PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
July 25, 2006

Featured Content:
•"Pakistan Expanding Nuclear Program," Joby Warrick, Washington Post
•"Arab Leaders, Unlike Much of Public, Uneasy About Hezbollah," Faiza Saleh Ambah, Washington Post

From the International Press:
•"From Bad to Worse," Editorial, Economist
•"Bush Administration's Contention on Pak Reactor Draws Flak," Press Trust of India
•"US Concerned Over India's Breeder Program," Times of India


Crisis in the Middle East
(Carnegie Web Commentary, Marina S. Ottaway, Nathan Brown, Julia Choucair, Michele Dunne, Amr Hamzawy, George Perkovich, Paul Salem)

Carnegie Middle East experts write 500 word analyses of key aspects of the Middle East crisis, offering insights not found in typical news stories. Click here for the full text.

ProliferationNews.org
CarnegieEndowment.org
Iran Resources
South Asia Resources
Korea Resources
China Resources

Pakistan Expanding Nuclear Program
(Joby Warrick, Washington Post)

Monday, July 24
Pakistan has begun building what independent analysts say is a powerful new reactor for producing plutonium, a move that, if verified, would signal a major expansion of the country's nuclear weapons capabilities and a potential new escalation in the region's arms race.

Satellite photos of Pakistan's Khushab nuclear site show what appears to be a partially completed heavy-water reactor capable of producing enough plutonium for 40 to 50 nuclear weapons a year, a 20-fold increase from Pakistan's current capabilities, according to a technical assessment by Washington-based nuclear experts.

The construction site is adjacent to Pakistan's only plutonium production reactor, a modest, 50-megawatt unit that began operating in 1998. By contrast, the dimensions of the new reactor suggest a capacity of 1,000 megawatts or more, according to the analysis by the Institute for Science and International Security. Pakistan is believed to have 30 to 50 uranium warheads, which tend to be heavier and more difficult than plutonium warheads to mount on missiles

South Asia may be heading for a nuclear arms race that could lead to arsenals growing into the hundreds of nuclear weapons, or at minimum, vastly expanded stockpiles of military fissile material," the institute's David Albright and Paul Brannan concluded in the technical assessment, a copy of which was provided to The Washington Post.



U.S. Says It Knew of Pakistani Reactor Plan
(Joby Warrick, Washington Post)

Tuesday, July 25
The Bush administration acknowledged yesterday that it had long known about Pakistan's plans to build a large plutonium-production reactor, but it said the White House was working to dissuade Pakistan from using the plant to expand its nuclear arsenal.

"We discourage military use of the facility," White House spokesman Tony Snow said of a powerful heavy-water reactor under construction at Pakistan's Khushab nuclear site in Punjab state.

The reactor, which reportedly will be capable of producing enough plutonium for as many as 50 bombs each year, was brought to light on Sunday by independent analysts who spotted the partially completed plant in commercial-satellite photos. Snow said the administration had "known of these plans for some time."

The acknowledgment came as arms-control experts and some in Congress expressed alarm about a possible escalation of South Asia's arms race. Some also sharply criticized the administration for failing to disclose the existence of a facility that could influence an upcoming congressional debate over U.S. nuclear policy toward India and Pakistan.





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editors’ note:
When Iranian leaders calculate trade offs between pursuing uranium enrichment and/or nuclear weapons, or accommodating the UN Security Council’s demands, they will consider how their Arab neighbors would likely react. The war in Lebanon provides a hazy insight into Arab perceptions of Iran. As the following article suggests, Sunni Arab leaders fret over Iran’s assertive rise to regional power, as seen through Tehran’s backing of Hizbollah’s defiance of UN Security Council resolutions requiring that it be disarmed. Yet, many of their citizens celebrate the confrontational stance of Iranian leaders toward Israel and the U.S. These swirling considerations will affect efforts in the UN and other forums to mobilize diplomatic pressure on Iran to resolve the outstanding questions and concerns about its nuclear program.

Arab Leaders, Unlike Much of Public, Uneasy About Hezbollah
(Faiza Saleh Ambah, Washington Post)

Monday, July 24
The war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon has created widespread public support for the militant Shiite group among people across the Arab world, but leaders appear uneasy about the conflict and fear it could boost the influence of Hezbollah's patron Iran, analysts say.

Thousands of Egyptians and Jordanians have protested the Israeli assault, now in its second week, and hundreds of Saudis have signed petitions demanding a cease-fire. Many in the region have praised Hezbollah for its willingness to fight Israel.

But analysts say the governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt want a weakened and disarmed Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia that sparked the Israeli assault by kidnapping two Israeli soldiers on July 12. Leaders have criticized Hezbollah, which has since fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, for the cross-border raid and blamed it for provoking the massive Israeli offensive. Adding to the tension is the widespread concern in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan -- all U.S. allies -- about Iran's growing regional influence, analysts said.

Saudi lawyer Bassem Alem said Hezbollah's popularity stemmed from its "ability and willingness to strike at Israel, which has been killing Palestinians and Lebanese and grabbing Arab land for decades with impunity." The war on Lebanon has "created a clear and undeniable schism between the Arab public and the region's rulers," he said.



Loose Nukes
(New York Times - Editorial)

Monday, July 24
President Bush and President Vladimir Putin of Russia announced two new nuclear initiatives earlier this month that could make the world safer — if the presidents keep prodding their secretive and change-averse nuclear bureaucracies to follow through. On that score, unfortunately, the record is not great.

Declaring nuclear terrorism one of the biggest threats facing the world today, Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin began a new coalition of the willing that will share intelligence, develop better ways of securing bomb-making materials and train for the all too imaginable day when a terrorist makes off with a suitcase of plutonium or highly enriched uranium.

The new group should develop a set of security standards for all nuclear facilities. And Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin should set the pace by being the first to sign on.

The two presidents also announced they would negotiate a civil nuclear cooperation agreement that could allow Russia to get into the multibillion-dollar business of storing spent nuclear fuel. Washington is hoping that the promise of new cash-paying customers will persuade Moscow to finally break with an old customer, Iran, and agree to United Nations sanctions if Tehran refuses to give up its nuclear ambitions. Profit is a strong motivator. But Russian officials have a long, cozy history with their Iranian counterparts, and Mr. Bush will need to keep reminding Mr. Putin that a nuclear-armed Iran would also threaten Russia’s security.




From the International Press:

From Bad to Worse
(Economist - Editorial)

Thursday, July 20
The damage done by George Bush's proposed nuclear deal with India gets worse and worse. Already weakened by the nuclear antics of Iran and North Korea, the web of treaties and controls that seeks to halt the bomb's spread is starting to unravel. Congress, hitherto a staunch defender of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and all it stands for, is poised to allow America's laws to be amended to accommodate civilian nuclear trade with India, despite that country's bomb-building. There will then be pressure on the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to carve an India-shaped hole in its global nuclear export restrictions, and on the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to agree to “India-specific” safeguards on any nuclear materials or technology sold.

The Bush administration defends its India deal as good for combating global warming, good for friendship with the world's biggest democracy and good for jobs in America. All that is debatable. But its claim that the nuclear deal will be a net gain in the fight against proliferation is pure nonsense. The controversial deal is already undermining confidence in the world's anti-nuclear rules. The NPT, which has helped prevent a number of other capable states from going nuclear, and encouraged some which tried (Argentina and Brazil) and others which had succeeded (South Africa) to turn back, rests on a promise: that only those that renounce nuclear weapons qualify for civilian nuclear assistance. India deliberately stayed outside the treaty to build its bombs; America is now offering it nuclear help anyway. That won't encourage others to keep their non-nuclear promises.

Nor has India taken on any meaningful new non-proliferation obligations to lighten the blow to the treaty. The recognised nuclear powers—America, Russia, Britain, France and China—are committed under the NPT to curb their arsenals (four are shrinking, only China's bomb-pile is still growing) on the way to eventual disarmament; the deal with America lets India build as many bombs as it chooses. The five have at least all signed the treaty banning further nuclear tests and have stopped producing more highly enriched uranium and plutonium for weapons; India flatly refuses to do either.



Bush Administration's Contention on Pak Reactor Draws Flak
(Press Trust of India)

Tuesday, July 25
The Bush administration today came under attack over Pakistan's nuclear reactor programme with some lawmakers accusing it of witholding the information from the Congress at a time when important policies with respect to India and Pakistan were being debated.

Gary Ackerman, a key lawmaker demanded that the administration should stop its plan to sell F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, saying their acquisition plus the plutonium reactor being built by Islamabad equals a "catastrophe."

"At any time this news (about Pakistan building a plutonium reactor at its Khushab nuclear plant) would be unwelcome," Ackerman, the Co-Chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, said in a "Dear Colleague" letter.

The import of the story is "truly alarming" in the context of a pending sale by US of F-16 fighter-bombers, he said pointing to 'The Washington Post' piece about the dramatic expansion in Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme.

Despite assurances by the Bush Administration that these aircrafts would not be misused or their technology transferred to other countries like China, "once these planes have been delivered to Pakistan, there is, in fact, absolutely othing we can do to prevent misuse," the Democrat said in his letter.



US Concerned Over India's Breeder Program
(Times of India)

Sunday, July 23
A key panel of the US Congress has commended the India-US nuclear deal to the Senate, while expressing a few concerns over its breeder reactor programme and hoping that New Delhi will place them under IAEA safeguards in future.

India's nuclear plans highlight the need for stringent security regarding all fissile material, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee headed by Republican Richard Lugar said in a report on the enabling bill introduced by him in the upper House on Thursday.

Urging the administration to share best practices in this regard with India, the panel said it had worked to ensure that the India agreement does not undercut US compliance with its responsibilities under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and it believed that its bill achieves a proper balance.

The committee said its concerns regarding India's breeder programme are magnified when it considers that India has announced its intention to build five 500MWe breeder reactors, none of which have been included in the separation plan as available for safeguards.

The sizes and types of reactors under safeguards in India are directly related to the credibility of its separation plan, the Senate panel said expressing the hope that India will, in the future, place its breeder programme under IAEA safeguards.

proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
July 27, 2006

Featured Content:
•"Senate Backs North Korea Nonproliferation Act" Reuters
•"5 Wrong Assumptions About Negotiating with North Korea," Op-Ed by Jason Qian and Anne Wu, San Francisco Chronicle

From the International Press:
•"N.Korea-China Ties," Editorial, Korea Herald

Links of Interest:
United States and India Nuclear Cooperation Promotion Act of 2006
HR 5682, House of Representatives, United States Congress, June 26, 2006


House Approves Nuclear Deal with India
(David E. Sanger, New York Times)

Thursday, July 27
The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday night to approve a nuclear deal with India that would for the first time allow the United States to ship nuclear fuel and technology to a country that has refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The accord’s passage, by a vote of 359 to 68, is a quick, major victory for the Bush administration, which argued that nurturing India as an ally outweighed concerns that the agreement would free more nuclear material for India to use for the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

The Senate is expected to approve the deal later this year, but before it goes into effect both houses will have to approve the specifics of an nuclear cooperation accord with India. Similarly, India will have to reach agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the loose collection of nations that regulate the sale of nuclear-related technology.

ProliferationNews.org
CarnegieEndowment.org
Iran Resources
South Asia Resources
Korea Resources
China Resources


Senate Backs North Korea Nonproliferation Act
(Reuters)

Tuesday, July 25
The U.S. Senate on Tuesday approved by voice vote adding North Korea to a law aimed at stemming the nuclear weapons ambitions of Iran and Syria.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist introduced the bill after Pyongyang defied international warnings and tested seven missiles this month, action which Frist described as "dangerous and provocative."

Under the law, President George W. Bush can impose sanctions on any foreign person believed to have transferred goods, services or technologies that could help those countries build nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction.




5 Wrong Assumptions About Negotiating with North Korea
(Jason Qian and Anne Wu, San Francisco Chronicle - Opinion)

Monday, July 24
How to continue to negotiate with leaders in Pyongyang became an immediately urgent question on July 4 when North Korea test-fired seven missiles over the Sea of Japan. Pyongyang's provocation makes all players involved in this high-stakes game reluctant to go back to negotiations. However, resorting to sanctions and prolonging the stalemate of the six-party talks could eliminate the possibility of dismantling North Korea's nuclear-weapons program. To engage in serious negotiations with North Korea at this critical stage, Washington needs to address a few wrong assumptions about negotiating with North Korea.

Wrong assumption 1: North Korea is a weak player in negotiations with the United States. Power in negotiations is not necessarily associated with a country's economic or military strength or international image. The party who is less dependent on others or who has better alternatives tends to be more aggressive and risk-prone in pursuing its objectives. Already being isolated and deprived, North Korea has little to lose by pursuing brinkmanship. Therefore, Washington should treat Pyongyang as an equally powerful player, deal with it with great caution and strengthen alliances with China, South Korea, Japan and Russia to undercut Pyongyang's continuation of its nuclear-weapons program.

Wrong assumption 2: Time is on Washington's side. In negotiations, the party who has less time pressure always enjoys the upper hand in forcing its counterpart to make concessions. It appears to Washington that regime collapse in Pyongyang is the ultimate solution of the nuclear crisis, and time will bring that result. Time, however, is not in Washington's favor. With continued economic aid from China and South Korea, North Korea can afford to hold onto a position of "no talks" while accumulating further power to change the rules of that game. Washington needs to speed up meaningful negotiations.



North Korea Says It Will Bolster Its Nuclear Weapons Program
(Associated Press)

Wednesday, July 26
North Korea's defence minister said his country will strengthen its nuclear weapons program in response to UN sanctions and American hostility, the North's official news agency reported Wednesday.

North Korea will upgrade its arsenal "in every way by employing all possible means and methods" and will greet any aggressors with "all-out do-or-die resistance and unprecedented devastating strikes," Kim Il Chol said, according to the Korean Central News Agency.

Kim said such a move is necessary to counter the United States' "extremely hostile act and the irresponsibility of the UN Security Council."



UN negotiators Close to Deal on Iran Nuclear Draft
(Evelyn Leopold, Reuters)

Tuesday, July 25
Key members of the U.N. Security Council were close to agreement on a draft resolution demanding Iran suspend all nuclear enrichment and reprocessing work and threatening to consider sanctions if it refuses, diplomats said on Tuesday.

Negotiations on the resolution have dragged on for 10 days among Germany and the council members with veto power -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China.



No F-16s to Pakistan Without Security Vow: Rice
(Carol Giacomo, Reuters)

Wednesday, July 26
Pakistan must provide written security assurances as part of a deal for $5.1 billion in American-made F-16 fighter jets and no equipment will be transferred until anti-diversion protections are in place, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has promised Congress.

Aiming to ease lawmakers' concerns over the weapons package offered to a key American ally in the war on terror, Rice said in a letter obtained by Reuters on Wednesday that before the first aircraft is delivered, Pakistan will sign a document that details Islamabad's security commitments.

In addition, "no aircraft or munitions will be delivered until U.S. officials have determined that all security measures are in place" and Congress has been briefed on those procedures, she said.



From the International Press:

N. Korea-China Ties
(Korea Herald - Editorial)

Thursday, July 27
Some cracks had already been detected in relations between North Korea and China. The North ignored Beijing's appeal not to test-fire missiles. Its leader Kim Jong-il refused to meet senior Chinese officials who visited Pyongyang to discuss the missile crisis and persuade him to return to the six-party talks.

Then came the news that the Beijing government allowed the departure of three North Korean defectors who sought asylum in the United States. It marked the first time that China has allowed North Korean refugees to seek asylum in the United States and permitted them to travel directly to that country, not by way of a third country. This is an obvious change in China's attitude toward North Korean defectors, who it had regarded as illegal immigrants and deported if caught.

More worthy of attention in the apparent change in relations between Pyongyang and Beijing is the news that the Bank of China, a state-run commercial bank, has frozen North Korean assets at its branch in Macau. The Chinese move follows U.S. sanctions on the Macau-based Banco Delta Asia, which Washington accused of being used to launder North Korean earnings from counterfeiting U.S. bank notes.

These latest developments, combined with China's decision not to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution on the North's missile test and nuclear ambitions, point to a significant change in ties between the two socialist allies.



Links of Interest:

United States and India Nuclear Cooperation Promotion Act of 2006
HR 5682 - Bill Reported by the House of Representatives, United States Congress, June 26, 2006

Recent Developments in U.S.-Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (D.P.R.K.) Relations
Christopher R. Hill, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
Statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs, July 20, 2006
proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/7598_17...00500020000.htm
Pak has between 25 and 50 N-weapons: Report

Press Trust of India

New York, July 27, 2006|14:23 IST
Pakistan currently has between 25 and 50 nuclear weapons, mostly relatively simple uranium arms with "modest" yields around the size of the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a journal claimed on Thursday.
The Nature magazine's claim followed media reports that satellite photos of Pakistan's Khushab nuclear site have shown what appears to be a partially completed heavy-water reactor capable of a 20-fold increase from its current nuclear capabilities.

Quoting Director of globalsecurity.org, a non-profit group that specialises in image analysis John Pike, Nature says if the new facility is what it seems to be, it would allow Pakistan to build a lot more bombs.

The reactor is "gigantic" and would allow Pakistan to increase its total number of weapons tenfold, he says. Plutonium can be used to construct smaller and more lightweight weapons than uranium.

Most uranium bombs require 15 to 20 kilograms of material, but plutonium weapons can be built with as little as 5 kilograms. That makes it easier to fit plutonium warheads on missiles.

In addition, small plutonium bombs are often used to trigger larger hydrogen weapons.

So the technology, says Pike, is an important step towards developing those bombs, which are thousands of times more powerful than uranium and plutonium weapons.

India warns over US nuclear deal BBC News
Indian PM Manmohan Singh has said India will not accept any new conditions in the landmark nuclear deal with the US. Mr Singh's statement came as the US House of Representatives was to begin debating the agreement to share civilian nuclear technology with India. The deal offers US nuclear technology to energy-hungry India in exchange for access to Indian civilian reactors. The accord has been hailed as historic by some, but critics say it will damage non-proliferation efforts.

'Never compromise'
There have been reports in recent weeks that the US has added new conditions that include an annual review of India's nuclear policies by the US Congress. "We will never compromise in a manner which is not consistent with the 18 July joint statement," Mr Singh told the Indian parliament, referring to the date the two sides signed the agreement last year. US Senate and House of Representatives committees have already backed the controversial plan. The BBC's Shahzeb Jillani in Washington says the landmark deal allowing the US to sell civilian nuclear technology to India - for the first time in three decades - is expected to be ratified by the US Congress. US Vice President Dick Cheney has said the deal was "one of the most important strategic foreign policy initiatives of President Bush's second term". The House of Representatives vote is part of an elaborate legislative process to clear the deal, which also has to be cleared by the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, a group of nations that exports nuclear materials, reports say. Last month, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the International Relations Committee of the House of Representatives endorsed the legislation.

Domestic opposition
"[The deal] could be the most important step made in cementing a critical partnership between India and the United States," Democrat Joseph Crowley was quoted saying by Reuters news agency. The proposed agreement reverses US policy to restrict nuclear co-operation with Delhi because it has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and has twice tested nuclear weapons, in 1974 and 1998. Mr Bush finalised the agreement during a landmark trip to India in March. Under the deal, India's nuclear weapons sites will remain off-limits. Critics of the deal say it could boost India's nuclear arsenal and sends the wrong message to countries like Iran, whose nuclear ambitions Washington opposes. "By shipping India fuel for its civilian reactors, this legislation potentially frees up their [India's] entire supply of domestic uranium for use in weapons," House Democrat Ed Markey was quoted telling reporters by the AFP news agency. India's nuclear-armed neighbour Pakistan has asked the US to address what it calls its legitimate needs in the civilian use of nuclear power. Correspondents say there are fears the deal may spark off an arms race in South Asia with recent unconfirmed reports that Pakistan is a building new nuclear reactor to produce weapons-grade plutonium. India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party has called the deal "unacceptable". It said that it would make India "perpetually dependent" on the US for all initiatives in the application of nuclear energy. India's Communists, who are allies of the ruling Congress-party led federal government, have also expressed their reservations about the deal. India has made clear that the final agreement must not bind it to supporting the US's Iran policy and does not prevent it from developing its own fissile material.

