- have proven costly for U.S. interests. Most notably, Washington's support for the shah fueled the 1979 Islamic Revolution, inspiring anti-Western movements in Pakistan, Egypt, and beyond.

Haaretz report.

Four-star General Kevin Chilton was in Israel last week. He is head of the U.S. Strategic Command, whose sphere of operations includes responsibility for missiles on submarines and in underground silos, as well as bombers and satellites, and computer-network warfare. If American forces were to take part in an offensive campaign against Iran, Chilton would play a significant part in preparing them for battle and in long-distance missile launches, although responsibility for the theater itself would be retained by Gen. David Petraeus, of Central Command.