This is a guest note by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett. Flynt directs the New America Foundation/Iran Project and is a former Senior Director of Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council. Hillary is chairman of Stratega, a political risk consultancy. They are co-publishers of the new blog, The Race for Iran.

AMMAN, JORDAN — On Saturday, 17 October, I interviewed Hamas leader Khaled Mashal on a range of subjects at his offices in Damascus, Syria. The full interview is currently being edited and will be released first at a new blog, The Palestine Note and will then appear here at TWN.

The idea of being attached to a Siamese twin you’re not particularly fond of is a fairly horrifying one to say the least. Yet for the past decade or more, this is exactly the predicament in which the U.S. and China have found themselves.

Jonathan Guyer is a program associate at the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force.

Amman, Jordan — I have just learned through credible sources that the Cairo-brokered reconciliation deal between the Palestinian political parties Fatah and Hamas, while officially delayed at the moment, will get a course correction tomorrow.

I’ve been in Amman, Jordan for less than a day — and the swirl of conflicting emotions here from nearly anyone I have spoken to about the United States is important to note.

Today, I happen to be in Amman, Jordan — just arrived and learned that today is the 10th Anniversary of the accession to the throne of King Abdullah and the 60th Anniversary of diplomatic relations with the U.S.

This is a guest note by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett. Flynt directs the New America Foundation/Iran Project and is a former Senior Director of Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council. Hillary is chairman of Stratega, a political risk consultancy. They are co-publishers of the forthcoming blog, The Race for Iran.

Jon Weinberg is a research intern at the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force. A couple of weeks ago, Angelina Jolie, who makes periodic trips as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), visited Iraqi refugees in southern Damascus along with her partner, Brad Pitt.

Stephen Kinzer, author of Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds and one of the United States’ most knowledgeable Turkophiles, has an optimistic op-ed in today’s Boston Globe about the recent normalization agreement between Turkey and Armenia and Turkey’s potential as a regional power.