Pakistan 'building new reactor' BBC News
A nuclear monitoring institute in the United States has published satellite images of what it says is a new nuclear reactor being built in Pakistan. The Institute for Science and International Security (Isis) said that it could produce enough plutonium to make 40 to 50 nuclear weapons a year. Pakistan's foreign ministry refused to comment on the charges, saying the Khushab nuclear site was well known. A spokeswoman said that Pakistan was not pursuing any kind of arms race. The BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad says Pakistan is unhappy about Washington's recent agreement to share civilian nuclear technology with India. She says, contrary to the foreign ministry statement, analysts in Islamabad have warned that unless Pakistan gets a similar deal, or there is a policy of regional disarmament, conditions for a new arms race could be created.

Under construction
The Isis report said that the construction of the reactor at Khushab could bring about a dramatic increase in the size of the Pakistani and Indian nuclear arsenals. "The reactor under construction... could produce over 200kg of weapons-grade plutonium per year, assuming it operates at full power for a modest 220 days per year. "At four to five kilograms of plutonium per weapon, this stock would allow the production of 40-50 weapons a year," the report said. Isis published commercially available satellite photos which its analysts said appeared to show the plant under construction. The Washington-based organisation said that work apparently began some time after March 2000, but "work does not appear to be moving quickly". The report's authors, David Albright and Paul Brannan, said this could be because Islamabad is facing a shortage of reactor components or does not have the necessary weapons production infrastructure. Asked whether Pakistan was building a new reactor or expanding its nuclear programme, Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said she would not comment specifically. "But Pakistan is a nuclear weapons state, it's a known fact. It is also a known fact that Khushab is hosting nuclear facilities." The Indian foreign ministry has not responded to the report, but the US issued a statement urging Pakistan to refrain from expanding its nuclear programme. "We have been aware of these plans and we discourage any use of that facility for military purposes, such as weapons development," White House spokesman Tony Snow said. Mr Snow said he did not know whether or not the US had sought assurances from Pakistan that it would not use the new reactor to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. Correspondents say that the timing of the release of the report is significant, because it raises fresh concerns about an arms race in South Asia at a time when the US Congress is on the verge of ratifying a deal which would give India greater access to American civilian nuclear technology.

Proliferation
One of Pakistan's foremost nuclear experts, AQ Khan, has been confined to house arrest since he confessed in February 2004 that he helped deliver nuclear bomb technology to countries including North Korea, Iran and Libya. The BBC's South Asia defence analyst Mahmud Ali says that Isis is a well-known and highly regarded organisation within academic circles, specialising in nuclear proliferation. He says that the organisation - and the authors of the report - tend to be inclined against any form of proliferation around the world. Neither Pakistan nor India have signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and both are believed by experts to have substantial quantities of weapons. India is reported to have 69 Prithvi and Agni ballistic missiles - each with one warhead - plus many more bombs that can be dropped by bombers. Pakistan is thought to have 165 missiles of various versions of its Hatf series of missiles - each with a warhead - plus bombs capable of being dropped by air. But experts say that because Pakistan uses a simpler uranium-based warhead design - as opposed to the more sophisticated plutonium version used by India - Islamabad is eager to upgrade its arsenal.

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
August 3, 2006

Featured Content:
•"The Iranian Calculus." Op-ed by Philip Gordon and Kenneth Pollack, Wall Street Journal
•"A Choice for the Rogues." Op-ed by Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times

From the International Press:
•"Economic Sanctions Against Iran Ineffective." Mehr News Agency
•"Russian Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Hits Target on Kamchatka Peninsula." MosNews

Links of Interest:
•Text of Resolution 1696 (2006) Adopted by Vote of 14 - 1, UN Security Council, July 31, 2006

Call To Enrich Uranium In Australia Stirs Debate
(Raymond Bonner, New York Times)

Wednesday, August 2
At a time when the United States wants to reduce the amount of nuclear material washing around the world, one of Washington’s major allies, Australia, is on the verge of expanding its production and export of uranium.

The Australian prime minister, John Howard, one of President Bush’s staunchest allies, says the country should also begin enriching uranium, a move directly counter to Mr. Bush’s call for the uranium enrichment club to be limited to the handful of countries that already have the capacity.

U.S. Disputes Report On New Pakistan Reactor
(William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, New York Times)

Wednesday, August 2
A dispute has broken out between federal officials and a private arms-control group over its claim that a new reactor being built in Pakistan is unusually large and could make fuel for up to 50 nuclear warheads a year.

" We have consulted with our experts and believe the analysis is wrong," said Frederick Jones, a spokesman for the National Security Council. "The reactor is expected to be substantially smaller and less capable than reported."

The report last week by the private group came amid debate over the Bush administration's proposed nuclear deal with India and raised fears that Pakistan was trying to speed ahead in a South Asian arms race. Yesterday, the group's experts said they stood by their report, which is based mainly on the examination of commercial satellite images of the half-built reactor.

But in interviews, federal officials said their own intelligence indicated that the emerging reactor appeared to be roughly the same size as the small one Pakistan currently uses to make plutonium for its nuclear program, and said the new model might be intended to replace the old one. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of prohibitions on the public discussion of secretive intelligence issues.



The Iranian Calculus
(Philip Gordon and Kenneth Pollack, Wall Street Journal - Opinion)

Thursday, August 3
We may never know the extent to which Iran was involved in Hezbollah's kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers -- the incident that started the war in Lebanon. Hezbollah is not merely Tehran's pawn, and may have acted entirely on its own.

In the past, however, Hezbollah has typically undertaken major operations only with the blessing of its Iranian patrons. Moreover, the timing of the kidnapping was awfully suspicious -- coming just as the Western powers were about to call Iran before the U.N. Security Council over its refusal to accept the West's nuclear offer. The war distracts international attention from the nuclear issue, and serves as a sharp reminder of the sort of trouble Tehran can stir up if the international community tries to put pressure on it. All this suggests that at least some in Iran may have encouraged Hezbollah to act when it did.

In the end, whether Tehran played a direct role or not, it will try to turn the crisis to its advantage. The policy of the U.S. and its European allies must be to see that does not happen.



A Choice for the Rogues
(Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times - Opinion)

Wednesday, August 2
I seriously doubt the Bush team will succeed in curtailing the Iranian or North Korean nuclear programs until it resolves a contradiction that has been at the heart of this administration from the beginning: Is it for a change of regime or a change of behavior in Iran and North Korea? Because the Bush team has refused to make up its mind, it’s gotten neither. All it’s gotten are two better-armed rogues.

How so? Go back to the impressive deal that the Bush team did pull off in 2003 to get Libya’s leader, Muammar el-Qaddafi, to give up his crude nuclear weapons program. How did that happen?

The official Bush narrative is that Mr. Qaddafi looked at the U.S. invasion of Iraq, got frightened out of his mind, and called Roto-Rooter, a k a, the Bush administration, and said, “Oh my god, there are nukes in my basement, get these out of here!”

Wrong, argues Robert Litwak, the director of international security studies at the Woodrow Wilson Center and an expert on rogue states. “What actually brought Qaddafi around was a tacit but clear U.S. security assurance that if he did give up his nuclear program the U.S. would not seek to oust him from power,” said Mr. Litwak. “That is what made the difference. ... If Libya gave up its unconventional weapons, the U.S. would give up its efforts at regime change.”



Iran VP: Country Still Considering Offer
(Associated Press)

Wednesday, August 2
Iran is still considering a package of incentives offered by Western nations in June for Tehran to suspend its nuclear program, Iranian Vice President Isfandiar Rahim Mashaee said Wednesday.

Mashaee also repeated Iranian criticism of a U.N. resolution calling for Iran to halt its uranium enrichment by Aug. 31 or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions, Japan's Foreign Ministry said.

"The U.N. Security Council resolution was adopted despite the fact Iran is seriously studying the incentives package ... Western countries are resorting to pressure, not dialogue, and wish to deny Iran its rights," Mashaee was quoted as telling Foreign Minister Taro Aso.

From the International Press:


The Iranian Lesson
(Salama A. Salama, Al-Ahram - Opinion)

Monday, July 31
Israel is waging an open-ended war on Lebanon, with criminal US cover, opportunistic European collusion and shameful Arab acquiescence. Nothing good can come out of this war. Neither Israel nor Hizbullah can emerge victorious. It holds out no hope for the eventual dispensation in the Arab world. Lebanon is being systematically destroyed and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. The international community says it will only intervene when it is good and ready -- that is, once the damage has been done. Then we will see negotiations taking place, perhaps to save face for both sides, perhaps to give Israel -- yet again -- everything it wants. And what does Israel want but the total destruction of both Hamas and Hizbullah?

But we should learn something from this war, and from the way in which the US is standing behind Israel as it pummels its opponents into obliteration. We should look again at our helplessness and humiliation and ask ourselves how much of our condition can be blamed on the machinations of the world's sole superpower. We should compare our conditions and actions with those of Tehran. Iran has doggedly pushed on with its nuclear programme in the face of fierce US and European opposition. Iran has been cajoled and threatened, offered carrots and sticks, and it refused to listen. Iran refused to trade its nuclear programme for a bag of poisoned sweets. We, on the other hand, buckled at the first temptation. Egypt and other Arab countries gave up their nuclear programmes in the 1970s and 1980s, because we were told to do so or else were frightened in the wake of Chernobyl. Whatever the motives, Arab populations were duped and now have to pay homage to a scientifically and militarily superior Israel.



Economic Sanctions Against Iran Ineffective: Experts
(Mehr News Agency)

Tuesday, August 1
Iran's economy is capable to stand economic sanctions and the UN Security Council's Monday resolution forcing the Islamic Republic to suspend its nuclear activities latest by August 31 or face economic sanctions will render itself ineffective, Iranian experts and senior officials commented on Tuesday.

Europe and the United States will lose more in this deal, for 27 years of U.S. economic ban on Iran has not amounted to much, the Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance, Davud Danesh-Jafari stated, adding, "Of course, the U.S. may resort to, as they have before, disruption of Iran trade exchange in dollars through their subordinate financial institutes, but this act would be more symbolic in nature than real threat to the country's economy.

The oil minister, Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh, voiced his views in the same breath, stipulating that the sanctions are not going to impede Iran's oil and gas projects and the foreign firms are here to stay. Any interruption will deal a blow to the West first and one may easily acknowledge our considerable growth rate in recent years despite the U.S. sanctions.



Russian Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Hits Target on Kamchatka Peninsula
(MosNews)

Thursday, August 3
Russia has successfully test launched an intercontinental ballistic missile from its northern space-vehicle launching site, Plesetsk.

The intercontinental Topol class ballistic missile (CC-25 under Western standards) was launched on Thursday at 1:38 p.m. Moscow time from a mobile launching installation, sources from the northern cosmodrome told ITAR-TASS news agency.


Links of Interest:

Text of Resolution 1696 (2006) Adopted by Vote of 14 - 1
UN Security Council, July 31, 2006

proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

Peace and Security Expert Joins Carnegie Endowment
Deepti Choubey New Member of Nonproliferation Project

Deepti Choubey, director of the Ploughshares Fund’s Peace and Security Initiative (PSI), will join the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as deputy director of the Nonproliferation Project as of September 5.

“Deepti is a skilled strategist and organizer and a rising star in the nonproliferation field,” commented Carnegie President Jessica T. Mathews. “Her capacity to synthesize and promote policy content will help take our program to the next level.”

Choubey will work with George Perkovich—vice president for studies and director of the Nonproliferation Project — to establish strategic priorities for the program, design new outreach initiatives, and lead the internationally renowned Carnegie Nonproliferation Conference that will take place April 30 – May 1, 2007.

Choubey earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard University and a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where she became a Foreign Language and Areas Studies Fellow in Hindi and Urdu. Prior to joining the Ploughshares Fund in 2004, she worked for Ambassador Nancy Soderberg in the New York office of the International Crisis Group. Before that, she advised market-leading companies in Asia, Europe and the United States on corporate strategies in the private sector.

Notes to Editors:

1. Deepti Choubey has been involved with nonproliferation issues for several years and is currently the director of the Peace and Security Initiative (PSI) for the Ploughshares Fund. Through the Peace and Security Initiative, academics, think tanks, advocacy organizations, grassroots groups, and funders work together to increase their capacity to influence U.S. national security policy.

2. George Perkovich is vice president for studies—global security and economic development and director of the Nonproliferation Project. His personal research concentrates on nuclear strategy and nonproliferation, with a focus on South Asia.

3. The Nonproliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment has been a leading source of information and analysis on global proliferation trends and nonproliferation policies for more than twenty years, since its founding in the 1980s. The Project publishes Proliferation News , a twice weekly e-newsletter providing links to important news stories on nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, plus issue briefs on hot topics. www.ProliferationNews.org

Press Contact: Emily Hancock, 202/939-2265, ehancock@CarnegieEndowment.org

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
August 8, 2006

Featured Content:
•"Iran Defies UN Threat on Uranium." Associated Press
•"U.S. Assures India Over Nuclear Deal Changes." Reuters

From the International Press:
•"Ending the Neoconservative Nightmare." Daniel Levy, Haaretz
•"Has the War on Terrorism Been Good for Iran?." Michael Scott Moore, Spiegel Online
•"Pakistani Nuclear Report Disputed." Shahzeb Jillani, BBC News


U.S. Treads Softly Over Iran’s Role in Crisis
(John M. Broder and Mark Mazzetti, New York Times)

Saturday, August 5
Despite suspicions that Iran is intimately involved in the current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the Bush administration has carefully stopped short of accusing Iran of inciting the crisis.

President Bush has said on several occasions that he believes Iran has armed and encouraged Hezbollah, a Shiite militia operating from southern Lebanon, and is fomenting terrorism in the Middle East and elsewhere through proxies like Hezbollah. But he has shied away from words or actions that could spark an open confrontation with Iran.

ProliferationNews.org
CarnegieEndowment.org
Iran Resources
South Asia Resources
Korea Resources
China Resources

Iran Defies UN Threat on Uranium
(Associated Press)

Sunday, August 6
Iran's top nuclear negotiator said Sunday that his country would expand its uranium enrichment, in defiance of a United Nations Security Council resolution that sets an Aug. 31 deadline for the Islamic republic to halt enrichment or face the threat of political and economic sanctions.

The negotiator, Ali Larijani, called the Security Council resolution, which was issued last week, illegal and said, "We reject this resolution."

" We will expand nuclear activities where required," he said. "It includes all nuclear technology, including the string of centrifuges," referring to the linked centrifuges that Iran would use for such an enrichment program. He said that Iran had not violated any of its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and that the United Nations had no right to require it to suspend enrichment.



U.S. Puts Sanctions on 7 Foreign Companies Dealing With Iran
(Helene Cooper and Steven Lee Myers, New York Times)

Saturday, August 5
The United States has imposed sanctions on seven foreign companies, two of them Russian, for providing Iran with materials that could be used to make unconventional weapons or cruise or ballistic missile systems, it was announced Friday.

The sanctions, effective July 28, will be in place for two years. During that time, American government agencies are not allowed to buy goods or services from the seven companies or provide them with assistance. The sanctions also bar the sale of some military equipment, services or technologies to the companies or their subsidiaries.

The two Russian companies are Rosoboronexport, the state-owned arms trading monopoly, and Sukhoi, a large manufacturer of military and civilian aircraft. Also affected by the sanctions are the Korean Mining and Industrial Development Corporation and Korea Pugang Trading Corporation, both of North Korea; one Cuban company, the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology; and two Indian companies, Prachi Poly Products and Balaji Amines.



US Assures India Over Nuclear Deal Changes
(Reuters)

Friday, August 4
The United States assured India on Friday that the final legislation to approve a landmark nuclear pact would stick to a draft agreed by the two countries and not include any dealbreakers.

The nuclear energy cooperation deal, under which India will get access to U.S. nuclear fuel and equipment despite not having signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, received an initial approval by the U.S. House of Representatives last week. It needs to be approved by the Senate as well and the House and Senate would vote again after negotiations on the technical details of the agreement are completed.

"The final legislation is important and I am confident that it will be on the lines of what President (George W.) Bush agreed upon when he visited India," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for south and central Asia, Richard Boucher, said.

New Delhi has said it is concerned about some amendments U.S. Congressmen have proposed to the bill, seen as an attempt to impose curbs on India's nuclear program. But Boucher told business leaders in the eastern city of Kolkata that speculation over the fate of the bill in the Senate, said to have a large number of non-proliferation advocates, was unwarranted.

From the International Press:

Ending the Neoconservative Nightmare
(Daniel Levy, Haaretz)

Tuesday, August 8
Witnessing the near-perfect symmetry of Israeli and American policy has been one of the more noteworthy aspects of the latest Lebanon war. A true friend in the White House. No deescalate and stabilize, honest-broker, diplomatic jaw-jaw from this president. Great. Except that Israel was actually in need of an early exit strategy, had its diplomatic options narrowed by American weakness and marginalization in the region, and found itself ratcheting up aerial and ground operations in ways that largely worked to Hezbollah's advantage, the Qana tragedy included. The American ladder had gone AWOL.

More worrying, while everyone here can identify an Israeli interest in securing the northern border and the justification in responding to Hezbollah, the goal of saving Lebanon's fragile Cedar Revolution sounds less distinctly Israeli. Perhaps an agenda invented elsewhere. As hostilities intensified, the phrase "proxy war" gained resonance.

Israelis have grown used to a different kind of American embrace - less instrumental, more emotional, but also responsible. A dependable friend, ready to lend a guiding hand back to the path of stabilization when necessary.

After this crisis will Israel belatedly wake up to the implications of the tectonic shift that has taken place in U.S.-Middle East policy?



Has the War on Terrorism Been Good for Iran?
(Michael Scott Moore, Spiegel Online)

Tuesday, August 8
In what looks like a sign of strength, Iran has rejected the UN's latest resolution meant to keep it from building a nuclear weapon. Have the mullahs been the winners so far in the war on terrorism? Also, Reuters sacks a news photographer over manipulated images from Lebanon.

Tehran on Sunday vowed to keep enriching uranium in the face of a United Nations resolution that required it to suspend its nuclear activities by the end of August. The formal show of defiance by Iran surprised almost no one: The mullahs' previous deadline to suspend enrichment and accept a package of incentives from Western powers was July 12 -- the day Hezbollah militants kidnapped a pair of Israeli soldiers and sparked the war in Lebanon. Many Middle East observers think the timing was no accident; Hezbollah's close ties to Tehran made the kidnapping look, in a sense, like Iran's nose-thumbing answer to the West.

Why is Iran acting so cocky? Has it been winning the war on terrorism? The left-wing German daily Die Tageszeitung thinks so. The paper argues that since late 2001, a major enemy of the mullahs in Tehran named Saddam Hussein has been toppled, along with its enemies on its eastern border, the Taliban. Oil prices have risen, and Iran now wields influence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and even the Palestinian territories, where the ruling party, Hamas, takes money from Tehran. "Iran has rejected the latest resolution by the UN Security Council from a position of strength, not pure defiance," the editors write, blaming the mullahs' new power on the West. "Thanks to the aggressive policies of the US and Israel, Iran has become a great regional power."



Pakistan Nuclear Report Disputed
(Shahzeb Jillani, BBC News)

Monday, August 7
The United States and Pakistan have disputed a recent report by a nuclear monitoring institute which says that Pakistan is building a new reactor.

Last month, the US-based Institute for Science and International Security (Isis) published satellite images of the Khushab nuclear site. The report said that it could produce enough plutonium to make 40 to 50 nuclear weapons a year. The report sparked worldwide concerns, but both US and Pakistan downplayed it.

The US said the administration was aware of the developments at the nuclear complex. And Pakistan's foreign ministry refused to comment on the charges, saying the Khushab nuclear site was well known.\

But now for the first time the two governments have spoken out against the report.

