There are widespread hopes, and fears fewer in number but more virulent, of the relationship between Natanz [the Iranian nuclear fuel enrichment site] and Itamar [one of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank], that is, the connection between Iran’s relations with the West and Israel-Palestine peace. US Secretary of State John Kerry, in remarks made since the Iran channel showed its promise, leaves no doubt that the Obama administration considers these two threats to regional security to be conceptually connected.
In Washington, the decision to turn a new page in relations with Iran has, for the first time in more than a generation, begun to remove both practical, operational, bureaucratic and ideological constraints that have defined US policies in the region. There are encouraging signs that this “new thinking” is already enabling US policymakers to consider possible opportunities that Washington has shunned for decades — Iran, of course, is at the top of the list. Since 1979, no one within US policy and security bureaucracy has seen any value in thinking outside the box on Iran. Challenging the consensus view of Iran as a charter member of the “axis of evil” was a terrible career move.
