What's the best evidence that things are really changing in the Mideast? It is the spectacle of Israel and Saudi Arabia, hitherto America's two closest allies in the region, glowering darkly on the sidelines (and more or less in unison) as the United States and Iran begin an engagement that is already more profound than anything we've seen since the Iranian revolution of 1979. This historic shift, punctuated by the signing Saturday of a six-month, nuclear-freeze deal that both Israel and Saudi Arabia had loudly opposed, could potentially transform the entire region.

Secretary of State John Kerry offered a robust defense of the interim nuclear agreement with Iran on Sunday, rejecting comparisons to North Korea and insisting that the deal would make Israel and Persian Gulf allies of the United States more secure, not less so. Speaking on three Sunday news programs, Mr. Kerry said the deal, signed early Sunday morning in Geneva, would lock in place nuclear activities that bring Iran closer to having a bomb and subject its nuclear facilities to unprecedented international inspections.

Back in June, Iran’s presidential elections had a surprise winner: reformer Hassan Rouhani. Western-educated, Rouhani took to Twitter to express his more favorable views of the U.S. He even suggested he was open to a new approach on the nuclear issue. Rouhani’s attitude (and his openness about it on public forums like Twitter) eased US-Iran relations.

As Sweden’s foreign minister, Carl Bildt, noted in the wake of the interim deal on Iran’s nuclear program reached in Geneva on Saturday, the effort by Tehran’s negotiating team to explain and justify the country’s push for atomic energy behind closed doors was accompanied by a public diplomacy campaign conducted online.

When negotiations over the future of Iran’s nuclear program broke down last week, the question of why they did loomed in everyone’s mind. In response, Secretary of State Kerry offered some weak explanation that Iranian negotiators had to get approval from higher ups back at home. Kerry’s comments were a deflection from blaming the French for putting the kibosh on the agreement. Rather than deflecting from the French, Senator John McCain, in a rare move for a conservative Republican, complimented the French for their bravery in stopping the agreement, proclaiming, “Vive la France!”

Israeli-American relations are in free fall. Why? On the face of it the key issue is the terms of the draft deal with Iran that Secretary of State John Kerry was reportedly ready to sign in Geneva, week before last. Yesterday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated yet again that it is “a bad deal.” And last week Israel’s intelligence minister, Yuval Steinitz, claimed the concessions to Tehran that the United States is contemplating will funnel between $20 and $40 billion to Iran’s coffers.

Here’s a statistic from an official Pentagon presentation, recently revealed at a security industry conference in Augusta, Georgia. The subject was American military interventions since the end of World War II. The figures: 44 interventions – one a year – between 1945 and 1989; and another 100 – three to four a year – since the end of the Cold War.

French President Francois Hollande on Sunday laid out four demands which must be in place for an agreement with Iran to successfully rein in its nuclear program, Agence France-Presse reported. “France is in favor of an interim agreement but on the basis of four points,” AFP quoted him as saying at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.