Last week, The New York Times quoted the US National Security Council spokesman, Frederick Jones, as saying that Isis analysis was wrong. "After assessing the Isis findings, the US government experts believe that the reactor is expected to be substantially smaller and less capable than reported," he said.

proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
August 15, 2006

Featured Content:
• "The Folly of Iran's Arrogance," Op-Ed by Sam Brownback, CNN
•"United Nations Unfairly Pressuring Iran," Op-Ed by Javad Zarif, CNN
•"North Korea's Marshall Plan," Op-Ed by Michael R. Auslin, Wall Street Journal
•"August 22," Op-Ed by Bernard Lewis, Wall Street Journal

From the International Press:
•"Plutonium Reactors To Be Shut By 2010," Moscow Times
•"ROK-U.S. Alliance Hanging by a Thread," Korea Herald


Editor's note: The attached statement by eminent former leaders of the Indian nuclear establishment evinces strong reservations about the conditions that the U.S. Congress seeks to attach to the U.S.-India nuclear cooperation agreement. While the statement lacks specifics that would be necessary to evaluate it thoroughly, the spirit of their complaint is instructive of the nuclear establishment's perspective.

Appeal to Parliamentarians on the Indo-US Nuclear Deal
(Statement submitted by 8 Indian nuclear scientists)

Monday, August 14
Click here to access the full PDF of the letter.
While the nation and Parliament discuss the Indo-US nuclear deal from various angles, we feel it is our responsibility to place before the nation our well-considered views on the impact of this deal on the future of Indian nuclear science & technology, and its effects on the energy security of the nation. We have all worked in the field of atomic energy from the very early years after India’s independence. From very small beginnings, we have now reached a stage where we are in possession of all the technologies needed for the production of electricity from indigenous nuclear minerals, and have successfully applied these technologies in diverse sectors from health, agriculture and industry to national and energy security...

ProliferationNews.org
CarnegieEndowment.org
Iran Resources
South Asia Resources
Korea Resources
China Resources

...It is significant that the most advanced country in nuclear science and technology has come forward to accept us into the international nuclear community, by the historic document signed by our Prime Minister with President Bush on 18th July, 2005. The basic principles for cooperation were well laid out in this bilateral understanding and the Prime Minister has appraised our Parliament of this. No doubt it needs the concurrence of the other nations comprising the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Based on this agreement, the US lawmakers and the administration are in the process of re-framing their laws, which could change the nature of relations between the two countries. This is a most welcome initiative of the UPA government, and is a continuation of the process essentially begun during the previous NDA government. Thus, there is no question of any political partisanship on this matter.

However, the lawmakers of the US Congress have modified, both in letter and spirit, the implementation of such an agreement. At this juncture, among other aspects, it is essential that we insist on the following four central themes:

(a) India should continue to be able to hold on to her nuclear option as a strategic requirement in the real world that we live in, and in the ever-changing complexity of the international political system. This means that we cannot accede to any restraint in perpetuity on our freedom of action...



Brownback: The Folly of Iran's Arrogance
(Sam Brownback, CNN - Commentary)

Monday, August 14
Iran's authoritarian leaders repeatedly tell us they need to maintain their uranium enrichment program. But we know they have no need for a civil nuclear energy program, and the Iranian people do not stand to profit from nuclear power given the country's huge oil resources.

I believe that Iran's leaders know that they are not acting on behalf of their own people. I believe they are acting on their own behalf.

Instead of using their wealth to empower their citizens, they hope to develop nuclear weapons to protect themselves. Iran's leaders believe that with nuclear weapons the international community will not dare object to any threat they might make against their neighbors, let alone the regime's repression of its own people.

History shows the folly of such arrogance. Soviet leaders presumed their nuclear arsenal gave them the ability to operate with impunity and would allow them to remain in power indefinitely. They eventually discovered that nuclear weapons did not ensure the success of their military adventures, and they ultimately realized their nuclear arsenal could not conceal the repression of their people. Despite thousands of warheads, Soviet communism crumbled.

Iran's leaders face a similar situation. They can attempt to hide behind a nuclear wall, but they will not escape the world's pressure to reform or the ultimate power of the Iranian people to choose their own destiny. The nuclear weapons that Iran's leaders hope will guarantee their survival will actually ensure their downfall.



Zarif: United Nations Unfairly Pressuring Iran
(Javad Zarif, CNN - Commentary)

Monday, August 14
The recently adopted UN Security Council Resolution 1696 on Iran's peaceful nuclear program was unwarranted and unhelpful. There was no legal basis to involve the Security Council in Iran's peaceful nuclear energy program, particularly when the council is badly failing in its real task of addressing threats to international peace and security. Neither are the sponsors' efforts to make the suspension of uranium enrichment in Iran mandatory consistent with international law, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or the views of the majority of UN members. Iran, as a member of the NPT, has carried out its obligations and is entitled to enjoy its full rights under the treaty.

What is utterly incomprehensible is the rush with which the sponsors of the UN resolution decided to push their draft through the Security Council. They did so while the Iranian Government had already said that it required just three more weeks to complete its consideration of the package recently proposed by the group of five plus one and to come up with a substantive response, and despite a consensus view, including that of the U.S. intelligence community, on the absence of any urgency.

The lack of any genuine ground suggests that involving the Security Council was aimed at imposing pressure on Iran to abandon its rightful program. This is a shortsighted policy, as it would, in the process, undermine the NPT by depriving its members from drawing rightful benefits from their membership. This is particularly troubling while non-members are rewarded for their intransigence.



North Korea's Marshall Plan
(Michael R. Auslin, Wall Street Journal - Opinion)

Tuesday, August 15
Kim Jong Il's most recent belligerence has engendered a rare moment of unanimity in the U.N. Security Council. But few regional leaders have offered plausible suggestions on how to prepare for, and peacefully precipitate, a post-Kim, unified Korea.

A Korean Marshall Plan might do the trick. Creating a multi-billion dollar stabilization fund could help bring about peaceful regime change, by emboldening the North Korean people. At the very least, the direst consequences of a Kim collapse could be avoided if such a reconstruction plan were ready to be activated immediately after the dictator falls from power.

Such a plan shouldn't presuppose an invasion of the North. Rather, it should be seen as a means of putting nonviolent pressure on Pyongyang. It would show the long-suffering North Korean people that the world stands ready to help rebuild the shattered country if they are willing to rise up and overthrow Kim's dictatorship. To this end, word of the plan needs to be spread among North Korean émigré communities and broadcast widely by the U.S., so that it penetrates into the Stalinist state

For the U.S., the success of this venture may seem costly in the short run. However, no one should doubt the necessity of making huge investments in Korea's future -- from education to social services, agriculture to entrepreneurialism. Americans need to understand that Kim's regime represents a direct threat to U.S. security, since any East Asian conflict provoked by Pyongyang would be bound to draw in the U.S., and could easily destabilize the global economy. The current crisis emanates from fears that North Korea may become a nuclear-weapons exporter, not to mention develop missiles that could one day accurately strike U.S. territory. One hundred billion dollars is far less expensive than the use of force. With an innovative push for a unified Korea, today's crisis could be the portal for a peaceful and prosperous future for the peninsula and its neighbors.



August 22
(Bernard Lewis, Wall Street Journal - Opinion)

Tuesday, August 8
During the Cold War, both sides possessed weapons of mass destruction, but neither side used them, deterred by what was known as MAD, mutual assured destruction. Similar constraints have no doubt prevented their use in the confrontation between India and Pakistan. In our own day a new such confrontation seems to be looming between a nuclear-armed Iran and its favorite enemies, named by the late Ayatollah Khomeini as the Great Satan and the Little Satan, i.e., the United States and Israel. Against the U.S. the bombs might be delivered by terrorists, a method having the advantage of bearing no return address. Against Israel, the target is small enough to attempt obliteration by direct bombardment.

In Islam, as in Judaism and Christianity, there are certain beliefs concerning the cosmic struggle at the end of time -- Gog and Magog, anti-Christ, Armageddon, and for Shiite Muslims, the long awaited return of the Hidden Imam, ending in the final victory of the forces of good over evil, however these may be defined. Mr. Ahmadinejad and his followers clearly believe that this time is now, and that the terminal struggle has already begun and is indeed well advanced. It may even have a date, indicated by several references by the Iranian president to giving his final answer to the U.S. about nuclear development by Aug. 22. This was at first reported as "by the end of August," but Mr. Ahmadinejad's statement was more precise.

What is the significance of Aug. 22? This year, Aug. 22 corresponds, in the Islamic calendar, to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427. This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to "the farthest mosque," usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (c.f., Koran XVII.1). This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world. It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadinejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind.

In this context, mutual assured destruction, the deterrent that worked so well during the Cold War, would have no meaning. At the end of time, there will be general destruction anyway. What will matter will be the final destination of the dead -- hell for the infidels, and heaven for the believers. For people with this mindset, MAD is not a constraint; it is an inducement. How then can one confront such an enemy, with such a view of life and death? Some immediate precautions are obviously possible and necessary. In the long term, it would seem that the best, perhaps the only hope is to appeal to those Muslims, Iranians, Arabs and others who do not share these apocalyptic perceptions and aspirations, and feel as much threatened, indeed even more threatened, than we are. There must be many such, probably even a majority in the lands of Islam. Now is the time for them to save their countries, their societies and their religion from the madness of MAD.


From the International Press:

Plutonium Reactors To Be Shut By 2010
(Yuriy Humber, Moscow Times)

Tuesday, August 15
Russia's last three plutonium-producing atomic reactors will be shut down by 2010 as part of a $728 million program funded mostly by the United States, the Federal Atomic Energy Agency said Monday.

The announcement came a day before Russia was due to start building a coal-fired power station at Zheleznogorsk, in the Krasnoyarsk region, that will replace the town's plutonium-producing reactor, one of the three.

As part of a drive to stem the proliferation risk from plutonium, a high-grade element easily adapted for military use, the U.S. government has agreed to invest in facilities to replace the energy lost from closing the reactors, the agency said in a statement.

The announcement of the reactors' closure comes nearly nine years after the two countries signed an agreement to halt the production of weapons-grade plutonium worldwide.



ROK-U.S. Alliance Hanging by a Thread
(Kim Ji-hyun, Korea Herald)

Tuesday, August 15
International experts have collectively raised concerns about the prospects for the decades-long partnership between South Korea and the United States as discord is detected on a wide range of issues, particularly regarding policies toward North Korea.

"In my view, the relations between the U.S. and the Republic of Korea are poor on policy issues, and the future is clouded," said David Steinberg, director of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. "There seems less interest in it in Washington under the Bush administration because of basic disagreements between the U.S. and ROK on how to deal with the North." Steinberg placed the blame for the troubled relationship equally on the shoulders of both Washington and Seoul. George W. Bush, for failing to showcase a coherent policy toward the North, and Roh Moo-hyun for barging ahead with naive engagement policies regardless of Pyongyang's brinkmanship diplomacy.

Washington, despite showcasing efforts to draw North Korea back to the stalled six-party nuclear talks, has not budged from its firm belief that Pyongyang should not be rewarded for its latest provocation with bilateral talks. This hardball diplomacy is at odds with the position taken by the Seoul government. Breaching the time-honored diplomatic etiquette between allies, President Roh recently said it was "Okay to speak out when our views differ from the United States and when we deem it to be in the wrong over certain issues."

Only a few weeks have passed since the government pledged to suspend rice and fertilizer aid to a missile-firing North. The flood aid is widely viewed to be the South's way of mending fences with the North without making it lose face. If anything, Seoul's approach to North Korea is inching closer to that of China, experts note. As Pyongyang's largest ally, Beijing has maintained a softer attitude toward North Korea and its provocations.


Links of Interest:

Text of Resolution 1696 (2006) Adopted by Vote of 14 - 1
UN Security Council, July 31, 2006

proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
August 17, 2006

Featured Content:
• "Indian PM to Defend Nuclear Deal ," BBC
•"As India Debates N-deal, China & Pak Move to Close Rival Pact," C Raja Mohan, Indian Express
•"Wheeling Dealing," Op-Ed by Sitaram Yechury, Hindustan Times
•"Hizbollah's Outlook in the Current Conflict," Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, Carnegie Policy Outlook
•"Seven Questions: Reshaping Japan's Security," Interview with Michael Green, Foreign Policy

Links of Interest:
•"Appeal to Parliamentarians on the Indo-US Nuclear Deal,"
Statement submitted by 8 Indian nuclear scientists
•After North Korea's Missile Launch: Are the Nuclear Talks Dead?
Report by the International Crisis Group


Update: Indian Questioning of US-India Nuclear Deal
(Carnegie Analysis, Anirudh Suri)

Thursday, August 17
On July 26, the US House of Representatives passed the “United States and India Nuclear Cooperation Promotion Act of 2006” by a clear majority. The Senate version of the Bill will be voted upon, most likely, in September. The House of Representatives adopted the Bill only after ensuring that even after being passed by the Senate and the enactment of the Act into law, the nuclear cooperation agreement would still need the approval of the Congress, thus maintaining its full oversight authority.

The House also demanded periodic reporting from the President on India’s compliance with key U.S. objectives in the region as well as on issues of non-proliferation. In two non-binding sections included in the Bill, the “Sense of the House” and “Statements of Policy,” the House outlined key U.S. interests including, but not limited to : (i) the achievement of a moratorium on the production of fissile material for production of nuclear weapons; (ii) securing India’s full support of and participation in U.S. efforts to deter and possibly isolate and sanction Iran for its attempts to acquire nuclear weapons; and (iii) a complete declaration of India’s civil nuclear facilities to the IAEA as well as a safeguards regime in perpetuity in conformity with IAEA’s practices, standards and principles, rather than an India-specific safeguards regime.

These modifications have generated apprehension on the Indian side. Among the political parties, the CPI (M), a key leftist ally of the ruling Congress government with a traditionally anti-US stance, has expressed a heightened sense of concern about the deal’s impact on India’s ability to continue to pursue an independent foreign policy. The Hindu nationalist party, the BJP, has also voiced similar concerns. On August 10th, the BJP announced that former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee would lead a delegation of Parliamentarians to President Abdul Kalam to seek his intervention to prevent the passage of a deal that they believed would compromise India’s ability to maintain a credible nuclear deterrent. Sensing an opportunity to rally all the parties in opposition to the deal against the ruling Congress, the BJP also invited the Left, including CPI (M) to support this move.



Indian PM to Defend Nuclear Deal
(BBC)

Thursday, August 17
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is due to address parliament on the controversial India-US nuclear deal. The upper house has seen heated debate on the issue after Indian reports that the US may add provisions to the bill.

Mr Singh has repeatedly said that his government would not accept major amendments to the agreement.

Some members of parliament have accused Washington of arm-twisting Delhi. Opposition parties and the government's Communist allies oppose the deal, saying it will compromise India's nuclear programme. India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party has called the deal "unacceptable". It said that it would make India "perpetually dependent" on the US for all initiatives in the application of nuclear energy.



As India Debates N-deal, China & Pak Move to Close Rival Pact
(C Raja Mohan, Indian Express)

Thursday, August 17
As India’s nuclear debate enters the Rajya Sabha tomorrow, Beijing and Islamabad are moving towards deeper bilateral atomic energy cooperation.

Recent reports from Islamabad say a deal on buying six 300 MW nuclear reactors from China might be finalised when President Hu Jintao visits Pakistan at the end of this year.

As the Opposition quibbles over real and imagined problems of the non-proliferation conditions that New Delhi accepted in the deal with the United States, China is preparing to rapidly expand its own nuclear power programme.



Wheeling Dealing
(Sitaram Yechury, Hindustan Times - Opinion)

Thursday, August 17
The writer is a Rajya Sabha MP and CPI(M) Politburo member.
The informed debate currently taking place in the country on the Indo-US nuclear deal reflects the growing maturity of Indian democracy. The issues are by now very pervasive in the media and need little repetition. We have consistently articulated our apprehensions. It is indeed gratifying now to see the eight high priests of the Indian nuclear establishment who have built India’s nuclear capabilities, defying and overcoming US-led sanctions in the past, reinforce the essence of our fears. If reconfirmation were ever necessary, this nails the lie that our questioning the deal arises not from our ‘congenital anti-imperialist rhetoric’. Our apprehensions arise from our non-negotiable responsibility to safeguard India’s sovereignty.

It is well-known that the Left has all along opposed India’s nuclear weapons programme. We had opposed Pokhran II and continue to oppose nuclear weapon stockpiling. But then, we are firm defenders of the right that any decision in this regard will have to be a domestic Indian decision, not influenced by any power across the seas.



Hizbollah's Outlook in the Current Conflict
(Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, Carnegie Policy Outlook)

August 2006
As the international community scrambles to resolve the current crisis in Lebanon, the motives and objectives of Hizbollah and Israel remain unclear. How did the conflict escalate so quickly? What do both parties hope to gain? With diplomatic efforts to achieve a resolution of the fighting between Israel and Hizbollah in a critical phase, understanding Hizbollah’s outlook and intentions is crucial.

In a new Policy Outlook, Hizbollah’s Outlook in the Current Conflict (Part One): Motives, Strategy, and Objectives, Amal Saad-Ghorayeb provides vital insights. Saad-Ghorayeb, a Lebanese political analyst writing from Beirut, draws on interviews she carried out with Hizbollah officials both before and after the outbreak of fighting in mid-July.



Seven Questions: Reshaping Japan's Security
(Foreign Policy)

August 2006
Tensions over the symbolic legacies of the Second World War often dominate headlines in Asia, but there’s a complicated security dance going on behind the scenes. FP spoke to Michael Green, until recently President George W. Bush’s point person on Japan, about the country’s shifting strategy.

Foreign Policy: How did the North Korean missile tests affect Japan’s security strategy?

Michael Green: Shinzo Abe, Koizumi’s likely successor, stated that Japan has the right to preemptively hit a North Korean missile if it knows it’s going to be launched at Japan. This has been the policy since 1998. However, he said this without reiterating that Japan will continue to rely on diplomacy and security coordination with the Americans. His statement was severely criticized in China and South Korea. Abe came back right away—12 hours later—and provided that context. But if you step back and look at what North Korea is doing and their resistance to six party talks, there is strong evidence to suggest that Pyongyang is on a predetermined course to a nuclear test. For now, the Japanese are very much focused on the abductee issue, but beneath the surface, Japan's strategic culture is steadily being changed by North Korea’s stance. It is likely that there will be increasing debate about how much Japan can rely on the United States for its nuclear umbrella and how much Japan should try to have its own independent capability. I think the answer will ultimately be that Japan should rely on the extended deterrent [capability of the United States]. But the United States will have to be highly attentive to Japan’s security concerns and clear about its commitments to the alliance.


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For recent treatment of Sino-Japanese relations, click here to access a Carnegie policy outlook, "Simmering Fire in Asia: Averting Sino-Japanese Strategic Conflict," by Senior Associates Minxin Pei and Michael Swaine.



Iran 'Will Discuss Nuclear Halt'
(BBC)

Wednesday, August 17
Iran is ready to discuss the suspension of its uranium enrichment programme as demanded by Western powers, the country's foreign minister has said. Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference that Iran was ready to talk but still regarded any suspension of its programme as "illogical".

A package of incentives has been offered to Iran by six world powers in return for a halt to its programme. Tehran has said it will respond to the offer by 22 August.

"We are ready to discuss all the issues, including the suspension. There is no logic behind the suspension of Iran's activities. We are ready to explain this to them," Mr Mottaki said.

Links of Interest:

Appeal to Parliamentarians on the Indo-US Nuclear Deal
Statement submitted by 8 Indian nuclear scientists
Monday, August 14

After North Korea's Missile Launch: Are the Nuclear Talks Dead?
Report by the International Crisis Group
August 9, 2006

proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Carnegie Analysis__August 21, 2006

UN Resolution 1696 Moots Iranian Legal Claims

On July 31, 2006 the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1696, demanding that Iran “suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities.” The resolution came after Iran had ignored a series of requests from the IAEA, the EU-3, and the United States for Iran to cease its enrichment program until its peaceful nature could be confirmed by the IAEA. Iran claimed that neither the IAEA nor any member of the international community had the right to prevent Iran from pursuing a domestic nuclear energy program. Resolution 1696 undermines the legal basis on which Iran has resisted suspension. As the international community awaits Iran’s response to the Security Council’s demands, it is important to understand this new legal context.

