Carnegie senior associate Michael McFaul reviews Kenneth Pollack's new book, The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and Ameri
Senior associate Michael McFaul and Hoover fellow Abbas Milani on the Iran nuclear crisis.
Much of the world breathed a sigh of relief when Iran and three European Union countries recently agreed on a course to resolve the boiling crisis over Iran's nuclear activities. With Iran agreeing to suspend those activities as long as progress is made in structuring a longer-term cooperative relationship with Europe, the nuclear issue shifted to the backburner. But the relief was cut short by the US claim of new evidence that Iran is violating its commitment not to pursue nuclear weapons.
Iran's nuclear ambitions have once again returned to the headlines. Just days after the Mideast nation entered an agreement with the European trio – France, Germany, and the UK – US officials made allegations about Iran's continued weapons development. As those accusations remain unsubstantiated, writes nonproliferation expert George Perkovich, the focus of international attention should remain on Iran's deal with Europe. Indeed, facilitating this relationship will be complicated, due to the deep-seated distrust simmering among all involved parties – and the US presence in Iraq further complicates matters. The most effective route to securing a deal, suggests Perkovich, may have to entail UN Security Council involvement: "This would raise the incentives of all parties to fulfill its terms."
An Iranian opposition group has accused Iran of smuggling in weapons-grade uranium and bomb designs from the A.Q. Khan network and hiding a uranium enrichment facility. On November 17, the National Council of Resistance (NCR) told reporters that in 2001, A.Q. Khan gave Iran a small quantity of highly enriched uranium (HEU), though not enough to make a bomb.
U.S. President George Bush has won reelection. He is the first President to receive more than 50 percent of the votes cast since 1988 and got more votes than anyone President in American history. In addition, his Republican Party has increased its majority in both houses of the US Congress, giving the President an even more comfortable base of support in Washington. Overall, President Bush can claim a mandate from the American people, and it is reasonable for him and his advisors to view the vote as an endorsement on their policies and priorities. This will have serious and possibly profound implications for US policy and for many other countries, particularly key US allies in East Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. The end result may be to project the split nature of American politics onto the rest of the world, forcing countries to choose between the United States or alternative approaches to their security.
Iran has been caught breaking its obligations under the NPT, and is now being investigated by the IAEA and the Security Council. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, on behalf of the EU, have taken the lead in trying to reverse Iran’s threatening course. If Iran gets away with acquiring nuclear weapons in these circumstances, it would make a mockery of the nonproliferation regime. The Middle East would become even more dangerous. In short, Iran may be the proliferation tipping point.
In presenting its case for war in Iraq, Bush administration officials carefully framed the issues in ways compatible with its larger goals and forced opponents to debate on its terms. By controlling the questions, the administration could control the answers. Instead of addressing the risks of invading Iraq, officials emphasized the risks of not invading Iraq. Instead of a careful assessment of costs and benefits, they cast the decision to go to war as a test of strength and resolve. This tactic is best illustrated in the way the administration presented its three main points: Iraq was a gathering threat, Saddam Hussein was a madman who could not be deterred, and Iraq was tied to September 11 and the war on terror.
On October 21, 2004, The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace hosted a launch of a new book Common Sense on Weapons of Mass Destruction by Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr.. Rose Gottemoeller, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment, moderated the session.
President Bush and Senator Kerry both stated that stopping the spread of nuclear weapons would be the top priority for their respective administrations. Yet, for the current President there is a clear disconnect between US goals and current policy. Nowhere is this as striking as in the case of Brazil, where the President is not implementing the very policies he announced in a major speech on February 11, 2004.
In 2006, Japanese power utilities hope to open the nation’s first commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the remote village of Rokkasho. The facility will combine the plutonium with recovered uranium, a product known as mixed-oxide or MOX. Although there is currently no commercial demand for this product, Japan’s Atomic Energy Commission is fully in favor finishing the plant.
It has been called the forgotten war. What seemed two years ago to be a shining example of American military power and international leadership is now a growing morass. The Taliban is back, Al Qaeda roams the countryside and Osama bin Ladin mocks America from his mountain redoubt. Assassins in the last week barely missed killing both the president and the vice-president in separate attacks on this fledgling democracy’s government.
Every major military indicator shows the war in Iraq is going badly. The United States is losing ground, losing hearts and minds, and losing the war. Every day this month, on average, three U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq. This is up from the death rate in August, which was up from July's toll. Major cities are now considered too unsafe for U.S. forces to enter. Washington officials insist Iraqi elections will take place as planned in January 2005, but officials in Baghdad are more pessimistic. "We are in deep trouble in Iraq," warned Republican Senator Chuck Hagel last Sunday. And this, according to a new intelligence assessment, is the best case.
For the first time in American history, a president will deploy a major weapon system without knowing whether it works. Top experts discuss the deployment of five missile interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska.
When Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was told on the morning of Sept. 11 that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center, he paused, then continued his morning intelligence briefing, according to the 9/11 Commission.
If last week’s startling explosion in North Korea were really a nuclear test, it is certain that the world would know it by now. Thanks to a combination of technological advancements and international cooperation, there are both national and international monitoring systems in place that can detect nuclear tests worldwide. These systems are able to tell us, with scientific precision, whether or not an atmospheric, space-based, underground, or underwater explosion was nuclear in nature.
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