September, 2009

FISSILE MATERIAL
N. Korea Rejects 'Grand Bargain' Nuke Offer
Korea Times

Iran assembly could advise quitting NPT if talks fail
Reuters

Oil, Ideology Keep China From Joining Push Against Iran
Washington Post by John Pomfret

Forget the Nukes
Washington Post by Robert Kagan

On Friday morning, President Obama announced the existence of a previously undisclosed Iranian enrichment facility near Qom.  Obama's announcement has altered the debate over Iran's nuclear program and might create momentum for a new round of sanctions.  However, the question people have been asking is:  why the slow play?  If Obama has known about the facility since before he took office, why did he wait until now to make the information public?

Part of the answer is readily apparent.  Iran sent a letter to the IAEA last Monday disclosing a "pilot facility" near Qom, forcing Obama's hand.  According to Laura Rozen in Politico, Iran's letter was the primary trigger:

FISSILE MATERIAL
How to Press the Advantage With Iran
NYT by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett

Geneva talks on Iran may fizzle, more sanctions loom
Reuters by Louis Charbonneau and Mark Heinrich

Nuclear Debate Brews: Is Iran Designing Warheads?
NYT by William J. Broad, Mark Mazzetti, and David E. Sanger

U.S., Allies Seek New Ways to Sanction Iran
WSJ by Joe Lauria, Jay Solomon, and Farnaz Fassihi

Even as October 1st approaches, marking the beginning of international negotiations with Iran, as well as the first direct talks between the U.S. and Iran in thirty years, the Obama administration is rushing to prepare a new set of economic sanctions to provide further leverage against the Islamic Republic.  According to SecDef Gates, there’s “a pretty rich list to pick from,” and potential targets include energy equipment and technology. The biggest target pushed for by lawmakers, and the most difficult to reach an international consensus on, is an embargo on gasoline shipments to the Islamic Republic. Proponents of this step hope that, with forty percent of its gas imported from abroad, an embargo will put domestic pressure on the Iranian government to negotiate.

Last Thursday, I had the chance to listen to Carnegie Endowment’s James Acton discuss "Deterring Safeguards Violations," about nuclear safeguards, noncompliance, and the role they should play in the upcoming 2010 NPT Review Conference.

by Raja Karthikeya

The U.S.-sponsored Security Council resolution on non-proliferation that was passed last week has enraged India. The resolution called on all non-signatories to the NPT to join the treaty as "non-nuclear weapons states." India sent the President of the General Assembly a strongly worded letter saying it would not accept externally prescribed norms on issues that conflicted with its sovereignty.

FISSILE MATERIAL
Iran Reported to Have Tested Long-Range Missiles
NYT by Alan Cowell

Cryptic Iranian Note Ignited an Urgent Nuclear Strategy Debate
NYT by Helene Cooper and Mark Mazzetti

On nuke arms, 2010 will challenge Obama
AP by Charles J. Hanley

India stays firm, rejects NPT, CTBT
Economic Times by Nirmala Ganapathy

The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) released a report with images of two possible locations of the enrichment facility at Qom.  According to the report:

ISIS has obtained satellite imagery from DigitalGlobe of two possible locations of the gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility under construction near Qom, Iran. Both are tunnel facilities located within military compounds approximately 30-40 kilometers away from Qom (see images below).

Facility #2
Located North West of Qom.
Coordinates: 34.94373, 50.76056

FISSILE MATERIAL
U.S. to Accuse Iran of Having Secret Nuclear Fuel Facility
NYT by David E. Sanger

Iran Reveals Second Uranium Enrichment Plant
WSJ by Jonathan Weisman, David Crawford, and Siobhan Gorman

Two First Steps on Nuclear Weapons
NYT by Mikhail Gorbachev

Will Not Sign NPT, CTBT: India Tells U.S.
RTT News

The big news this morning is that Iran may have a second enrichment facility that has previously been unreported to the UN.  According to the New York Times, President Obama, along with Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, will go public with the accusation today.  According to the report, the US has known about the facility for some time, but is just now deciding to come forward:

FISSILE MATERIAL
The nuclear tipping point
The Guardian by Franco Frattini, George Shultz and Sam Nunn

No nukes is good news

The transcript from Obama's speech at the UN meeting is up.

FISSILE MATERIAL
China, Russia wouldn't block new Iran sanctions:EU
Reuters by Louis Charbonneau

China Firms Selling Fuel to Iran as U.S. Sanctions Loom

FISSILE MATERIAL
Grand bargain: rhetoric vs. the real deal
Korea Herald by Kim Ji-hyun

U.S. and Iran Heading Into Talks Worlds Apart

The Guardian is reporting that Obama has stamped a draft of the NPR return to sender.  Julian Borger claims: 

 EAST ASIA

1. Obama Urged to Meet Jong-II for N. Korea’s Denuclearization: Rep. Chung Dong Young

Talk of the U.S. “scrapping” European missile defense and abandoning Eastern Europe is premature. While the Bush-era Third Site plan to place10 Ground-Based Interceptors in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic has been nixed, the Obama administration plans to go ahead with a system based around Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) interceptor technology.