1696 was adopted after three years of negotiations between Iran and France, Germany and the United Kingdom failed to resolve outstanding questions regarding Iran’s compliance with its IAEA safeguard obligations and its Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons obligation under Article II “not to seek or receive assistance in the manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.” Throughout these negotiations, Iran has been pressed to suspend uranium enrichment activities, as a confidence-building measure to facilitate negotiations over longer-term parameters to objectively guarantee that Iran’s nuclear activities are exclusively for peaceful purposes. Iran agreed as a voluntary, unilateral measure in November 2003 to suspend all enrichment and reprocessing activities as defined by the IAEA. It then intermittently broke the terms of the suspension until November 2004, when a more specific agreement was made with the EU-3. Iran then breached that agreement on August 10, 2005 when it removed the IAEA seals from its conversion plant in Esfahan in preparation for manufacturing UF6 gas to be enriched.

Iran has marshaled two main legal arguments in pursuing its nuclear policy. The most practical argument has been that its suspension of uranium enrichment is purely voluntary and not a legal obligation. The second, broader argument has concerned Article IV of the NPT, which states that “[n]othing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy…” Iran claims that Article IV provides legal protection against demands for it to suspend or otherwise forego uranium enrichment of any other nuclear activity that the IAEA cannot say conclusively is part of a nuclear weapon acquisition program.

While it remains to be seen whether or how UN Security Council Resolution 1696 will be enforced, the resolution itself renders Iran’s legal arguments hollow. Whatever the merits of these arguments before UN Resolution 1696, the resolution itself supersedes them.

After Iran broke its suspension of enrichment activities in August 2005, it justified this action by reminding the IAEA that the suspension had been voluntary and non-legally binding. Iran further argued that neither the NPT nor the IAEA statute provided a legal basis for requiring Iran to further suspend these activities. Legally, Iran was correct; the IAEA is not given the right under either the NPT or its own statute to require states to suspend fuel cycle activities.

However, UN Resolution 1696 itself created a legal obligation for Iran to suspend, rendering Iran’s earlier legal references moot. Under 1696 Iran is demanded to “suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities.” Unlike the IAEA board requests of Iran to suspend such activities, this request is not voluntary and is legally-binding. According to Article 25 of the UN Charter, “members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter,” meaning that Security Council resolutions are legally as powerful as the UN Charter itself.

And what of Iran’s “inalienable right” under NPT Article IV to nuclear energy development? Article 103 of the UN Charter clarifies this point without room for dispute: “In the event of a conflict between the obligations of the Members of the United Nations under the present Charter and their obligations under any other international agreement, their obligations under the present Charter shall prevail.” Resolution 1696 supersedes the privileges offered under the NPT.

Iran’s only resort to maintain some legitimacy in light of the resolution has been to declare the issue of its enrichment not a threat to international security and therefore outside of the jurisdiction of the Security Council. However, Article 39 of the UN Charter clearly states that it is the Security Council that “shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace,” which is exactly what it did by penning Resolution 1696.

Clearly, Iran has not responded positively to the imposition of a Security Council Resolution against its enrichment capacity. However, the future remains unwritten. It is interesting to note that throughout the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, Tehran has continued to invoke international legal precedent to support its actions rather than brashly refusing any international responsibilities. For this reason, Resolution 1696, by severely weakening Iran’s claims of legitimacy, may be more than merely words on a page; it may, in effect, help write history.


Related Links:

Text of Resolution 1696 (2006) Adopted by Vote of 14 - 1
UN Security Council, July 31, 2006


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amy Reed is a Junior Fellow for Nonproliferation the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

For the latest proliferation news and resources, visit the Carnegie Proliferation News website, www.ProliferationNews.org.
proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
August 22, 2006

Featured Content:
•"The Security Council's Dilemma," Op-Ed by Shmuel Rosner, Haaretz
• "No Nuclear Halt," BBC
•"In Iran Nuclear Standoff, Scant Leverage for West," Op-Ed by Bhushan Bahree and Marc Champion, Wall Street Journal
•"North Korea Threatens Attack Due to War Drills," Reuters
•"US Backs Howard's Nuclear Vision," Australian

Links of Interest:
•"Excerpts from PM's reply to discussion in Rajya Sabha on Civil Nuclear Energy Cooperation with the United States"
Remarks by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, August 17, 2006


Iran Rejects Offer for Nuclear Talks
(Dafna Linzer, Washington Post)

Tuesday, August 22
The Iranian government has told senior European officials that it will not accept the only condition set by the Bush administration and its Western allies for talks on the country's nuclear program and will continue enriching uranium, despite the threat of international sanctions, several senior U.S. and European officials said yesterday.

Diplomats in Washington, Tehran and European capitals said the Iranian government is willing to enter negotiations and to consider a freeze of the program, but it will not accept a freeze as a precondition for the talks.

Editor's Note: When you want “your” issue – Lebanon, Darfur, the Iranian nuclear challenge -- to be addressed by the international community, you want the UN Security Council to be decisive and strong. But when someone else has an issue with you, you want the Security Council to be indecisive and weak. For a rules-based international system to function, of course, the Security Council’s effectiveness should not be so variable – the Council should be strong and decisive as a rule. Today, however, states have created an equilibrium where the Council is generally indecisive and weak, as with Lebanon, Darfur, and the Iranian nuclear case. The following essay by Shmuel Rosner provides an unusually insightful treatment of this problem, one that is candid about Israel’s multiple interests.

The Security Council's Dilemma
(Shmuel Rosner, Haaretz - Opinion)

Tuesday, August 22
A lot has been said and written about Israel's dependence on the United States, but there is also a certain dependence on the Security Council regarding two of the most serious issues on its agenda: the solution to the crisis in Lebanon, and the solution to the crisis with Iran. This is a difficult, almost oppressive dependence that must be navigated deftly. In other words, there should not be any excessive expectations, nor should too much be asked. Use the Security Council for your needs, but do not seek to make it more powerful than necessary so that it will not turn around and bite you. This is one of the reasons that in the compromise cease-fire reached on Lebanon, Israel agreed to relinquish its earlier insistence on Chapter 7 of the UN Charter.

It is best not to encourage the Security Council to act under regulations that enable it to enforce its decisions with military power. If this hurts the chances that the international force can succeed, it's no big loss. Israel will lose some - although in any case it did not expect the force to do much - but it will also gain a punching bag that can be blamed for its failure. The problem is that in the case of Iran, Israel will seek a different result: a forceful resolution capable of bending a violent regime. And it will be difficult to get two opposite results out of the same Security Council.



No Nuclear Halt, Warns Khamenei
(BBC)

Monday, August 21
Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has said his country will press ahead with its nuclear programme. He was speaking a day before Tehran is scheduled to give its formal answer to an international proposal of incentives for Iran to halt uranium enrichment. Iran had "made its own decision" and would "continue its path", state television quoted the leader as saying.

"Arrogant powers, led by the United States, are fearful of progress of Islamic countries in various dimensions," Ayatollah Khamenei was quoted as saying on Monday. "Therefore... even though they know Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons, they are piling on the pressure to prevent our scientific progress."



In Iran Nuclear Standoff, Scant Leverage for West
(Bhushan Bahree and Marc Champion, Wall Street Journal - Opinion)

Monday, August 21
For all of the tough talk likely in coming days about using global sanctions to shut down Iran's nuclear-fuel program, the West has few real options for forcing Tehran to back down.

The sanctions being discussed, such as curbs on imports of nuclear-related technology, wouldn't affect Iran's overall economy. But the bluntest weapon available short of war -- targeting Iran's vast energy sector -- is extremely unlikely to be deployed anytime soon.

The West is in this bind because, despite a shared desire to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, a number of forces -- the conflicts in Iraq and Lebanon, high oil prices and minimal spare global oil-pumping capacity -- have made the world a different place from the 1980s and 1990s, when the U.S. imposed sanctions forbidding its own companies from doing business with Iran.



North Korea Threatens Attack Due to War Drills
(Jon Herskovitz, Reuters)

Tuesday, August 22
North Korea said it had the right to launch a pre-emptive attack to counter a U.S.-South Korean joint military training drill, its official media reported on Tuesday. U.S. and South Korean troops began military exercises on Monday dubbed Ulchi Focus Lens that are aimed at testing command structures and communications.

The annual exercises have been held without incident since they began in 1975 and the North usually brands them as a prelude to invasion and nuclear war.

But the drills this year are being held with tensions high on the peninsula after North Korea test-fired a barrage of missiles on July 5 and reports last week it may preparing to test a nuclear weapon. In its KCNA news agency, North Korea said the drills were "an undisguised military threat and blackmail against the DPRK (North Korea) and a war action".



Editor's Note: In an interview on August 17, the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer commented that Australia and the United States have only engaged in preliminary discussions considering Australia's accession into the Global Nuclear Energy Program (GNEP), which would include the nation in an elite club of states permitted to enrich uranium and export the nuclear fuel to countries with energy needs. It is important to note that the "special rules" referred to in the article below have yet to be fleshed out.

US Backs Howard's Nuclear Vision
(Geoff Elliott, Australian)

Thursday, August 17
The Bush administration has indicated it will support Australia developing a uranium enrichment industry, despite the White House's policy to restrict new entrants to the world nuclear club. In response to John Howard's campaign to ensure the existing nuclear powers do not lock Australia out of future nuclear development, a senior US official has said "special rules" apply to Australia and Canada.

Dennis Spurgeon, assistant secretary for nuclear power at the US Department of Energy, said Australia and Canada were likely to be given special consideration because they would play a pivotal role in a new nuclear suppliers club the US is trying to establish.

"I think Australia, and Canada for that matter, play a special role in world nuclear affairs because obviously you are two countries that have the majority of economically recoverable uranium resources," Mr Spurgeon said in an exclusive interview with The Australian yesterday.

Asked if this gave Australia and Canada a strong bargaining chip in negotiating their entry into a new nuclear club, he replied: "Exactly. So in any discussion, you have to take into account the facts as they lay."

"I think Australia is viewed as a totally reliable and trustworthy country, so I don't think there is any issue there whatsoever."


Links of Interest:

Excerpts from PM's reply to discussion in Rajya Sabha on Civil Nuclear Energy Cooperation with the United States, Remarks by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, August 17, 2006
proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
August 24, 2006

Featured Content:
•"Iran after the Lebanon War: Same Nuclear Ambitions, Different Regional Context," Guest analysis by Emily Landau, Carnegie Endowment
•"U.S. Spy Agencies Criticized On Iran," Washington Post
•"Iran Sanctions Could Fracture Coalition," New York Times

From the International Press:
•"Manmohan: I Have Bush's Assurance," Hindu
•"Japan Confirms Activity at N. Korea Nuclear Site," Korea Times


Diplomacy -- For Now
(George Perkovich, Wall Street Journal - Opinion)

Thursday, August 24
Iran has said, "No, for now," to the U.N. Security Council's legally binding demand that Tehran suspend enrichment of uranium, as a first step toward resuming negotiations over the future course of its nuclear-energy program and broader relations with the West. Iran's militant leaders are inspired by Hezbollah's gritty fight with the vaunted Israeli army and the U.S. debacle in Iraq. They are emboldened by the sense that Security Council states have enforcement fatigue -- an unwillingness to confront tough guys who ignore international demands.

It's now time for the U.S. to quietly rally defense and foreign ministries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia to develop operational plans for containing and deterring a nuclear-armed Iran. Far from throwing in the towel or abandoning diplomacy in favor of warfare, devising a deterrence and containment strategy now would allay international fears that Washington uses U.N. diplomacy as a prelude to military-delivered regime change. Building international capabilities to contain a nuclear-armed Iran would have the double benefit of putting muscle into the Security Council's effort to dissuade Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capability in the first place.

GUEST ANALYSIS: Emily Landau,
Emily Landau is the Director of the Arms Control and Regional Security Project at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv.

Editor’s Note: Proliferation News welcomes guest analyses of international security challenges related to nuclear weapons and potential policy options for dealing with them. We also will consider distributing responses to analyses if the resulting dialogue advances understanding and policy deliberations.

Iran after the Lebanon War: Same Nuclear Ambitions, Different Regional Context
(Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)

Wednesday, August 23
As the August 31 deadline set by the UN Security Council for Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities rapidly approaches, Iran is as defiant as ever, and determined to not give up its right to engage in these activities. While the war in Lebanon was raging and the Security Council took a firmer stance on the nuclear issue, statements coming from Iran clarified not only that Iran has no intention of suspending enrichment activities, but that it in fact has plans to expand them. There have been threats to withdraw from the NPT if the pressure becomes too strong, and Iran has now prevented IAEA inspectors from entering Natanz.

But while Iran’s nuclear ambitions have not changed, the context within which these ambitions are being considered – has. Although it is not clear to what degree Iran directly influenced Hizballah's decision to kidnap Israeli soldiers on July 12, there is no doubt that Iran is significantly involved in developments in Lebanon, and that it is Iran's hegemonic ambitions in the Middle East that create the context for this involvement. In strategic terms, the latest war has sharpened new fault lines in the Middle East. No longer is the major split in the region defined primarily according to the Arab-Israeli territorial conflict; it is now clear that the fault lines resonate against the backdrop of a growing distinction between radical forces in the region – first and foremost Iran – that seek to change the face of the Middle East, and status quo powers, including Israel, Turkey, and moderate Arab states (Egypt, Jordan, and Persian Gulf states). Within this context Iran's nuclear activities and military ambitions are more ominous than ever.



U.S. Spy Agencies Criticized On Iran
(Dafna Linzer, Washington Post)

Thursday, August 24
A key House committee issued a stinging critique of U.S. intelligence on Iran yesterday, charging that the CIA and other agencies lack "the ability to acquire essential information necessary to make judgments" on Tehran's nuclear program, its intentions or even its ties to terrorism.

The 29-page report, principally written by a Republican staff member on the House intelligence committee who holds a hard-line view on Iran, fully backs the White House position that the Islamic republic is moving forward with a nuclear weapons program and that it poses a significant danger to the United States. But it chides the intelligence community for not providing enough direct evidence to support that assertion.

The report relies exclusively on publicly available documents. Its authors did not interview intelligence officials. Still, it warns the intelligence community to avoid the mistakes made regarding weapons of mass destruction before the Iraq war, noting that Iran could easily be engaged in "a denial and deception campaign to exaggerate progress on its nuclear program as Saddam Hussein apparently did concerning his WMD programs."



Iran Sanctions Could Fracture Coalition
(Helene Cooper, New York Times)

Wednesday, August 23
It was always going to be tough for Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. secretary of state, to hold together her fragile coalition of world powers trying to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions. The Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon has made that job harder.

While Iran's official response to the package of carrots from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China was, at 21 pages, voluminous, the key point is that Iran's leaders did not agree to suspend enrichment of uranium, the central demand of the coalition.

Now the question is whether Rice, who returned from vacation this week and was studying Iran's response, can keep the coalition together to take out their sticks against Iran.

That will not be easy, in part because the entire United Nations Security Council is supposed to vote on the sanctions package. While only the permanent members can veto, the rising fear, particularly among European diplomats, is that smaller countries on the Council are so angry over how the United States, and now France, have handled the Lebanon crisis that they will give Russia and China political cover to balk against imposing tough sanctions.

From the International Press:

Manmohan: I Have Bush's Assurance
(Hindu)

Thursday, August 24
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday told the Lok Sabha that United States President George W. Bush had assured him that he did not intend shifting the goalposts of the July 2005 civilian nuclear agreement. However, if extraneous elements, not envisaged in the agreement, found their way into it, we would draw "appropriate conclusions," Dr. Singh said.

The U.S. Congressional process was not yet over and he could not predict what would emerge. "If it goes in a direction that hurts us, we will draw appropriate conclusions and will do nothing that will compromise the scope of our strategic programme, which will be determined by the people, the Government and Parliament," he said in a 40-minute reply to a discussion on the agreement.

Dr. Singh assured the members that there would be no cap on fissile material production, the additional protocol to be signed with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would be India-specific and fast breeder reactors excluded from surveillance.

Dr. Singh said the Iran vote at the IAEA came in a different context and was not linked to the deal with the U.S.



Japan Confirms Activity at N. Korea Nuclear Site
(Korea Times)

Thursday, August 24
Japan has confirmed vehicle activity at a North Korean nuclear testing site, but it was unclear whether tests were imminent, wire news services reported yesterday.

Vehicles have been seen entering and leaving a nuclear testing site in the northeast of the country, the Associated Press quoted a Kyodo news agency as reporting. A Japanese Foreign Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing protocol, said Japan was continuously analyzing intelligence but said the government would not discuss specifics because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Earlier in the day, Minister of Unification Lee Jong-seok said Seoul has yet to secure any clear evidence, regarding the North’s move to conduct what the United States calls a ``red line.’’

``We have yet to secure any clear evidence, but we believe it (a nuclear test) is possible, considering various circumstances,’’ Lee told the National Assembly’s Unification, Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee.



Links of Interest:
"Iran says ready for serious nuclear talks from Aug. 23"
Islamic Republic News Agency, August 24, 2006

Javier SOLANA, EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), receives Iranian response to E3+3 offer
Statement from the homepage of Javier Solana
August 22, 2006

Statement by Gonzalo Gallegos, Acting Spokesman on "Iranian Response to the P5+1 Package,"
U.S. Department of State, Office of the Spokesperson
August 23, 2006

proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
August 24, 2006

Continued Analysis of 1696: A View from Iran

Editor's Note: On August 21, 2006 we distributed Amy Reed's analysis of UN Resolution 1696's call for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment and related activities. This analysis elicited a welcome critique from Dr. Abbas Maleki, an Iranian scholar and former foreign ministry official, now a visiting Senior Research Fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. We post Reed's original analysis, Maleki's response, and a comment on Maleki's response by Dr. William W. Burke-White, Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. We welcome further dialogue on this important topic and are happy to continue distributing this quality discussion.


UN Resolution 1696 Moots Iranian Legal Claims


By Amy Reed

On July 31, 2006 the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1696, demanding that Iran “suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities.” The resolution came after Iran had ignored a series of requests from the IAEA, the EU-3, and the United States for Iran to cease its enrichment program until its peaceful nature could be confirmed by the IAEA. Iran claimed that neither the IAEA nor any member of the international community had the right to prevent Iran from pursuing a domestic nuclear energy program. Resolution 1696 undermines the legal basis on which Iran has resisted suspension. As the international community awaits Iran’s response to the Security Council’s demands, it is important to understand this new legal context.

1696 was adopted after three years of negotiations between Iran and France, Germany and the United Kingdom failed to resolve outstanding questions regarding Iran’s compliance with its IAEA safeguard obligations and its Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons obligation under Article II “not to seek or receive assistance in the manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.” Throughout these negotiations, Iran has been pressed to suspend uranium enrichment activities, as a confidence-building measure to facilitate negotiations over longer-term parameters to objectively guarantee that Iran’s nuclear activities are exclusively for peaceful purposes. Iran agreed as a voluntary, unilateral measure in November 2003 to suspend all enrichment and reprocessing activities as defined by the IAEA. It then intermittently broke the terms of the suspension until November 2004, when a more specific agreement was made with the EU-3. Iran then breached that agreement on August 10, 2005 when it removed the IAEA seals from its conversion plant in Esfahan in preparation for manufacturing UF6 gas to be enriched.

Iran has marshaled two main legal arguments in pursuing its nuclear policy. The most practical argument has been that its suspension of uranium enrichment is purely voluntary and not a legal obligation. The second, broader argument has concerned Article IV of the NPT, which states that “[n]othing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy…” Iran claims that Article IV provides legal protection against demands for it to suspend or otherwise forego uranium enrichment of any other nuclear activity that the IAEA cannot say conclusively is part of a nuclear weapon acquisition program.

While it remains to be seen whether or how UN Security Council Resolution 1696 will be enforced, the resolution itself renders Iran’s legal arguments hollow. Whatever the merits of these arguments before UN Resolution 1696, the resolution itself supersedes them.

After Iran broke its suspension of enrichment activities in August 2005, it justified this action by reminding the IAEA that the suspension had been voluntary and non-legally binding. Iran further argued that neither the NPT nor the IAEA statute provided a legal basis for requiring Iran to further suspend these activities. Legally, Iran was correct; the IAEA is not given the right under either the NPT or its own statute to require states to suspend fuel cycle activities.

