Middle East/North Africa

The Defense secretary reiterated President Obama’s call for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian crisis.

Iran’s defense minister is pushing back against a spike in Israeli chatter about an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, calling the threats psychological warfare.

Gen. Ahmad Vahidi said Tuesday that that Israeli officials were “warmongering” and resorting to a “psychological war” against Iran, according to The Associated Press, which quoted Vahidi from Iran’s semiofficial Mehr News Agency.

Israeli media reported last week that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak were in favor of an attack on Iran in the fall, though other top Israeli officials were opposed.

The effort is a move that could encourage other officials close to Assad to cut ties with the government. 

"We had expected President Morsi to coordinate with the military to name a new defense team," Obama spokesman Carney said.

Syrian rebels say they have downed a fighter jet from Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces, while state-run media says the plane malfunctioned and the pilot was forced to eject.

The Associated Press reported that Syrian rebels released a video shown on Al Arabiya depicting what they said was the captured pilot from the downed MiG fighter jet.

The Free Syrian Army said it shot the plane down in the Eastern part of Syria near the Iraqi border, according to the BBC, and a video was posted to YouTube showing the plane catching fire.

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The move is aimed at undermining Iran's influence in the region.

Your morning global affairs speed-read

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton heads to Turkey this weekend for talks on Syria after wrapping up a 10-day trip across Africa. She's scheduled to hold bilateral negotiations with the Turkish government, which is championing the 18-month uprising against President Bashar Assad and has hosted many army defectors.

On Friday, she attended the funeral, along with 18 African heads of state, of Ghana's former president, John Atta Mills, who died in office last month [BBC]. She's also slated to travel to Benin on Friday, where she will meet with President Boni Yayi in Cotonou, marking the end of her trip.

Green on blue: The Obama administration is dealing with the fallout from the latest violence in Afghanistan, where a gunman in an Afghan uniform shot and killed three American service members Thursday night. The news comes just after the State Department announced the death of a USAID worker in a suicide attack that also killed three coalition service members.

Top U.S. intelligence officials are siding with assertions made by Israeli counterparts that Iran is closer than ever to achieving a nuclear weapon, according to recent media reports out of Jerusalem. 

As anti-government forces look to carve out a stronghold in the northern part of the country, U.S. policymakers are not ruling out establishing a series of no-fly zones to protect those rebel enclaves. 

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's choice of former George W. Bush Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick to lead his national-security transition team has angered conservatives, columnist Jennifer Rubin writes in The Washington Post.

Zoellick, who also served as U.S. trade representative under Bush and head of the World Bank from 2007 until 2012, is seen as insufficiently pro-Israel in some quarters, Rubin writes, in part because of his criticism of Israeli restrictions on the Palestinian economy.