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Engagement without marriage: Beltway pessimistic as Obama's team prepares to tackle Iran

As it focuses on what many in Washington view as Iran’s uncomfortable rise up the international pecking order, US analysts are reappraising old ideas about detaching Syria from the so-called Shia Crescent linking Iran and Hizbollah in Lebanon. This so-called ‘Wedge Theory’ argued that a strategic deal with Syria, most likely involving peace with Israel and international rehabilitation, could be used to induce Damascus to end its strategic alliance with Iran and cut off one avenue of support for Hizbollah and Hamas.

Whoever wins the Iranian election will have to engage in sustained diplomatic fence-mending. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s apparently thoughtless way with words has cost Iran dear over the past three and a half years. This month, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has been in Riyadh – where he met King Abdullah Bin Abdelaziz – and Manama, seeking to patch up the latest strains in relationships with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. He also visited Kuwait, with whom Tehran’s dealings are rather more placid.

As Khatami steps aside to allow the new contender a clear run, reform supporters hope they may have found a candidate who can defuse conservative opposition. But President Ahmadinejad still holds a lot of powerful cards.

New administration but same pressures: new US sanctions against Iran’s largest state bank have underscored Washington’s determination to eviscerate Tehran’s trading capabilities.

Will Mohammad Khatami secure the backing of Rahbar (Supreme Leader) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for his presidential comeback bid this summer? Unlikely as this might have seemed even weeks ago, Iranian political observers, whose debates GSN has joined in the past week, are agreed that this may be the decisive question

The row over gas sales between Sharjah-based Crescent Petroleum and Iran has resurfaced as both sides continue to dispute the contractual terms of an agreement to export Iranian gas to the UAE (GSN 812/12). Under pressure to meet rising domestic demand, the dispute began when the Islamic Republic

The Obama administration’s decision to attempt diplomatic re-engagement with Iran provides a moment of excruciating discomfort for many US politicians and generals. GSN has been exposed to some of the thinking going on inside the Pentagon, as well as in the think tanks and State Department offices charged with charting a path through this dangerous territory.

Reports of an upcoming sale of the Russian-built SA-20 systems to Iran will focus Israeli minds on the need to acquire F-22 fighter aircraft technology, whose export is currently banned by US law

So President Barack Obama is back in the White House, and it is time to get back to work. But the US vote for continuity will not prompt much celebration in the Iranian corridors of power. Several hours after the result was in, the Iranian state news agency Irna made no mention of US politics, although it did post a story saying the prevailing world system “is already meeting its doomed end”.

Capacity constraints for Iranian transactions are largely due to the standoff between Tehran and Washington, backed by European governments, on the nuclear question, which has cut US-based insurers and underwriters with US-based treaty reinsurance out of the market. Given the European Union’s ‘common position’ of August 2008 – which calls for restraint

No longer a global market leader for trade financiers, Iran has joined Iraq and Syria is in a difficult market for bankers to do business within the GSN area. “For banks, Syria will be the easiest of these three to do, but banking markets are pretty well shut for the rest of the year,

Until Barack Obama makes key appointments to his foreign policy team, there is little way to gauge exactly how he is thinking about Iran. One early set of indicators will include his choice of leadership figures such as his secretaries of state and Defence.

Bahrain-Saudi Arabia pipeline shows relations are good. Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco) is planning a $2bn expansion of its Sitra refinery. Iran has signed a MoU with Turkey for the development of two phases of its South Pars gas field. International services company Petrofac has been awarded a KD147m ($543m) lump-sum contract by Kuwait Oil Company for a new gas pipeline.

The Iranian navy’s new naval base had been brought to active service near Jask, at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz. But analysts believe the base would not be operational during any US-Iran showdown.