However, UN Resolution 1696 itself created a legal obligation for Iran to suspend, rendering Iran’s earlier legal references moot. Under 1696 Iran is demanded to “suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities.” Unlike the IAEA board requests of Iran to suspend such activities, this request is not voluntary and is legally-binding. According to Article 25 of the UN Charter, “members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter,” meaning that Security Council resolutions are legally as powerful as the UN Charter itself.

And what of Iran’s “inalienable right” under NPT Article IV to nuclear energy development? Article 103 of the UN Charter clarifies this point without room for dispute: “In the event of a conflict between the obligations of the Members of the United Nations under the present Charter and their obligations under any other international agreement, their obligations under the present Charter shall prevail.” Resolution 1696 supersedes the privileges offered under the NPT.

Iran’s only resort to maintain some legitimacy in light of the resolution has been to declare the issue of its enrichment not a threat to international security and therefore outside of the jurisdiction of the Security Council. However, Article 39 of the UN Charter clearly states that it is the Security Council that “shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace,” which is exactly what it did by penning Resolution 1696.

Clearly, Iran has not responded positively to the imposition of a Security Council Resolution against its enrichment capacity. However, the future remains unwritten. It is interesting to note that throughout the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, Tehran has continued to invoke international legal precedent to support its actions rather than brashly refusing any international responsibilities. For this reason, Resolution 1696, by severely weakening Iran’s claims of legitimacy, may be more than merely words on a page; it may, in effect, help write history.



UN Resolution 1696 and Iran’s Legal Rights


By Dr. Abbas Maleki

Amy Reed in her article in Carnegie Endowment as “UN Resolution 1696 Moots Iranian Legal Claims” says that the UN Security Council Resolution overrides Iran's rights under the NPT. She claims that under Article 103 of the United Nations Charter, Iran's rights and obligations under the multilateral NPT are superseded by UN Security Council Resolutions.

Article 4 of Non-Proliferation Treaty recognizes the "inalienable right" of states to nuclear technology. Article 103 of the UN Charter speaks of obligations that conflict with the UN Charter, and not of rights that conflict with the UN Charter. Under Article 103 states may ignore their pre-existing treaty obligations to the extent that they conflict with the UN Charter. This is not the same thing as allowing the UN Security Council to selectively re-interpret multilateral treaties to selectively deprive some nations of their rights under the perfectly valid treaties.

Even if we are to accept the notion that the UN Security Council can somehow override Article 4 of the NPT under Article 103 of the Charter, then the principle of Equal Sovereignty (which is in fact explicitly recognized in Article 2 of the Charter) requires that this not be selectively applied to Iran. If Article 4 is contrary to the UN Charter, and if the UN Security Council is then permitted to override it in accordance with Article 103, then Article 4 of the NPT cannot apply to any other signatories to the NPT. Either Article 4 of the NPT is valid or it isn't; it cannot be claimed that Article 4 of the NPT conflicts with the UN Charter, but only when we're talking about Iran. The principle of equal sovereignty is a matter of jus cogens. The relief which Article 103 of the Charter may give the Security Council in case of conflict between one of its decisions and an operative treaty obligation cannot apply to a conflict between a Security Council resolution and jus cogens.

Also, it appears that Article 103 provision was primarily directed to bilateral treaties (especially bilateral treaties that existed prior to the Charter) and does not seem to apply to multilateral treaties such as the NPT, because "parties to a multipartite agreement [such as the NPT] cannot modify their obligations there under except with the consent of the other parties or by the procedure prescribed in the agreement itself."

This Article deals with the situation where the obligations of a Member under the Charter are in conflict with the obligations of that Member under another international agreement. This situation may conceivably take three forms:

(1) that where there is a conflict between the obligation of a Member under the Charter and the obligation of that same Member resulting from an agreement with another Member, contracted before the entrance into force of the Charter;

(2) that where the conflict is between the obligation of a Member under the Charter and the obligation of that same Member resulting from an agreement with another Member contracted after the entrance into force of the Charter; and

(3) that where the conflict is between the obligation of a Member under the Charter and the obligation of that same Member resulting from an agreement contracted with a non-member state, before the entrance into force of the Charter.

Article 103 clearly covers the second situation by stating that obligations under the Charter shall prevail over obligations "under any other international agreement" without qualification as to time of contracting. This is recognition of the principle that the obligation of a multipartite agreement prevails against an obligation under an agreement between certain of the parties, even though later in time, since parties to a multipartite agreement cannot modify their obligations there under except with the consent of the other parties or by the procedure prescribed in the agreement itself.



Comment on "UN Resolution 1696 and Iran’s Legal Rights"


By Dr. William W. Burke-White

In his response, “UN Resolution 1696 Highlights Iran’s Rights,” Abbas Maleki misstates a number of basic principles of international law that undermine his basic argument.

It should be noted that Resolution 1696 was adopted by the Security Council pursuant to Article 40 of Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which gives the Council the power to “call upon the parties concerned to comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary or desirable.” This is a first step in a potential gradual escalation in the pressure the Council can exert on a State, leading up to sanctions (Article 41) and the use of force (Article 42). The Council explicitly indicates that it is invoking Article 40 “in order to make mandatory the suspension required by the IAEA.” There is no doubt in the Council’s language that it is using its Chapter VII authority to, at least temporarily, suspend any rights Iran may have to develop nuclear technology.

Maleki suggests that there is a direct conflict between Resolution 1696 and Iran’s rights to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes under Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This is not the case. The Council in fact affirms the rights of States to develop nuclear programs for peaceful purposes. The Preamble to the resolution recalls “the right of States Party, in conformity with Articles I and II of that Treaty, to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination.” However, the Council, acting on the recommendation of the IAEA, determined that Iran’s nuclear program—at least as it stands today—represents a threat to international peace and security and therefore is not entitled to the benefits accorded to purely peaceful nuclear development by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Even if there were a direct conflict between the Resolution and Article IV of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Security Council Resolution would trump and Iran, or any other State, would be obligated to comply therewith. Article 25 of the UN Charter, to which Iran is a State Party, requires it to carry out the decisions of the Security Council and Article 103 indicates that obligations under the Charter prevail in case of conflict with any other international treaty.

Maleki argues that a resolution by the Council demanding Iran suspend its nuclear program would violate “equal sovereignty [as] a matter of jus cogens.” Maleki is correct that jus cogens, or higher order norms of international law, can not be violated or derogated from. While sovereign equality may be considered jus cogens, such a norm reflects the equality of states in the international system and in no way prohibits the Security Council from taking particularized action at an individual State when it deems that State’s actions to be a threat to international peace and security. If sovereign equality meant that every state had to be treated exactly equally in every situation, it would deprive the Council of the essence of its authority under the UN Charter to maintain international peace and security.

Maleki further misstates basic rules of international law when he claims that Article 103 of the Charter, according to which obligations under the UN Charter trump those in other treaties, only applies to bilateral treaties. There is nothing in the text of Article 103 or in the practice of the Council to support that claim. Obligations under the Charter (including that found in Article 25) supersede obligations under any other treaty—be in bilateral or multilateral.

There is little, if any, support in international law for Maleki’s interpretation of Resolution 1696. The resolution was adopted by the Council under its Chapter VII authority and Iran is obligated to comply, as would any other similarly situated State.



Related Links:

Text of Resolution 1696 (2006) Adopted by Vote of 14 - 1
UN Security Council, July 31, 2006



For the latest proliferation news and resources, visit the Carnegie Proliferation News website, www.ProliferationNews.org.
proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
August 29, 2006

Continued Debate of UN Resolution 1696:
•"Security Council and Iran's 'Legal Rights', a Rejoinder"
Guest analysis by Kaveh Afrasiabi

Featured Content:
•"All Eyes on the Senate as India Plays Hardball," Carnegie Analysis by Anirudh Suri
•"Perkovich: U.S. Needs 'Conversation' With Putin on Iran Sanctions," CFR Interview by Bernard Gwertzman
•"Iran Opens a Heavy-Water Reactor," New York Times
•"Poll: Nuclear Iran," Atlantic Monthly

From the International Press:
•"U.S.-Russia: Holding the Line Against Nukes," Op-Ed by Rose Gottemoeller,International Herald Tribune


Share the Evidence On Iran
(Micah Zenko, Washington Post - Opinion)

Tuesday, August 29
How long until Iran becomes a nuclear weapons state?

The current best guess of American intelligence agencies is found in a classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) completed last summer: "Left to its own devices, Iran is determined to build nuclear weapons," it says, yet it is unlikely that Iran could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb before "early to mid-next decade."

Senior Bush administration officials, lawmakers in both parties and analysts out of government are increasingly skeptical of the Iran NIE. They believe that the U.S. intelligence community is underestimating Iran's nuclear program after having overestimated Iraq's programs for weapons of mass destruction in 2002.

To counter the growing chorus of skeptics, President Bush should do in the case of Iran what he did with regard to the Iraq NIE after the invasion: declassify the key judgments in the document and the dissents from it. Of course, to ensure the ability to collect future intelligence on Iran, the declassified NIE should not reveal the sources and methods employed; it should simply declare what U.S. intelligence agencies believe and where they disagree.


ProliferationNews.org
CarnegieEndowment.org
Iran Resources
South Asia Resources
Korea Resources
China Resources

Debate of 1696

Note: Below is the fourth contribution to discussion of American and Iranian experts on UN Resolution 1696. Kaveh Afrasiabi is a political scientist and author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts vs. Fiction. For the full collection of analyses of UN Resolution 1696, please click here.

Security Council and Iran's "Legal Rights", a Rejoinder
(Guest analysis, Kaveh L. Afrasiabi)

Tuesday, August 29
On the eve of the Security Council's deadline of August 31st, it is imperative for the Council to take the appropriate measures that would not be received by major aspects of the international community as unfair, unbalanced, or prejudicial below the bar of UN Charter, irrespective of how it has steered action with respect to Iran's nuclear dossier so far.

Presently, the US Government has as its permanent representative a gentleman who not long ago derided the notion of treaties as legally binding. Yet, today, Mr. Bolton not only acts like a born-again UN believer, he and other like-minded US officials and pundits labor the point against Iran that its self-defense within the framework of Non-Proliferation Treaty is moot in light of the Security Council Resolution 1696 demanding a complete cessation of Iran's nuclear fuel cycle, sanctioned by Article IV of NPT.

The absence of treaty constraints warranting a UN censure of Iran for pursuing an independent fuel cycle has now been declared irrelevant to the coming UN Security show down on Iran, as if the Security Council operates in a legal vacuum.

According to the International Law Commission's Draft Articles, an intentionally wrongful act of a state comprises two elements (Article 3): the objective element consisting in an action or omission contrary to an international obligation, and the subjective element having to do with intentions of a state.

Neither element can be found with respect to Iran's nuclear program, however. The absence of any evidence of diversion to military activities, based on extensive inspection of Iran's facilities by the IAEA inspectors, together with explicit renunciation of nuclear weapons on political and moral and religious grounds by Iran's leadership, constitute a bar to the application of sanctions against Iran by the United Nations.




All Eyes on the Senate as India Plays Hardball
(Carnegie Analysis, Anirudh Suri)

Tuesday, August 29
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently made speeches in the Rajya Sabha (August 17th) and the Lok Sabha (August 23rd), the two Houses of India’s Parliament, forcefully defending the merits of the India-US nuclear deal and clearly outlining the Indian Government’s position on various aspects of the deal. Facing criticism from opposition parties as well as the Left, Singh addressed all the concerns in turn and claimed that he had the assurance of President Bush that the final India-US nuclear deal would not represent any shifts away from the goalposts established in the agreement of July 18, 2005.

In his speeches, Singh emphatically stated that India would not bend in the face of US pressure and would not accept any conditions that would go beyond the July 18th Joint Statement and the March 2, 2006 Separation Plan. Strongly refuting the claim that the proposed US Bill, as passed by the House of Representatives, could become an instrument to influence or even dictate Indian foreign policy, Singh asserted that “the thrust of our foreign policy remains the promotion of our national interest.”

In unequivocal terms, Singh further declared that India was “not willing to accept a moratorium on the production of fissile material” and that India was not “prepared to go beyond a unilateral voluntary moratorium on nuclear testing as indicated in the July statement.” Singh made it clear that the Indian Government would not accept any “dilution that would prevent us from securing the benefits of full civil nuclear cooperation.” He also rejected the Senate proposal that requires the US President to report on India’s compliance with non-proliferation and other commitments on an annual basis, saying that the “element of uncertainty regarding future cooperation” was not acceptable to India. Addressing the issue of India’s nuclear weapons program being subject to international safeguards, Singh further clarified that the Indian government has registered strong opposition to “any legislative provisions that mandate scrutiny of either our nuclear weapons programme or our unsafeguarded nuclear facilities.” As a sovereign nation, India was in no way bound by the legislation of any other country, Singh declared.




Perkovich: U.S. Needs 'Conversation' With Putin on Iran Sanctions
(Council on Foreign Relations Interview by Bernard Gwertzman with George Perkovich)

Monday, August 28
George Perkovich, a leading expert on nuclear issues in South Asia and Iran, says it is crucial that the UN Security Council follow through on its threat of sanctions against Iran if it does not suspend its uranium enrichment. To do that, he says, the United States may have to put aside its regime change policies toward Iran to get the cooperation of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"The first thing is to focus on Russia and to have a conversation I don't think we have had with Putin which says 'Look, the Iran nuclear issue is the single most important thing in our relationship. We need your cooperation. What is it going to take?'" says Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

He says Washington will need to address the widespread belief that it is intent on regime change in Iran, a policy the Russians find objectionable. "If they think what you are trying to do in Iran is exercise a strategy they find threatening to themselves, why would they help?" Perkovich said.




Iran Opens a Heavy-Water Reactor
(Michael Slackman, New York Times)

Saturday, August 26
Just days before it is supposed to suspend enrichment of uranium or face the prospect of sanctions, Iran continues to project an image of defiance and confidence. Its position regarding the demand that it suspend enrichment remains a determined “no.”

On Saturday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a provocative, if symbolic, gesture by formally inaugurating a heavy-water reactor. The Iranians say the plant would be used for peaceful power generation. But nuclear experts note that heavy-water facilities are more useful for weapons because they produce lots of plutonium — the preferred ingredient for missile warheads.

“There are no talks of nuclear weapons in Iran,” President Ahmadinejad said as he announced the opening of the plant. “And we are not a threat for any country, even the Zionist regime that is the enemy of the countries in the region.” But he added, “We tell the Western countries not to cause trouble for themselves because the Iranian people are determined to take big steps.”




Poll: Nuclear Iran
(Atlantic Monthly)

September 2006 Issue
The Atlantic recently asked a group of foreign-policy authorities about Iran’s nuclear quest.

Do you believe there is any set of incentives and economic sanctions that could persuade Iran to give up its quest for nuclear weapons?

63% Yes
37% No

Click here to read more.



Seoul's Push To Regain Wartime Control From U.S. Divides South Koreans
(Anthony Faiola, Washington Post)

Tuesday, August 29
At a packed news conference last week, a formidable coalition of retired South Korean military officers and former defense ministers issued a dire warning. They declared the half-century-old military alliance between South Korea and the United States in danger of falling apart, resting the blame squarely at the feet of President Roh Moo Hyun.

The most important issue dividing Seoul and Washington these days is how to handle North Korea -- a nation analysts say could now harbor as many as half a dozen nuclear devices. For the past 10 months, Pyongyang has refused to return to six-party talks aimed at its nuclear disarmament.

The Bush administration has sought to pressure North Koreans back to negotiations, cracking down on Pyongyang's suspected counterfeiting and money-laundering operations by persuading international financial institutions not to do business with the country.

That policy has been directly at odds with South Korea's approach of broad economic engagement. Hoping to bring the North out of its communist shell, the South has poured billions of dollars into tourism and industrial projects just across the border. Roh administration officials have repeatedly suggested that the threat posed by North Korea has been exaggerated. U.S. officials say the difference in threat perception may be one reason Seoul and Washington are now mired in a series of squabbles over the realignment of U.S. forces in South Korea, including delays in the creation of a new bombing range as well as toughened environmental oversight by South Korean regulators.



From the International Press:


U.S.-Russia: Holding the Line Against Nukes
(Rose Gottemoeller, International Herald Tribune - Opinion)

Friday, August 25
On the face of it, Russia and the United States have a history that will help them. They have been leaders in preventing nuclear proliferation since they joined forces to negotiate the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in the 1960s. As the two largest nuclear weapon states, they have had a special responsibility to lead by example - reducing their own arsenals - as well as preventing the further spread of nuclear weapons.

In the past decade, Moscow and Washington have often fallen down on the first task by failing to negotiate new reductions in nuclear weapons. They have, however, succeeded in reducing nuclear potential. Alone and in concert, they have closed down or shrunk key weapons-production facilities and disposed of tons of weapons-useable nuclear material. The United States and Russia are accustomed to working together to solve tough proliferation problems. Cooperation in this area is vulnerable, though, when attention in both capitals swings to the latest dire crises, as it has today to the Iran nuclear program. Joint programs that are vital to reducing nuclear weapons potential begin to sink into the swamps of politics and bureaucracy. Two programs are in this fix today - one to dispose of weapons plutonium, the other to prevent more plutonium from being produced. In the 1990s, the United States and Russia agreed to cooperate on these tasks, vital to slashing their potential to produce new nuclear weapons. Today, Washington and Moscow are working together to shut down Russia's plutonium-production reactors. The United States is bearing a significant share of the cost of the project and is closely involved in design and construction. And both Russia and the United States are ramping up efforts to dispose of weapons plutonium.

Sadly, this new momentum may be stalling. The U.S. Congress has taken notice of past problems with the programs, and has decided to cut their funding for 2007. The Senate cut $206 million from the program to replace the plutonium reactors, saying that Russia with its oil wealth should now be able to contribute more for the program. The House of Representatives has cut funding from the program to destroy plutonium, arguing that the two countries can't even agree on the technical details of how to go about it, much less figure out how to pay for it all.

Both arguments have some truth to them, but they could not come at a worse time. If the United States and Russia lose their close cooperation on weapons plutonium, they will severely undermine the basis for their joint fight against nuclear proliferation.



Links of Interest:

" Iran says ready for serious nuclear talks from Aug. 23"
Islamic Republic News Agency, August 24, 2006

Javier SOLANA, EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), receives Iranian response to E3+3 offer
Statement from the homepage of Javier Solana
August 22, 2006

Statement by Gonzalo Gallegos, Acting Spokesman on "Iranian Response to the P5+1 Package,"
U.S. Department of State, Office of the Spokesperson
August 23, 2006

proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
September 5, 2006

Featured Content:
•"How to Keep the Bomb From Iran," Scott D. Sagan, Foreign Affairs

From the International Press:
•"Russia's Iran Policy: Constructive Engagement or Strategic Challenge?" Dr. Hannes Adomeit, Security & Terrorism published by the Gulf Research Center
•"Annan Faces Tough Tehran Tasks," BBC
•"US Move to Restart N Korea Talks," BBC
•"India, France to Step Up Strategic Partnership, Hindustan Times

New Book:
Shahram Chubin offers new insights on motivations, perceptions, and domestic politics in Iran in his new book, "Iran's Nuclear Ambitions" Click here for details.

Links of Interest:
IAEA Report by the Director General on Iran, 31 August 2006


Solana, Larijani Tentatively Agree to Meet in Vienna Over Nuclear Impasse
(Associated Press)

Monday, September 4
The EU's foreign policy chief and Iran's senior nuclear negotiator tentatively agreed to meet Wednesday in Vienna in a last-ditch attempt to try and bridge differences over Tehran's nuclear program, U.N. and European officials said.

With the meeting seen as the last chance for Iran to avoid U.N. sanctions, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan threw his weight behind a negotiated solution to the impasse, saying confrontation with the Security Council "will not be in Iran's favor or that of the region."

While word leaked last week that Iranian chief negotiator Ali Larijani had agreed to meet with top EU envoy Javier Solana to explore potential chances of solving the impasse, details of the talks are being officially kept secret in an apparent attempt not to jeopardize any chance of their success.


