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Iran agreed in principle Thursday to ship most of its current stockpile of enriched uranium to Russia, where it would be refined for exclusively peaceful uses, in what Western diplomats called a significant, but interim, measure to ease concerns over its nuclear program.

within weeks it would allow the inspection of a previously covert uranium enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom

Iran, which insists it isn't seeking nuclear weapons, got much from the meeting: help with its ostensibly peaceful nuclear program, no concessions on the enrichment issue and an opportunity once again to put its aspirations for a major global role on display.

Diplomatic observers in Tehran have no doubt about the potential of this moment to change the course of history. Ambassadors from Eastern European countries sense a familiar spirit in the air, and regale their colleagues with stories of the final days of Honecker and Ceausescu.

Deeper sanctions would be welcomed by Mr Ahmadinejad — it would allow him to appeal to nationalist sentiment and tighten his grip on the economy. (Of course, a military attack would be the ultimate gift to the theocracy, something hardline elements of the regime are reportedly seeking actively to provoke.) Worse still, an agreement would enable the leadership to claim victory without actually impeding its repressive rule. Having lost legitimacy in the streets of its own cities, the regime is being offered a chance to regain it, in different form, in the halls of the United Nations. With its very existence in the balance, pressure on the regime to freeze its nuclear programme is not a threat, but an opportunity to regain international credibility.

Before being led down a strategically barren path of sanctions and threats focused exclusively on the nuclear programme, Western leaders have a unique opportunity to seize on the promise of a movement far more consequential to the future of Iran and the broader Middle East than any nuclear deal with the existing regime. This is a moment for Europe’s leaders to draw on their countries’ longstanding knowledge of Iran to explore a different path. The US Government, even under Mr Obama, appears constrained by history and an unwillingness to think creatively about Iran. And yet the moment cries out for something other than a predictable set of tortured Security Council negotiations that will achieve little.

Israeli newspapers have run stories warning about the potentially negative prospects for Israel of a British government that accords a prominent position to the Lib Dems. They regard Nick Clegg and his party as positively pro-Palestinian.

For decades Israel and Britain could assume a relatively privileged hearing in Washington. With the advent of the Obama administration, however, both are realizing that the United States has new priorities that do not fit so comfortably with their own.

All three parties say there will have to be a comprehensive Strategic Defence Review (SDR) following the election.

How the United States supports Egypt's transition to democracy is exactly what worries Tantawi and his underlings on the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which has run Egypt by decree since Mubarak's fall. The generals, reportedly still miffed at Washington for giving up on Mubarak during the revolt, are furious with U.S. efforts to fund pro-democracy groups in Egypt by circumventing government channels. Scathing stories about American interference in Egypt crop up regularly in local papers, fueling xenophobia and scaring off fledgling nonprofits that otherwise would be receptive to American aid. The United States hasn't fared any better with the millions of anti-Mubarak protesters who are now coalescing into political parties in preparation for parliamentary elections in November. During the 18-day uprising that preceded Mubarak's resignation, chants against America were common, with young Egyptians pointing angrily to the "Made in USA" stamps on the tear-gas canisters that Mubarak's forces fired at them. A Gallup poll released earlier this year found that 75 percent of Egyptians oppose American aid to political groups and that two-thirds think the U.S. isn't serious about encouraging democracy in the Middle East and North Africa.

In June, the military council rejected a proposed budget from its civilian ministers because of its dependence on aid from the United States and other foreign donors

Patterson and her superiors in Washington must recognize that the military council and whatever elected government succeeds it will be accountable to the public in a way that was unfathomable in Mubarak's day

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak are in their 80s, durable U.S. allies whose governments have crushed political dissent at home while playing leading roles across the Middle East. But these days, talk of succession reverberates as Washington, as well as Riyadh and Cairo, plans to navigate an era without two of the region's dominant personalities.

Their overall strategies, which complement U.S. interests, are not expected to be significantly altered by their successors, especially since new leaders will almost certainly come from the ranks of the ruling regimes.

The oppressed of Egypt and the young of Saudi Arabia are angry and restless. They listened to Obama's June speech in Cairo, and many were disappointed by the lack of criticism of their nations' regimes, which often ignore American principles of democracy. It is these sentiments -- expressed by laborers striking in the Egyptian textile city of El Mahalla el Kubra and by bloggers and filmmakers in Riyadh -- that new leaders will have to calm. "Predicting what will happen in Saudi Arabia is very difficult," said Mohammad Fahad Qahtani, a reformer and assistant economics professor at the Institute of Diplomatic Studies. "You live in an oil bonanza. The country is flush with money, but you have unemployment and 30% of the people living in poverty. Only 22% of families own their own homes."It's a gloomy picture. The regime is losing its credibility."

They have fled the war in nearby Saada province, where the nation's army, after five years of sporadic warfare in the region, has launched what it calls a final offensive against a Shiite Muslim rebel group called Houthis.

A poor but strategic country on the Gulf of Aden, Yemen is increasingly unstable. Washington is concerned about the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh being embroiled in conflicts that include a separatist insurgency in the south and growing numbers of Al Qaeda fighters using the nation as a base to launch attacks across the Middle East.

The plight of the displaced has become a political issue within Yemen, with the government and the Houthis accusing each other of using civilians as shields and obstructing access to aid groups.

Fatah, the political party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, has accused President Barack Obama of caving in to Israeli pressure and said the hopes Palestinians had for Obama’s administration have “evaporated.”

Prominent women and tribesmen from the North West Frontier Province delivered the same hostile message that she'd heard the two preceding days from students and journalists: Pakistanis aren't ready to endorse American friendship despite an eight-year-old anti-terrorism alliance between the countries and a multi-billion-dollar new U.S. aid package.

"We are fighting a war that is imposed on us. It's not our war. It is your war," journalist Asma Shirazi told Clinton during the women's meeting. "You had one 9-11. We are having daily 9-11s in Pakistan."

"The problem is that we want American dollars but we, as a country, hate Americans," Abida Hussain, a former Pakistani ambassador to Washington, told McClatchy. "We're not perfect, but we want the Americans to be perfect."