Waking up yesterday morning I was surprised by the Washington Post story that Obama has scraped missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic.

FISSILE MATERIAL (Top Stories)
Nuke agency says Iran can make bomb
AP by George Jahn

IAEA denies report it is sure Iran seeking atom bomb

Between the statements of Obama and Gates and the military factsheet outlining the new approach to missile defense, it is apparent that the main motivation for altering our missile defense strategy is strategic.  The new approach, which combines sea- and land-based missile def

The news media is full of reports that the US has "scrapped" missile defense in Europe.  In a press conferences a few minutes ago, Obama and Gates attempted to clarify the new US approach to missile defense.  Obama and Gates said that two factors drove the shift away from the current proposal for missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic:

EAST ASIA
1. Pacific Command Chief Says North Korean Proliferation Not “Under Control”
GSN by Martin Matishak

All things "modernization" had an interesting pair of developments in the past couple of days. These developments include:

The title of a recent UPI article was: "Japan wary of 'no first-strike' proposal".  The headline implies that Japan's government opposes the proposal for the US to adopt a No First Use (NFU) declaration for its nuclear arsenal.  If the US adopted a NFU posture,&nbs

A few days ago, Geoffery Forden at the blog ArmsControlWonk.com, claimed to have internal secret Iranian documents which provide evidence of a development consortium between Iran, Russia, and China. Here is a quote from the post:

EAST ASIA
1. SKorea voices caution over mooted US-NKorea talks
AP by Jae-soon Change

EAST ASIA
1. China ratifies amendment to Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear Material
Xinhua

In an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Pavel Podvig lays out the case against missile defense.  Podvig’s primary argument is that, even with better technology, missile defense cannot guarantee our safety from a nuclear attack:

As part of the kickoff for the new blog, PONI Debates the Issues will be expanding its "Fissile Material" feature. Based off of news gathered for an internally produced daily nuclear news document, the PDI blog will be posting daily the complete contents of the edition for that day.  Without further ado: 

Joe Cirincione, who PONI is grateful to for kicking off the PONI Debates the Issues series by debating PONI director Clark Murdock on RRW, had a piece in the Huffington Post today titled &

Control System

US Says No Go

India Testing

As mentioned in a previous post, the AP noted that there appears to be considerable hurdles to Obama getting the CTBT passed in the immediate future. Although the “signed but not ratified” approach has bought the U.S.

Ellen Tauscher had an interesting comment in the press yesterday when she quipped

Yesterday, we wrote up a post analyzing the current debate over missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic. These sites were originally proposed by the Bush administration and are now being reconsidered under Obama.

6 Party Talks It Is

Brush Off Your Shoulder

Iran Proposal

On September 24, the UN is going to hold a special session, chaired by President Obama, to discuss global disarmament and non-proliferation. More people have been talking about ways to reduce the role of nuclear weapons since Obama's Prague speech, and the administration is looking to build even more momentum.

Two recent editorials from Heritage fellows have criticized the Obama administration for abandoning Eastern European allies. According to the editorials, Obama has given up proposed missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic (sometimes called the "third site"). They argue that this will will serve to embolden Russia and increase our vulnerability to Iran's missile capabilities.

More Testing?

Russia backs IAEA

Proposal Day

More than a few people have come out with withering critiques of Jonathan Tepperman's Newsweek article on why Obama should learn to love the bomb.

US Seeks Re-clarification

Victor Cha on NK Statements

Iran continues to steal the headlines. There’s increasing momentum for a new round of sanctions to prevent Iran from importing refined gasoline, and U.S. and European leaders are discussing what to do next.

NK Uranium

French call out

Today, an article by the Associated Press noted that there is little indication that the Obama Administration will be able to raise the votes required to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (Treaty) in the Senate.

This weekend the New York Times reported that the Obama administration has accused Pakistan of secretly modifying U.S.-provided missiles in contravention of the U.S. Arms Control Export Act.

No Fundamental Change

"Threat" Hyped

Earlier today, Dore Gold, the President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and a former Israeli ambassador, gave a talk at Heritage to promote his book, The Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Tehran Defies The West. Gold argued that Iran will soon pose a threat to the entire Middle East.

Jonathan Tepperman had what is currently the most read piece on the Newsweek website an extreme take on the standard "nuclear weapons prevent WWII style conflict" argument by arguing that even further proliferation isn't something to worry about because nuclear weapons "mellow their behavior." Nukes of Hazard's