ProliferationNews.org
CarnegieEndowment.org
Iran Resources
South Asia Resources
Korea Resources
China Resources

How to Keep the Bomb From Iran
(Scott D. Sagan, Foreign Affairs)

September/October 2006
The ongoing crisis with Tehran is not the first time Washington has had to face a hostile government attempting to develop nuclear weapons. Nor is it likely to be the last. Yet the reasoning of U.S. officials now struggling to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions is clouded by a kind of historical amnesia, which leads to both creeping fatalism about the United States' ability to keep Iran from getting the bomb and excessive optimism about the United States' ability to contain Iran if it does become a nuclear power. Proliferation fatalism and deterrence optimism reinforce each other in a disturbing way. As nuclear proliferation comes to be seen as inevitable, wishful thinking can make its consequences seem less severe, and if faith in deterrence grows, incentives to combat proliferation diminish.




From the International Press:

Russia's Iran Policy: Constructive Engagement or Strategic Challenge?
(Dr. Hannes Adomeit, Security & Terrorism published by the Gulf Research Center)

Issue No. 3, July 2006
Iran’s nuclear programs and its putative ambition to build the atom bomb have produced what is generally considered to be at present the most dangerous international crisis. Russia, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, neighbour of Iran on the Caspian Sea, and main supplier of civilian nuclear technology as well as conventional weapons to that country, is regarded as having more influence than any other international actor in Tehran. Its proposal to form a joint venture for uranium enrichment on Russian soil in conjunction with the continuation of the IAEA’s inspection regime has been credited as conforming to American and European interests and, if adopted by Tehran, obviating the perceived need of economic sanctions or military intervention to stop a military nuclear program. Iran, however, thus far has rejected that proposal. That raises the question of what comes next in Russia’s policy towards Iran. Considering its adamant refusal in the Security Council to consent to sanctions against the Islamic republic, is it really safe to conclude that Moscow’s interests and policies in that region are congruent with those of the West? Or are the Kremlin’s perceptions of the Iranian problem quite different from those of the West? Finally, has it reconciled itself to the inevitability of a nuclear armed Iran and begun to adjust itself to that perceived future reality?



Annan Faces Tough Tehran Tasks
(Jonathan Marcus, BBC)

Saturday, September 2
For the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan all roads now lead to Tehran. Iran is after all a central player in two of the continuing dramas in the Middle East - the crisis in Lebanon and the continuing war of wills over Tehran's own nuclear programme. Iran is also a minor player in the crisis afflicting the Palestinians.

But more significantly Iran is the inspiration behind a rising tide of Shia self-confidence in the region. And as a would-be regional power in its own right, Tehran clearly believes that its moment has come. This is the broader context for the secretary general's trip.



US Move to Restart N Korea Talks
(BBC)

Tuesday, September 5
A top US envoy has arrived in the Chinese capital, Beijing, to discuss reviving stalled negotiations on North Korea's nuclear programme.

US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill has accused Pyongyang of boycotting multilateral talks on its nuclear ambitions.

He said he was unsure of reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was planning a simultaneous visit to China.



India, France to Step Up Strategic Partnership
(Hindustan Times)

Tuesday, september 5
India and France are to step up their strategic partnership to new levels through a slew of measures including joint production, co-production, transfer of technology and ready availability of spares, says Indian Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Mukherjee, who is on a three-day visit to France, was on Monday also briefed on a new French project to combat air terrorism.

"There is greater degree of convergence of views on most matters," Mukherjee told reporters in Paris on Monday night after an hour-long meeting with his French counterpart, Michele Alliot-Marie.

In his opening statement at the delegation level talks, Mukherjee said the full potential of Indo-French cooperation in the defence industries had not been fully exploited due to certain apprehensions about Paris' arms sales to China and Pakistan.



Nuclear Weapons Safeguarding Improved in Russia
(ITAR-TASS)

Tuesday, September 5
The Russian Defense Ministry will complete within two-three years the modernization of safeguarding systems of nuclear weapons facilities, the chief of the ministry’s 12th Directorate, Lieutenant-General Vladimir Verkhovtsev, said in an interview with the military daily Krasnaya Zvezda published on Tuesday.

“The directorate is in charge of running practically the whole reserve of nuclear ammunition that is turned over by the industry to the Defense Ministry”, and is one of the the most secret in the ministry.

Verkhovtsev said that “at present, guarding systems are being improved at nuclear weapons storage facilities”.



New Book:

Iran's Nuclear Ambitions

Iranian-born Shahram Chubin provides a rare look into the motivations, perceptions, and domestic politics swirling around Iran. He narrates the recent history of Iran’s nuclear program and diplomacy, and argues that the central problem is not nuclear technology but rather Iran’s behavior as a revolutionary state with ambitions that collide with the interests of its neighbors and the West.

“The strategic and political determinants of Iran’s nuclear policy are complicated and frequently misunderstood. Chubin’s study is the definitive work on the subject and should be required reading for US and European decision-makers as they struggle to prevent the Iranian bomb from becoming a reality.”
— Geoffrey Kemp, Director, Regional Strategic Programs, The Nixon Center

Shahram Chubin is director of studies at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. He has published widely in foreign affairs journals, including Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, and Survival.

To order this book, please click here.




Links of Interest:


IAEA Report by the Director General on Iran, 31 August 2006

proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
September 7, 2006

Featured Content:
•" Civilian Nuclear Cooperation," Op-Ed by Henry Sokolski, Weekly Standard
•"Iran Winning Turkish Hearts, Minds," Wall Street Journal

From the International Press:
•"Key Iran Talks 'Set for Saturday'," BBC
•"Downer Reassures Indonesia on Uranium,"The Age
•"Nakasone Proposes Japan Consider Nuclear Weapons,"Japan Times

New Book:
Shahram Chubin offers new insights on motivations, perceptions, and domestic politics in Iran in his new book, "Iran's Nuclear Ambitions" Click here for details.

Links of Interest:
IAEA Report by the Director General on Iran, 31 August 2006


Defining Iran's Nuclear Rights
(Carnegie Analysis, George Perkovich)

Thursday, September 7
Iranian officials and commentators have masterfully and incorrectly defined the crisis over Iran’s nuclear activities. Instead of being about Iran’s non-compliance with its safeguards obligations and subsequent refusal to answer key questions needed for the International Atomic Energy Agency to verify that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes, the story has become the United States’ bloody minded crusade to deny Iran its nuclear rights. This story needs to be corrected.

ProliferationNews.org
CarnegieEndowment.org
Iran Resources
South Asia Resources
Korea Resources
China Resources

Iran, like all countries, has a right to “develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes…
in conformity with Articles I and II of the Treaty” Under Article IV of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, Iran can expect international cooperation in exercising such rights.

However, there is no explicit right to possess uranium enrichment or plutonium separation technology, just as there is not a specific prohibition on possessing such technology. The rules to guide the international management of nuclear technology have evolved through negotiation and custom. In all cases, rights under the NPT are conditioned on the obligation “not to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons…; and not to seek or receive any assistance in the manufacture of nuclear weapons.” (Article II)

Note: This is the fifth contribution to discussion of American and Iranian experts on UN Resolution 1696. George Perkovich is the Vice President for Studies and Director for Non-Proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment. Please click here other analyses of this issue.



Civilian Nuclear Cooperation
(Henry Sokolski, Weekly Standard - Opinion)

Wednesday, September 6
Some people just can't take yes for an answer. A year ago, the White House proposed giving India civilian nuclear help in hopes of improving relations with New Delhi. That India had used earlier U.S. nuclear assistance to test a bomb in 1974 and then proceeded to test more weapons in 1998 was forgiven. On Capitol Hill, lawmakers went through the tedious task (over the loud objections of nonproliferation critics) of changing 30 years of U.S. laws so the White House could export sensitive nuclear goods to India. How has all this been greeted in New Delhi? With imperious contempt.

In a speech before India's parliament on August 17, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made it all too clear that India was not yet ready to accept America's liberality. U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation, he argued, was about getting rid of technology controls, rather than--as White House officials had been insisting--a way to strengthen nonproliferation. "The central imperative in our discussions with the United States," Singh said, "is to ensure the complete and irreversible removal of existing restrictions imposed on India through iniquitous restrictive trading regimes over the years."



Iran Winning Turkish Hearts, Minds
(Marc Champion, Wall Street Journal)

Wednesday, September 6
In the contest for hearts and minds around the Muslim world between Iran and the West, Iran appears to be winning even in Turkey, a member of Western military alliance NATO and the model secular Muslim democracy.

As Turkish legislators voted to send peacekeepers to Lebanon in the face of fierce domestic criticism that they would be doing the bidding of the U.S. and Israel against fellow Muslims, a survey from the German Marshall Fund of the United States indicated Iran has become one of the most popular countries among Turks, while feelings toward the U.S. and the European Union have chilled significantly.

Analysts said the survey findings were in line with growing pro-Iranian and anti-American sentiment across the Middle East and would have been more stark had the poll been taken after, rather than just before, the recent conflict in Lebanon and Israel.

"In the last few years since the Iraq war, this country has become more and more Middle Eastern," said Suat Kiniklioglu, Ankara office director of the German Marshall Fund. He added that the moderate Islamic government has worked hard to re-establish ties in the region, and that people in Turkey generally feel under growing pressure to choose between Islam and the West.

Turks also appear to be less worried about the threat of Iran building nuclear weapons. In the Marshall Fund survey, 35% of Turks said a nuclear-armed Iran was an extremely important threat, compared with 75% of Americans and about 60% of Europeans.



Italy's Prodi to Meet with Iran's Top Nuclear Negotiator
(Associated Press)

Thursday, September 7
Italian Premier Romano Prodi will meet with Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani on Friday, officials said, at a delicate time before planned talks with the EU over Iran's nuclear program.

Prodi and Larijani will probably discuss international opposition to Iran's nuclear program, as well as the crisis in Lebanon and Iran's role in the region, the premier's spokesman, Silvio Sircana, confirmed Thursday.

The move is in line with Italy's recent efforts to carve itself a front-line role in world affairs.

Italy's close ties with Iran, a main backer of Hezbollah, could give it leverage in negotiations on Lebanon. Italy is Tehran's leading trading partner in the EU with an exchange worth €4.7 billion (US$6 billion), according to Italy's institute for foreign trade.



From the International Press:

Key Iran Talks 'Set for Saturday'
(BBC)

Thursday, September 7
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana says his key nuclear talks with Iranian envoy Ali Larijani will now take place on Saturday, but he announced no venue.

Talks had been tentatively set for Wednesday in Vienna but Iranian envoys said they had been postponed for several days.

The talks follow Iran's refusal to meet a 31 August UN deadline to stop uranium enrichment, sparking sanctions calls.



Downer Reassures Indonesia on Uranium
(Age)

Monday, September 4
Australia is not promoting an arms race with Indonesia by talking up the prospects for enriching uranium, foreign minister Alexander Downer says.

Mr Downer also reiterated that enriched uranium, if produced in future by Australia, would "absolutely" never be used in nuclear weapons.

Doctor Dewi Anwar, an adviser to former Indonesian president BJ Habibi, told Radio National that Australia had to reassure its neighbours it did not wish to acquire nuclear weapons.

She said Indonesia would "probably be concerned about Australia doing uranium enrichment until we get more details of it" but said her country could consider uranium enrichment itself.



Nakasone Proposes Japan Consider Nuclear Weapons
(Japan Times)

Wednesday, September 6
Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone said Tuesday that Japan needs to consider developing nuclear weapons, taking into account the presence of nearby nuclear states and the uncertain future of the alliance with the United States.

"There is a need to also study the issue of nuclear weapons," Nakasone said during a news conference to release a report by the Institute for International Policy Studies, an independent research institute he chairs, that proposes considering the nuclear option.

"There are countries with nuclear weapons in Japan's vicinity," he said. "We are currently dependent on U.S. nuclear weapons (as a deterrent), but it is not necessarily known whether the U.S. attitude will continue."

Nakasone conceded that the nuclear option should come after the country makes efforts to reinforce the global nonproliferation regime, saying, "The first priority is to keep being a nuclear-free state, and the second is to reinforce the system under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty."




New Book:

Iran's Nuclear Ambitions

Iranian-born Shahram Chubin provides a rare look into the motivations, perceptions, and domestic politics swirling around Iran. He narrates the recent history of Iran’s nuclear program and diplomacy, and argues that the central problem is not nuclear technology but rather Iran’s behavior as a revolutionary state with ambitions that collide with the interests of its neighbors and the West.

“The strategic and political determinants of Iran’s nuclear policy are complicated and frequently misunderstood. Chubin’s study is the definitive work on the subject and should be required reading for US and European decision-makers as they struggle to prevent the Iranian bomb from becoming a reality.”
— Geoffrey Kemp, Director, Regional Strategic Programs, The Nixon Center

Shahram Chubin is director of studies at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. He has published widely in foreign affairs journals, including Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, and Survival.

To order this book, please click here.




Links of Interest:


IAEA Report by the Director General on Iran, 31 August 2006
proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

September 12, 2006

As Iran's nuclear program continues to loom large among international threats, Carnegie is pleased to announce two important new books. Iran's Nuclear Ambitions by Shahram Chubin provides a trenchant treatment of how Iran's domestic dynamics, regional interests, and worldview shape the country's decision making regarding nuclear technology — it is a model blend of historical knowledge, contemporary analysis, and policy prescription. In Beyond Nuclear Deterrence, two of Russia's most thoughtful and widely respected security specialists, Alexei Arbatov and Vladimir Dvorkin, argue for a transformation of traditional deterrence to fit today's conditions.

Jessica T. Mathews, President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace


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Advance Praise for Iran's Nuclear Ambitions:

“The strategic and political determinants of Iran's nuclear policy are complicated and frequently misunderstood. Chubin's study is the definitive work on the subject and should be required reading for US and European decision-makers as they struggle to prevent the Iranian bomb from becoming a reality.”

—Geoffrey Kemp, Director, Regional Strategic Programs, The Nixon Center



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From the Foreword of Beyond Nuclear Deterrence:

"In this book, two of Russia’s most thoughtful and most widely respected security specialists argue for more extensive security accommodation between their country and the United States, beginning with a transformation of the legacy deterrent relationship. One can at least hope that common sense presented as lucidly and as judiciously as it is in this book...has some decent chance of prevailing in due course."

—John D. Steinbruner
Director, Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland



New Carnegie Books on Nuclear Security

Iran's Nuclear Ambitions
By Shahram Chubin

Iranian-born security expert Shahram Chubin provides a rare look into the motivations, perceptions, and domestic politics swirling around Iran in its quest for nuclear technology. He narrates the recent history of Iran's nuclear program and diplomacy, and argues that the central problem is not nuclear technology per se, but rather Iran's behavior as a revolutionary state with ambitions that collide with the interests of its neighbors and the West.


Visit www.CarnegieEndowment.org/IransNuclearAmbitions for more information.

Order Now!


About the Author
Shahram Chubin is director of studies at the Geneva Center for Security Policy in Switzerland where he is a specialist in international security issues relating to the Middle East and especially the Persian Gulf and Iran.


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Beyond Nuclear Deterrence: Transforming the U.S.-Russian Equation
By Alexei Arbatov, Vladimir Dvorkin

Alexei Arbatov and Vladimir Dvorkin critically assess the history of deterrence as it emerged between the Soviet Union and the U.S. and evolved through the Cold War to include an expanding nuclear club. The authors argue that while deterrence as a concept has always been paradoxical, it is poorly equipped to handle today's most significant nuclear challenges: proliferation and terrorism. Nuclear arms control must move beyond the deadlock of deterrence. The U.S. and Russia need to take the first bilateral steps to remove mutual nuclear deterrence as the foundation of their strategic relationship and implement changes that can be exported internationally.

Visit www.CarnegieEndowment.org/BeyondNuclearDeterrence for more information.

Order Now!


About the Authors
Alexei Arbatov is Scholar-in-Residence and Program Co-chair of Nuclear Nonproliferation at the Carnegie Moscow Center and head of the Center for International Security at the Institute for International Economy and International Relationships of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Vladimir Dvorkin is a senior researcher at the Center for International Security at the Institute for World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences and former director of the Fourth Central Research Institute in Moscow.

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington DC 20036-2103
Phone: 202.483.7600 | Fax: 202.483.1840 | Email: webmaster@carnegieendowment.org

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
September 12, 2006

SAVE THE DATE: 2007 Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference to be held April 30 – May 1, 2007 in Washington, DC. Details to come.
Featured Content:
•"Iran's Response to the EU: Confused but Sporadically Hopeful,"
(David Albright and Jacqueline Shire, Institute for Science and International Security)

From the International Press:
•"Nuclear Saber Rattling," Korea Times
•"US Warns N Korea on Nuclear Test," BBC
•"Nuke Plans Concern UAE," Gulf News

Links of Interest:
Iran's Response to Package Presented on June 6, 2006 (Courtesy of ISIS website) August 22, 2006
IAEA Report by the Director General on Iran, 31 August 2006


Brief Nuclear Halt May Lead To Talks With Iran
(Glenn Kessler and Dafna Linzer, Washington Post)

Tuesday, September 12
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signaled yesterday that a temporary suspension of Iran's nuclear programs might be enough to pave the way for the first direct negotiations involving the United States and Iran in more than a quarter-century.

Speaking to reporters as she flew to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Rice said Iran needs to suspend uranium-enrichment activities before talks can begin, but she did not rule out something less than a permanent suspension. In talks over the weekend between Iranian and European officials, the chief Iranian negotiator offered a two-month freeze at the start of the talks.

"The point is, there would have to be a suspension," Rice said when asked about Iran's proposal. "If there is a suspension, we can have discussions, but there has to be a suspension. As far as I know, the Iranians have not yet said that they would suspend prior to negotiations."

ProliferationNews.org
CarnegieEndowment.org
Iran Resources
South Asia Resources
Korea Resources
China Resources

Iran's Response to the EU: Confused but Sporadically Hopeful
(David Albright and Jacqueline Shire, Institute for Science and International Security)

Monday, September 11
ISIS recently obtained a copy of Iran’s response to the EU package; this is the document that Ali
Larijani, Iran’s senior nuclear negotiator, delivered on August 22 in Tehran to diplomatic
representatives of Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and the United States. Over the
weekend, the Associate Press reported that Larijani floated the possibility that Iran would
suspend voluntarily its enrichment activities for “one or two months.” ISIS is making this
document public in light of Larijani’s announcement and this week’s meeting of the IAEA Board
of Governors at which Iran’s nuclear program is under discussion.

Note: The document obtained by ISIS bears a watermark on every page, apparently
placed there by Iranian translators, which states “do not douplicate” (sic). Because
legibility was poor, even without the watermark, ISIS has reproduced the document,
taking care to be as close as possible to the original.

The 20 plus page response to the EU’s June 6 package bears all the scars of drafting by
committee or a contentious interagency clearance process—it is repetitive, rambling, and lacking
a coherent argument. Wading through the document, replete with references to Iran’s desire for
“ mutual respect and understanding,” a few signposts appear that recall the core issues around
which this dispute centers. The good news: Iran appears willing to adhere voluntarily to the
Additional Protocol, provided that the UN Security Council sets aside the nuclear issue, and Iran
is at least open to negotiating the status of its enrichment program. Buried on top of these
important openings, however, are at least a few non-starters, most important that the IAEA
effectively close the book on Iran’s nuclear activities if it is unable to find evidence of a nuclear
weapons program. This reflects a fundamentally flawed understanding of the IAEA’s role in the
safeguards process.




From the International Press:

Nuclear Saber Rattling
(Korea Times - Editorial)

Tuesday, September 12
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il once again showed his determination to carry out nuclear tests in a recent meeting with Chinese and Russian diplomats residing in Pyongyang. According to a report Sunday by the Daily Telegraph, a British daily, Kim told the diplomats that North Korea will officially join the nuclear club by carrying out its first underground test of an atomic device. The report makes us feel that it is only a matter of time before the North conducts the test.

