WASHINGTON — At first blush, it seems like a godsend for U.S. foreign policy: a tenacious Iranian opposition, democratic in name at least, is challenging a regime that has caused the United States no end of headaches over the last 30 years.

As huge new street protests loom in Tehran on Thursday, however, the 31st anniversary of Iran's Islamic revolution, the Obama administration is keeping its distance from the "green movement" that sprouted during last June's disputed presidential elections.

President Barack Obama and his aides have criticized Iran's human rights record in the face of the regime's security crackdown, with its widespread arrests and several executions. They've offered little encouragement and no aid to the protesters. » read more

WASHINGTON — Iran told the United Nations' nuclear watchdog Monday that it will begin producing purer uranium, a step that experts said could bring Tehran significantly closer to having the fuel for a nuclear weapon.

Iran plans to enrich uranium at its Natanz centrifuge plant to nearly 20 percent purity, a much purer form of the metal than it's achieved thus far, it informed the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency.

If Iran follows through, "it's a really bad development from a proliferation point of view," said David Albright, who closely follows Iran's nuclear development. » read more

WASHINGTON — As they have three times before, the U.S. and leading European powers are gearing up to impose United Nations sanctions on Iran, steps that since 2006 have failed to deter Tehran from continuing its suspected nuclear weapons program.

This time, however, there's a new ingredient in the diplomatic mix: Iran's political opposition, which bloomed as the "green movement" during June's disputed presidential election and has proved to be more resilient than leaders in either Tehran or Washington expected.

Diplomats, who requested anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations, said they're trying to craft new punishments that won't backfire against opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but widen fissures within the regime and its principal security force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. » read more

BAGHDAD — U.S. troops stationed at an outpost in southern Iraq heard a chilling whistle, and then a 60-pound airborne bomb punched through a concrete blast wall and sent shrapnel flying, wounding three Americans.

Explosions are commonplace in Iraq, but this was no ordinary attack. The U.S. military said Friday that militants who launched the Jan. 12 attack on a joint U.S.-Iraqi compound used an unusual weapon called an IRAM, for Improvised Rocket-Assisted Munition. Sometimes called "flying IEDs," IRAMs are a potentially deadlier incarnation of the garden-variety Improvised Explosive Devices in Iraq and Afghanistan — they're short-range projectiles that catapult toward unsuspecting targets.

Two IRAMs flew into the outpost in the city of Amarah in a puzzling reappearance of a weapon that's been used only 14 times since the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, according to the U.S. military. Most of the earlier attacks occurred in eastern Baghdad more than 18 months ago, at the height of violence related to Shiite Muslim militias. The more recent attacks, however, were launched in southern Iraq's Maysan Province, which borders Iran. » read more

ISTANBUL, Turkey — As the Obama administration considers new measures to curb Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program, the Islamic Republic's internal unrest and the growing influence of its Revolutionary Guard Corps may make it more vulnerable to new sanctions.

Years of sanctions aimed at stopping Iran's nuclear progress have done little to change Iran's policies. Iran's top officials, in fact, regularly boast that the sanctions have forced them to reach new levels of technical prowess and self-sufficiency by enriching uranium and building what they say is a peaceful nuclear power program from scratch.

However, as the White House signals that it's pursuing targeted sanctions against Iran — a departure from the "crippling sanctions" once suggested by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and bills before Congress to strangle Iran's gasoline imports — analysts suggest that sanctions could have more impact now. » read more