News

Sometime before the end of this month, the Obama administration would have to tell the world whether it still regards "unconditional engagement" with the Islamic Republic in Iran as a realistic option.

Both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton have repeatedly said that they expect "something" before the end of September.

The new administration was prepared to wait almost nine months for Tehran to decide what to do with Obama's "stretched hand" of friendship.

Initially, Obama and Clinton had pinned their hopes on Iran's presidential election in June. It would have been nice if the quintessential "troublemaker", Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had lost to Mir-Hussein Mousavi, the man who had sought normalisation with the US back in the 1980s.