The remark about the underground test reminds us of the unusual seismic wave monitored last month in the North that we concluded was the result of minor explosion unrelated to nuclear test. We now think, however, that it might have related to nuclear test preparation. Kim made the nuclear threat in the course of complaining about the financial sanctions imposed last year by the U.S., according to the report. It is difficult to understand why Kim made such offensive remarks as Korea-U.S. summit talks draw near.

Pyongyang may intend to use its nuclear card as a bargaining chip to force Washington into bilateral talks, but the U.S. has repeatedly made clear its determination to meet the North only within the framework of the six-party talks. The test, if carried out, will alienate North Korea even from staunch allies China and Russia, which were angered by its missile tests last July. It is almost certain that a nuclear test by Pyongyang will push the U.S. to strengthen its economic sanctions and consider military options.



US Warns N Korea on Nuclear Test
(BBC)

Monday, September 11
A senior US diplomat has warned North Korea against a nuclear test, saying that it would be a provocative act. Nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill made the comments in Shanghai at the end of a six-day visit to China.

He also said North Korea would receive no further incentives to return to multilateral talks on its nuclear ambitions.

Mr Hill now flies to South Korea amid talks of a split between Washington and Seoul on how to handle Pyongyang. Last week, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun appeared to soften his stance, calling Pyongyang's recent missile tests "too meagre" to reach the US and "too big" to target South Korea.



Nuke Plans Concern UAE
(Samir Salama, Gulf News)

September 11, 2006
The UAE and France on Sunday reiterated their concern over the Iranian nuclear programme, calling for negotiations to resolve the issue.

"The Iranians should understand that countries and people of the Gulf region have real concern over the Iranian nuclear programme," Shaikh Abd-ullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Foreign Minister, said yesterday.

Shaikh Abdullah, who was speaking in a joint press conference with the French Foreign Minister Philip Douste-Blazy, added although "we in the Gulf have positive opinion of Iran's intentions to seek peaceful nuclear energy, we still need guarantees and assurances in absolute transparency.

"Anything less than these guarantees will raise doubts of Iran's friends and neighbours in the region," Shaikh Abdullah said.



New Book:

Iran's Nuclear Ambitions

Iranian-born Shahram Chubin provides a rare look into the motivations, perceptions, and domestic politics swirling around Iran. He narrates the recent history of Iran’s nuclear program and diplomacy, and argues that the central problem is not nuclear technology but rather Iran’s behavior as a revolutionary state with ambitions that collide with the interests of its neighbors and the West.

“The strategic and political determinants of Iran’s nuclear policy are complicated and frequently misunderstood. Chubin’s study is the definitive work on the subject and should be required reading for US and European decision-makers as they struggle to prevent the Iranian bomb from becoming a reality.”
— Geoffrey Kemp, Director, Regional Strategic Programs, The Nixon Center

Shahram Chubin is director of studies at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. He has published widely in foreign affairs journals, including Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, and Survival.

To order this book, please click here.




Links of Interest:
Iran's Response to Package Presented on June 6, 2006 (Courtesy of ISIS website) August 22, 2006

IAEA Report by the Director General on Iran, 31 August 2006

proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
September 14, 2006

SAVE THE DATE: Join us for the 2007 Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference taking place from April 30 – May 1, 2007 in Washington, DC. Details to come.
Featured Content:
•"Differences on N. Korea Overhang Bush - Roh Talks," Reuters
•"Don't Lose Seoul, America," Op-Ed by G. John Ikenberry and Mitchell B. Reiss, Los Angeles Times
•"Lining Up to Enrich Uranium," Op-Ed by Charles D. Ferguson and William C. Potter, International Herald Tribune

From the International Press:
•"Iranian Nuclear Issue Putting the Region, Global Peace at Risk," Op-Ed by Anak Agung Banyu Perwita," Op-Ed by Anak Agung Banyu Perwita, Jakarta Post

Links of Interest:
Recognizing Iran as a Strategic Threat: An Intelligence Challenge for the United States, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, U.S. House of Representatives, August 23, 2006
Iran's Response to Package Presented on June 6, 2006 (Courtesy of ISIS website) August 22, 2006
IAEA Report by the Director General on Iran, 31 August 2006


U.N. Inspectors Dispute Iran Report By House Panel
(Dafna Linzer, Washington Post)

Thursday, September 14
U.N. inspectors investigating Iran's nuclear program angrily complained to the Bush administration and to a Republican congressman yesterday about a recent House committee report on Iran's capabilities, calling parts of the document "outrageous and dishonest" and offering evidence to refute its central claims.

Officials of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency said in a letter that the report contained some "erroneous, misleading and unsubstantiated statements." The letter, signed by a senior director at the agency, was addressed to Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, which issued the report. A copy was hand-delivered to Gregory L. Schulte, the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA in Vienna.

The IAEA openly clashed with the Bush administration on pre-war assessments of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Relations all but collapsed when the agency revealed that the White House had based some allegations about an Iraqi nuclear program on forged documents.

ProliferationNews.org
CarnegieEndowment.org
Iran Resources
South Asia Resources
Korea Resources
China Resources

Differences on N. Korea Overhang Bush - Roh Talks
(Reuters)

Thursday, September 14
President Bush meets South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun on Thursday with differences over how to deal with North Korea overhanging their summit and testing relations between the two allies.

Though the two leaders are likely to paper over any rift, they often have been at odds over how much pressure to put on North Korea, which defied international warnings by test-firing seven missiles in July and may be preparing a nuclear test.

U.S. and South Korean officials insist they share the goal of pushing North Korea back to stalled six-party talks aimed at reining in its nuclear program. But they differ on the method.
The Bush administration has sought international backing for possible U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang, while Roh's government prefers a softer approach and has warned against moves that could back North Korea into a corner.

Visiting Washington to smooth the way for Roh's White House talks, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon voiced hope the leaders would discuss a ``more common, comprehensive approach to make a breakthrough'' on the North Korea issue.



Don't Lose Seoul, America
(G. John Ikenberry and Mitchell B. Reiss, Los Angeles Times - Opinion)

Wednesday, September 13
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun arrives in Washington on Thursday for meetings with President Bush at a time of great tension and increasing uncertainty in their nations' alliance. The persistent source of friction is fundamentally different approaches toward North Korea generally and its nuclear weapons program in particular. South Koreans see their northern cousins as more to be pitied than feared. The South's "peace and prosperity" policy of engaging the North is predicated on postponing reunification of the two Koreas until far into the future, a view shared by all the other countries in the region. Meanwhile, Seoul prefers to tease the North out of its isolation, tame its belligerent ways and gradually introduce market economics to raise up a destitute population.

Washington sees this approach as underwriting an evil regime that brutalizes its own people and continues to threaten its neighbors. The Bush administration believes that regime change, preferably sooner rather than later, is the only way to bring true peace and prosperity to the Korean peninsula. In its view, the North's recent test-firing of seven ballistic missiles was just the latest indication that Seoul's engagement policy has failed to curb Pyongyang's behavior and make the region safer.

Other issues also cloud the relationship, including friction concerning a free trade agreement, a reconfiguration of the roles and missions of the U.S. military in South Korea and the perceived lack of American appreciation for South Korea's significant contribution of troops to Iraq. Moreover, a self-confident new generation of South Koreans doesn't recall the shared sacrifices of the Korean War and doesn't reflexively defer to the United States. The alliance is in worse shape today than only a few years ago. We think the value of the U.S.-South Korean alliance is more important than differences about how to deal with North Korea. For the time being, Bush and Roh should agree to disagree on North Korea and move onward.



Lining Up to Enrich Uranium
(Charles D. Ferguson and William C. Potter, International Herald Tribune - Opinion)

Tuesday, September 12
Never underestimate the potential for erratic policy when economic and political interests collide, even when the policy involves preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

This happened last month when, in rapid succession, Argentina, Australia and South Africa joined a growing list of countries interested in enriching uranium for commercial purposes.

That is the same activity that Iran claims as its inalienable right, and that the United States, the European Union, Russia and China insist must be halted in the interest of nonproliferation.




From the International Press:


Iranian Nuclear Issue Putting the Region, Global Peace at Risk
(Anak Agung Banyu Perwita, Jakarta Post - Opinion)

Thursday, September 14
Many analysts believe the Iran nuclear issue will become one of the crucial issues in international security in 2006. Many analysts even believe that Iran has had the capability to produce weapons mass destruction. Of course this issue has raised many questions. What role can the Muslim world and particularly Indonesia play in helping seek a solution to the Iranian nuclear issue?

In the Muslim world, Iran's hard-line stance has received mixed support. Many leaders of Arab countries are concerned over Iran's rising power and influence while many Muslims across the globe support Iran's position against the United States.

As the biggest Muslim country in the world with close relations with Iran, the Indonesian government has made efforts to seek a peaceful solution to the Iranian crisis. Indonesia needs to campaign for the importance of efforts to avoid open conflict that could harm global peace as part of the constructive approach in dealing with the issue.

The Indonesian government has also expressed a clear position on the Iranian nuclear issue, saying that Iran should have the right to utilize nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, and that Iran's nuclear program should remain in the corridor of peace. However, Indonesia should also emphasize the need for Iran to abide by all provisions set by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).



Paranoia and Provocation in Pyongyang
(Simon Tisdall, Guardian)

Thursday, September 14
North Korea's political paranoia spilled into the open this week when the isolated regime accused the Bush administration of plotting a nuclear strike. The state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper said a "sub-critical" underground nuclear test in Nevada last month was part of Washington's efforts to develop new, offensive atomic weapons. "The US is perfecting a nuclear war plan after listing our and other countries as targets for its pre-emptive nuclear attack," it said.

An US assault is not remotely on the cards, but North Korea's clamour reflects more than its leadership's persecution complex. In Seoul the claim was read as possible evidence that the North is preparing to justify an imminent nuclear weapons test of its own. South Korean officials have warned that Pyongyang could conduct a test, or repeat July's destabilising Sea of Japan missile launches, at any time. Not coincidentally, President Roh Moo-hyun was in Washingtonon Thursday arguing for a more "flexible" US line.

Concern about North Korea's intentions is ratcheting up again across the region. Pyongyang escaped binding sanctions proposed by Japan after the July launches when China diluted a condemnatory UN resolution. But it failed in its apparent aim of scaring the US into relaxing financial sanctions or offering improved, Iran-style incentives for good behaviour. Now analysts suggest it may be about to try again.




Links of Interest:
Recognizing Iran as a Strategic Threat: An Intelligence Challenge for the United States
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, U.S. House of Representatives, August 23, 2006

Iran's Response to Package Presented on June 6, 2006 (Courtesy of ISIS website) August 22, 2006

IAEA Report by the Director General on Iran, 31 August 2006

proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
September 19, 2006

SAVE THE DATE: Join us for the 2007 Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference taking place from April 30 – May 1, 2007 in Washington, DC. Details to come.
Featured Content:
•"Iran’s Freeze on Enrichment Could Wait, France Suggests," New York Times
•"A New Middle East," Analysis by Robert Malley, New York Review of Books
•"Anxiety Chipping Away at Japan's Nuclear Taboo," San Jose Mercury News

From the International Press:
•"'Indo-US Nuke Deal Should Abide by NPT Rules'," Times of India

Links of Interest:
Streaming Video from C-SPAN.org: Bush Addresses United Nations, September 19, 2006


Europeans Trying to Grease Wheels for U.S. Talks With Iran
(Dafna Linzer, Washington Post)

Monday, September 18
European efforts to get Iran and the United States around the same negotiating table are at an advanced yet sensitive stage, with a small number of remaining differences to be tackled this week when world leaders gather at the United Nations, according to several American, Iranian and European officials involved.

President Bush plans to make Iran a centerpiece of his speech Tuesday before the U.N. General Assembly, explaining to the annual meeting of presidents and prime ministers why he regards the Tehran government as a grave threat yet is willing to support negotiations to ease those concerns.

For four years, Bush has sought, without success, to roll back an Iranian nuclear energy program that perhaps could be diverted for bombmaking. While many of his allies share suspicions of a secret Iranian effort, they have also been wary of supporting a U.S. president who has invaded two countries in the past five years and who has said that "all options are on the table" for Iran.


Iran’s Freeze on Enrichment Could Wait, France Suggests
(Elaine Sciolino, New York Times)

Tuesday, September 19
In an effort to jump-start formal negotiations between six world powers and Iran over its nuclear program, President Jacques Chirac of France suggested Monday that Iran would not have to freeze major nuclear activities until the talks began.

Over the years, Mr. Chirac has consistently taken an extremely hard line against Iran both in public and private. But his remarks in a radio interview could be interpreted as a concession to Iran, whose officials have said they will not suspend their production of enriched uranium as demanded by the United Nations Security Council.

“Iran and the six countries together, we must first find an agenda for negotiations, then start a negotiation,” Mr. Chirac told Europe 1 radio. “During this negotiation I propose that on the one hand, the six refrain from referring the issue to the Security Council, and that Iran refrain from uranium enrichment during the duration of the negotiation.”



A New Middle East
(Robert Malley, New York Review of Books)

Editor's Note: The following article does not explicitly deal with nuclear weapons. However, this analysis provides a useful context for understanding the Iranian nuclear crisis.

On June 25, members of three militant Palestinian organizations, including the governing Hamas, attacked an Israeli military base, killing two soldiers and seizing a third. On July 12, militants from the Lebanese Hezbollah crossed into Israel, captured two soldiers, and killed three others. When Israeli troops pursued them into Lebanese territory, Hezbollah hit again, killing five more.

Israel reacted similarly in both instances. It rejected any negotiation or prisoner exchange and unleashed large-scale attacks designed to assert its military might, subdue the militant organizations, and erode their rocket-launching capacity. In one case it hoped to accelerate the collapse of Hamas's government; in the other to force Hezbollah to disarm. At this writing, none of the abducted soldiers have been released. Hamas remains in power and Fatah, which Israelis hoped would replace it, remains in shambles.



Egyptian President's Son Proposes Developing Nuclear Energy
(Associated Press)

Tuesday, September 19
The son of Egypt's president urged his father's party on Tuesday to consider a proposal to develop nuclear energy, taking a controversial stance as he seeks to position himself regionally as a serious politician.

Gamal Mubarak, who addressed delegates of the country's ruling party in which he holds a post, has repeatedly denied speculation that he wants to succeed his father, President Hosni Mubarak.

His suggestion came as the impasse between the international community and Iran continues over its defiance of a U.N. demand that it halt uranium enrichment.

" We will continue using our natural energy resources, but we should conserve these resources for our future generations. The whole world is looking at alternative energy — so should Egypt — including nuclear," Gamal Mubarak told party members gathered in Cairo.



Anxiety Chipping Away at Japan's Nuclear Taboo
(Mercury News)

Monday, September 18
A few weeks ago, a former prime minister said the once-unspeakable, suggesting that it may be time for Japan to study whether to acquire nuclear weapons. The remark caused barely a ripple.

As the only nation devastated by nuclear weapons, Japan has long held to pacifism. There's been virtually no public debate about whether the country needed nuclear weapons, although they're well within its technological grasp.

But a combination of factors - including the nuclear threat from North Korea, the rise of China, the ebbing of once-strong peace movements and Japan's rightward drift - have chipped away at old taboos.



Iran Debate Echoes Prelude to Iraq
(Warren P. Strobel and John Walcott, Miami Herald)

Monday, September 18
In an echo of the intelligence wars that preceded the U.S. invasion of Iraq, a high-stakes struggle is brewing within the Bush administration and in Congress over Iran's suspected nuclear-weapons program and involvement in terrorism.

U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials say Bush political appointees and hard-liners on Capitol Hill have tried to portray Iran's nuclear program as more advanced than it is and to exaggerate Tehran's role in Hezbollah's attack on Israel in mid-July.

The struggle's outcome could have profound implications for U.S. policy.

Even officials and countries that were skeptical about Iraq agree that Iran is probably seeking a nuclear weapon. And there is widespread consensus that Tehran is the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism in the world.

But there are sharp differences over Iran's capabilities and actions.




From the International Press:


'Indo-US Nuke Deal Should Abide by NPT Rules'
(Times of India)

Tuesday, September 19
Reluctant to back the historic Indo-US civilian nuclear deal, China on Tuesday asked the two countries to abide by rules of the non-proliferation regime and fulfil their international obligations.

All countries can conduct cooperation on the peaceful use of nuclear energy on the premise of honouring their commitment to the international obligations, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang, said, when asked to comment on Beijing's stance on the Indo-US deal.

China believes international nuclear cooperation can be carried out on a basis of peaceful use, Qin said.

Cooperation in the nuclear sector should be conducive to the international efforts of non-proliferation and the concerned sides should fulfil their international obligations, he added.




Links of Interest:

Streaming Video from C-SPAN: Bush Addresses United Nations, September 19, 2006

proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
September 21, 2006

SAVE THE DATE: Join us for the 2007 Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference taking place from April 30 – May 1, 2007 in Washington, DC. Details to come.
Featured Content:
•"Japan's Drift From Pacifism," Op-Ed by Mike Mochizuki, Los Angeles Times
•"Mubarak’s Son Proposes Nuclear Program," New York Times
•"Leaders Spar Over Iran’s Aims and U.S. Power," New York Times
•"Security Is Vital in US-India Nuke Deal," Op-Ed by Charles D. Ferguson, Christian Science Monitor

From the International Press:
•"Brazil, South Africa Boost India's Quest for Civil N-energy," New Kerala

Links of Interest:
•Bush Addresses United Nations, Transcript from CNN.com, September 19, 2006
•Ahmadinejad Addresses United Nations, Transcript from NPR.org, September 19, 2006


Early October New Deadline for Iran
(Glenn Kessler, Washington Post)

Thursday, September 21
With Iran still resisting a freeze on its nuclear activities, the United States and five partners have decided to set yet another deadline in hopes that Iran will finally agree to terms paving the way for substantive talks on its nuclear program.

Under the plan, reached by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her counterparts from five other nations over a late-night dinner Tuesday, Iran will have until early October to agree to suspend its nuclear activities as the negotiations take place, diplomats said. At the meeting, Rice backed off the U.S. demand that the U.N. Security Council begin imposing sanctions over Iran's failure to meet previous deadlines, but noted that there is intense interest in the issue on Capitol Hill.

ProliferationNews.org
CarnegieEndowment.org
Iran Resources
South Asia Resources
Korea Resources
China Resources

Japan's Drift From Pacifism
(Mike Mochizuki, Los Angeles Times - Opinion)

Thursday, September 21
Shinzo Abe, who is virtually certain to be named Japanese prime minister next week, has said he will push to revise Japan's constitution, including Article 9, by which the Japanese people renounce the right to make war. Is this the beginning of the end of Japan's unprecedented 60-year experiment in pacifism?

In the last 15 years, Japan has been chipping away at its pacifism, which was a hallmark of the constitution the United States imposed on it after World War II.

In truth, Japan's pacifism has always been pragmatic. It has reserved the right to defend itself and has developed one of the world's most modern defense forces, and it has a crucial treaty alliance with the United States. While Japan's Self-Defense Forces may not help defend the U.S., it hosts and subsidizes U.S. forces and bases on its crowded archipelago.

The Japanese government since the 1950s also has been careful never to rule out its constitutional right to possess nuclear forces or to retaliate against missile attacks. What has made Japan's defense policy "pacifistic" are the three conditions it requires before it can use force: an imminent and illegitimate act of aggression against Japan; no appropriate means to deal with this aggression other than self-defense; and the use of armed strength confined to what is minimally necessary. The last condition has prohibited Japan from acquiring offensive military capabilities.



Mubarak’s Son Proposes Nuclear Program
(Michael Slackman and Mona El-Naggar, New York Times)

Wednesday, September 20
Gamal Mubarak, the son of Egypt’s president, proposed Tuesday that his country pursue nuclear energy, drawing strong applause from the nation’s political elite, while raising expectations that Mr. Mubarak is being positioned to replace his father as president.

The carefully crafted political speech raised the prospect of two potentially embarrassing developments for the White House at a time when the region is awash in crisis: a nuclear program in Egypt, recipient of about $2 billion a year in military and development aid from the United States, and Mr. Mubarak succeeding his father, Hosni Mubarak, as president without substantial political challenge.

Simply raising the topic of Egypt’s nuclear ambitions at a time of heightened tensions over Iran’s nuclear activity was received as a calculated effort to raise the younger Mr. Mubarak’s profile and to build public support through a show of defiance toward Washington, political analysts and foreign affairs experts said.



U.S. Could Cooperate with Egypt on Nuclear Energy: Envoy
(Reuters)

Thursday, September 21
The United States could cooperate with Egypt if it decides to develop nuclear energy, the U.S. ambassador to Cairo said on Thursday.

Gamal Mubarak, son of the president and a ruling party official, said this week Egypt should consider exploiting nuclear power as a new source of energy. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone said Washington would have no problem with this.

Ricciardone said there could be no comparison between the peaceful use of nuclear technology by Egypt and Iran which the U.N. Security Council has ordered to suspend uranium enrichment.



Leaders Spar Over Iran’s Aims and U.S. Power
(Jim Rutenberg and Helene Cooper, New York Times)

Wednesday, September 20
President Bush and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, separated by several hours and oceans of perspective, clashed at the United Nations on Tuesday over Iran’s nuclear ambitions and each other’s place in the world.

The two leaders bookended a long day of speeches at the opening of the General Assembly, but seemed to speak past each other as European and American diplomats continued the delicate work of setting terms for talks with Iran over its uranium enrichment program.

[Iranian President Ahmadinejad] He said that his nation was pursuing only a peaceful nuclear program, and that it was the United States that was using its nuclear weapons to intimidate the world. He said repeatedly that the United Nations Security Council was too beholden to the United States to control it.

Speaking in the morning, Mr. Bush made a direct appeal to the Iranian people from the United Nations, telling them their leaders were misleading them about the United States’ intentions while using their national treasury to sponsor terrorists and build nuclear weapons.



Security Is Vital in US-India Nuke Deal
(Charles D. Ferguson, Christian Science Monitor - Opinion)

Tuesday, September 19
The US-India nuclear deal has stirred controversy within the US Congress and the Indian Parliament. The deal could ultimately improve and deepen relations between the world's oldest and largest democracies. But it has focused concern on the potential for sparking nuclear war or an arms race in South Asia, and little or no attention has been paid to how the deal's implementation might increase the threats of terrorism and military attack against Indian nuclear facilities.

These threats could grow in three ways. First, the deal can facilitate a substantial expansion of India's plutonium stockpile in the civilian and military sectors. Plutonium, a toxic and fissile material, could, in the hands of skilled terrorists, fuel improvised nuclear devices - crude but devastating nuclear bombs - or radiological dispersal devices, one type of which is popularly called a "dirty bomb."

Second, the deal can spur expansion of India's civilian nuclear facilities, increasing the number of targets for terrorist or military attacks. Third, the deal brings India into much closer alignment with the United States. This alliance has already stirred animosity toward India from Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda. Moreover, closer Indo-American relations could also breed resentment in Pakistan and result in a more vulnerable India, especially in armed conflict involving the subcontinent's nuclear rivals.


From the International Press:


Brazil, South Africa Boost India's Quest for Civil N-energy
(New Kerala)

Thursday, September 14
India's quest for civil nuclear energy got a major boost with two key members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (LSG) Brazil and South Africa expressing readiness to have cooperation in this area with New Delhi.

Brazil, current chair of the 45-member NSG, and South Africa, voiced support for "inalienable right of all states to the peaceful application of nuclear energy consistent with their international legal obligations".

Expressing satisfaction over the outcome of the first-ever Summit of India-Brazil-South Africa, officials said the support by Brazil and South Africa is significant. It comes amid efforts by New Delhi to muster support in NSG for the Indo-US civil nuclear deal which is required to get endorsement from the 45-nation group to allow international community to have nuclear trade with India.




Links of Interest:

Bush Addresses United Nations, Transcript from CNN.com, September 19, 2006

Ahmadinejad Addresses United Nations, Transcript from NPR.org, September 19, 2006

proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
September 26, 2006

SAVE THE DATE: Join us for the 2007 Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference taking place from April 30 – May 1, 2007 in Washington, DC. Details to come.
Featured Content:
•"In Book, Musharraf Expands on North Korean Nuclear Link," New York Times
•"Report: Russian Fuel Going to Iran Plant," Associated Press
•"North Korea's Strike Range Cast in Doubt," Los Angeles Times

From the International Press:
•"Olmert Unfazed by Egypt's Plans to Build Nuclear Plants," Jerusalem Post
•"Concern Over Middle East Nuclear Plans," BBC
•"West Blocks Arab Bid to Rap Israel Over Nuclear Issue at IAEA Meeting," Reuters

Links of Interest:
"A.Q. Khan Nuclear Chronology," by Michael Laufer, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 2005


US Offers NKorea New Concession in Bid to Restart Nuclear Talks
(Forbes)

Tuesday, September 26
The United States is willing to hold a bilateral meeting with North Korea even before six-nation nuclear disarmament talks resume, in a concession aimed at restarting the stalled dialogue, US ambassador to South Korea Alexander Vershbow said.

A one-on-one meeting could take place if the North were to make a commitment to return to the multinational forum on scrapping its nuclear programme, Vershbow told lawmakers from South Korea's ruling party.

Washington's position previously was that the North had to actually return to the six-nation talks before any bilateral meeting.

ProliferationNews.org
CarnegieEndowment.org
Iran Resources
South Asia Resources
Korea Resources
China Resources

In Book, Musharraf Expands on North Korean Nuclear Link
(David E. Sanger, New York Times)

Tuesday, September 2006
President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan wrote in a memoir published Monday that he now believes that the equipment sent to North Korea several years ago by Pakistan’s nuclear chief included some of Pakistan’s most technologically advanced nuclear centrifuges.

The assertion deepened the mystery about how much progress North Korea has made in what is often called its second, and very secret, nuclear program.

Mr. Musharraf has been promoting the new book, “In the Line of Fire” (Free Press), everywhere from the East Room of the White House to appearances on the morning talk shows.

In it, he says for the first time that his suspicions about the activities of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear engineer who build an illicit nuclear network that also supplied Iran and Libya, dated from 1999.



Report: Russian Fuel Going to Iran Plant
(Mike Eckel, Associated Press)

Tuesday, September 26
Russia will ship fuel to a controversial atomic power plant it is building in Iran by March under a deal signed Tuesday, news agencies reported, as Tehran's nuclear chief met with a Russian security officer at the Kremlin.

The agreement signed by Sergei Shmatko, head of the state-run company Atomstroiexport, and Mahmoud Hanatian, vice president of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, should allay Iran's complaints that Moscow is dragging its feet on supplying fuel for the Bushehr plant.

It will also renew concerns by the West, which accuses Tehran of seeking to enrich uranium in order to build nuclear weapons.



North Korea's Strike Range Cast in Doubt
(Peter Spiegel, Los Angeles Times)

Saturday, September 23
The admiral in charge of American forces in Asia said Friday that he believes North Korea has no missile capable of reaching long distances and is unlikely to have one "for a while."

Navy Adm. William J. Fallon, the military's top officer in the Pacific, said that although the U.S. has limited intelligence on North Korea's missile program and even less on the secretive government's intentions, the failure of Pyongyang's test of a long-range missile in July was a sign that such technologies remain out of the regime's grasp.

" The fact that it failed, and the fact that apparently the last time they did this, which was eight years ago, it was also a failure, indicates some problems," Fallon told a group of military writers. "Before we could credibly give them a capability, or assign a capability, they'd have to demonstrate an ability to actually get a missile off the pad and have it fly at long range."

Fallon's position varies in some respects from that of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who has continued to warn of the threat of North Korea's Taepodong 2 long-range missile even after the recent test firing in which the rocket blew up.

From the International Press:

Olmert Unfazed by Egypt's Plans to Build Nuclear Plants
(Herb Keinon and AP, Jerusalem Post)

Monday, September 25
Israel does not consider Cairo's newly declared nuclear ambitions a military threat, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told The Jerusalem Post on Monday, a day after an Egyptian cabinet minister said his country would soon begin building nuclear power plants. "It's not similar in any form or manner to what the Iranians are trying to do," the prime minister said.

Olmert said Egypt's proposed program fell into the civilian category, and that he was inclined to believe that Egypt would be "ready to submit itself to the real, genuine effective control" of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which would ensure that the program not develop "in the military direction."

Egypt's Minister of Electricity and Energy Hassan Younes told the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper on Sunday that within 10 years of the project's launch, Egypt would have an operational nuclear power plant.



Concern Over Middle East Nuclear Plans
(Paul Reynolds, BBC)

Monday, September 25
Plans announced recently by Egypt and Turkey that they hope to build nuclear power plants are raising a ripple of concern about the long-term prospect of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

" It is easy to exaggerate and it is true that these countries have a right to seek all sources of energy but it is indisputable that there is also a strategic element to this," said Mark Fitzpatrick, senior fellow in non-proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "Having a nuclear infrastructure is the step which a country needs to accomplish if it decides to embark on the path of nuclear weapons. Pakistan took that route," he said.

According to this theory, Egypt and Turkey are worried at the failure of the United Nations to stop Iran from enriching uranium. They consider they might be left behind if Iran, despite its denials, does one day develop as a nuclear armed power. They are therefore taking preliminary steps to protect themselves from a security point of view as well as an energy one.



West Blocks Arab Bid to Rap Israel Over Nuclear Issue at IAEA Meeting
(Reuters)

Sunday, September 24
Western nations foiled a bid by Arab and Islamic states on Friday to declare Israel's reputed nuclear arsenal a threat that must be removed in a politically charged vote at a UN atomic watchdog meeting.

Canada sponsored a 45-29 "no-action" ballot that prevented International Atomic Energy Agency member states from voting on a motion demanding Israel use atomic energy only for peaceful purposes and help set up a Middle East nuclear arms-free zone.

But the gathering voted 89-2 for a milder resolution on Israel, also initiated by Arab states, "affirming the urgent need for all states in the Middle East to accept full-scope IAEA safeguards on all their nuclear activities".
Israel neither admits nor denies having atomic weapons but most experts believe it has about 200 nuclear warheads.


Links of Interest:

"A.Q. Khan Nuclear Chronology," by Michael Laufer, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 2005

proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
September 28, 2006

SAVE THE DATE: Join us for the 2007 Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference taking place from April 30 – May 1, 2007 in Washington, DC. Details to come.
Featured Content:
•"Iran Seen Borrowing Nuclear Strategy from Israel," Reuters
•"Nuclear Weapons for 'Self-Defense,' North Korea Says," Global Security Newswire
•"China to Send Nuclear Talks Envoy to Seoul," Reuters

From the International Press:
•"World's Nuclear Haves and Have-Nots Beginning to Play 'Let's Break a Deal'," Op-Ed by Stephen Handelman, Globe and Mail
• Time for the N Word," Al-Ahram
•"Indo-US Nuclear Deal Faces New Roadblock," Times of India

New Report Prescribes US Nonproliferation Policy:
Forging A World Of Liberty Under Law: U.S. National Security In The 21st Century, Final Report of the Princeton Project on National Security, G. John Ikenberry and Anne-Marie Slaughter, Published by The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, September 27, 2006


EU, Iran Plan More Nuclear Talks, No Deal Reached
(Louis Charbonneau, Reuters)

Thursday, September 28
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said on Thursday he had failed to reach a deal with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator on Tehran's atomic ambitions, but they had paved the way for further talks.

"We have been progressing," Solana told reporters after discussions with Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani. "We still have some issues that have not been closed," he added without elaborating. Solana said he hoped to renew contact with the Iranians by the middle of next week.

Solana's comments appeared to hint that the chances for a speedy resolution were fading, a day after the U.S. State Department had said that time was running out for a deal.

ProliferationNews.org
CarnegieEndowment.org
Iran Resources
South Asia Resources
Korea Resources
China Resources

Iran Seen Borrowing Nuclear Strategy from Israel
(Bernd Debusmann, Reuters)

Wednesday, September 27
In developing its nuclear program Iran is using strategies that allowed its enemy Israel to assemble the Middle East's only atomic arsenal without admitting it had one, according to a leading expert on the Israeli program.

"Whether deliberately or inadvertently, there are elements of resemblance between the way Iran is pursuing its nuclear program today and the way Israel was pursuing its own program in the 1960s," Avner Cohen, author of a landmark study entitled "Israel and the Bomb," in a telephone interview.

"This is a great irony of history but Iranian policymakers and nuclear technocrats may be strategically mimicking the Israeli model," said Cohen, senior research scholar at the University of Maryland's Center for International and Security Studies.

As Cohen sees it, the elements the Israeli and Iranian nuclear programs have in common are secrecy, concealment, ambiguity, double talk and denial.




Nuclear Weapons for 'Self-Defense,' North Korea Says
(Global Security Newswire)

Wednesday, September 27
A senior North Korean official yesterday in a speech at the United Nations lashed out at the United States and claimed that his country’s nuclear weapons were needed for “self-defense,” Agence France-Presse reported.

“Possession of deterrent power, solely for self-defense, is fully in line with the interests of the regional countries for peace and security,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon.

“The U.S. adventurous military maneuvers such as military exercises and economic blockade against the D.P.R.K. continue to be tolerated, while the routine missile test fires for our army for self-defense have been picked up to be condemned as ‘a threat to international peace and security,’” he added.

“Worse still are the invasions on sovereign states either openly committed or disregarded and even fanned up under the pretext of ‘nonproliferation’ and ‘antiterrorism,’ giving rise to a massacre of innocent people and the serious destruction of international peace and security,” Choe said.



China to Send Nuclear Talks Envoy to Seoul
(Reuters)

Thursday, September 28
China's representative on six-party talks aimed at resolving a stand-off over North Korea's nuclear program will go to Seoul this week, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Thursday.

Vice foreign minister Wu Dawei will be in South Korea from Friday until Sunday, spokesman Qin Gang said. "He will exchange views with the South Korean side on promoting the resumption of the six-party talks and other issues of mutual concern," Qin told a regular news briefing, without elaborating.

South Korea's Foreign Ministry confirmed the visit and added Wu would also discuss a planned summit meeting between the leaders of the two countries in October. The ministry also said Wu would meet South Korea's foreign minister and chief envoy to the six-party talks.



From the International Press:

World's Nuclear Haves and Have-Nots Beginning to Play 'Let's Break a Deal'
(Stephen Handelman, Globe and Mail)

Thursday, September 28
The four-decades-long global effort to curb the spread of nuclear weapons almost fizzled out in Australia this week.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard, after first announcing he was contemplating a lucrative deal to sell nuclear fuel to India, was forced to back off under pressure from domestic critics.

The critics, correctly, pointed out that selling uranium to India would violate guidelines set by the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group, which ban all forms of nuclear commerce with states that have not signed the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The India deal, they added, would nudge the treaty on a downward slope to irrelevance.

However, the dubious honour for doing that will probably go instead to Washington.

The U.S. Senate is set to debate legislation that will allow Americans to sell sensitive civilian nuclear technology to India, effectively ending an embargo imposed after India's world-jarring test of a nuclear device in 1974. (Canada angrily imposed its own embargo after discovering that Canadian parts had been used in the device.) In today's superheated geopolitical environment, where the United States is spearheading the struggle to halt Iran's alleged slide toward the production of nuclear weapons, bending -- if not breaking -- the rules of the postwar nuclear global order would seem a case of shooting oneself in the foot.

But in fact, the activities in the United States and Australia are symptoms of a growing international weariness with a treaty that, according to skeptics, no longer addresses modern geopolitical realities.



Time for the N Word
(Amira Howeidy, Al-Ahram)

Thursday, September 28
On Sunday, two decades after Egypt shelved its nuclear programme indefinitely, the Supreme Council for Energy created an ad-hoc committee comprised of five ministries -- including electricity and energy, petrol and defence -- to explore the nuclear option. It was the first time the council had convened in 18 years.

According to Minister of Electricity and Energy Hassan Yunis, Egypt could have an operational nuclear power plant within 10 years. The plan, he said, is to build a 1,000 megawatt nuclear power plant at Al-Dabaa on the Mediterranean North coast, and with construction costs estimated at $1.5 billion the government will almost certainly seek foreign investment to finance the project.

In 1963 Gamal Abdel-Nasser took the decision to build Egypt's first nuclear power station on the Mediterranean Coast at Sidi Kreir but the project was interrupted by the 1967 War. Following Egypt's victory in the 1973 War, the project was revived under Anwar El-Sadat. The climate appeared more promising when US president Richard Nixon visited Cairo in 1974 and offered to provide Egypt with 600 megawatt nuclear reactors, though the scheme was ultimately abandoned owing to a lack of funds.

A third attempt to develop a nuclear programme was made in 1986 when Egypt was close to signing an agreement with a German company to build the first of ten planned nuclear reactors to be completed by 2000. Competition between Germany and other countries over their roles in the project hampered its implementation. The situation was further complicated by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, triggering a scare wave in Egypt and an anti-nuclear campaign led by the opposition Wafd Party.

Eighteen years later and the nuclear option appears to be back on the table though it is far from clear whether it will progress any further than in the past.



Indo-US Nuclear Deal Faces New Roadblock
(Indrani Bagchi, Times of India)

Tuesday, September 26
The Indo-US nuclear deal is hanging by a thread. And it's all due to a single Democrat senator, Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader who has concerns about spent fuel from India coming to his native Nevada for disposal and who wants to introduce an amendment to the Bill.

The Yucca Mountain Repository in Nevada is proposed to be used by the US government as a terminal storage facility for nuclear waste — a controversial proposal.

He has effectively held up what would have been an easy passage for the bill in the Senate — by utilising a procedural feature called "unanimous consent".

This limits debate and amendments to the bill, making its floor vote a quick affair. But even one amendment throws this entire arrangement out of kilter and that's exactly what has happened.


New Report Prescribes US Nonproliferation Policy:

Forging A World Of Liberty Under Law: U.S. National Security In The 21st Century, Final Report of the Princeton Project on National Security
G. John Ikenberry and Anne-Marie Slaughter, Published by The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, September 27, 2006
proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
October 3, 2006

SAVE THE DATE: Join us for the 2007 Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference taking place from April 30 – May 1, 2007 in Washington, DC. Details to come.
Featured Content:
•"S.Korea Calls High-Level Security Meeting on North," Reuters
•"Iran Proposes that France Enrich Tehran's Uranium," Associated Press
•"Israelis Reach Out to Arab Nations that Share Fears of Ascendant Iran," Wall Street Journal

From the International Press:
•"N. Korea's Nuke Test Plan, If Realized, Unacceptable: Japan," Kyodo News
•"South Africa Backs Nuclear Deal," Hindu

Links of Interest:
N Korea Statement on Nuclear Test
Summarized version by the BBC, October 3, 2006


North Korea Announces Nuclear Test
(Associated Press)

Tuesday, October 3
North Korea said Tuesday it will conduct a nuclear test to bolster its self-defense against what it calls increasing U.S. hostility toward the communist regime — the strongest blow yet to efforts to convince the North to give up its drive for nuclear weapons.

"The DPRK will in the future conduct a nuclear test in a condition where safety is firmly guaranteed," the North's Foreign Ministry said in a statement, using its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.


ProliferationNews.org
CarnegieEndowment.org
Iran Resources
South Asia Resources
Korea Resources
China Resources

The statement gave no date as to when a test might occur, but the prospect that North Korea could soon take a major step forward in its nuclear weapons development triggered alarm and condemnation in foreign capitals. North Korea has a recent history of making provocative statements but refraining from an all-out confrontation with its chief enemy, the United States, that could lead to its destruction.

However, a worst-case scenario maintains that a North Korean nuclear test could prompt Japan to seek its own nuclear deterrent, raising tensions with China and South Korea, both of which suffered under Japanese colonial rule in the early 20th century.

It is the first time the North publicly announced its intent to conduct a nuclear test amid recent concerns that the communist country may be preparing for such a move.



S.Korea Calls High-Level Security Meeting on North
(Reuters)

Tuesday, October 3
South Korean security officials have met to discuss a response to North Korea's statement on Tuesday that it would conduct a nuclear test in the future, President Roh Moo-hyun's spokesman said.

Spokesman Yoon Tae-young said the result of the meeting, attended by senior government officials in charge of national security, would be issued soon.

Roh did not attend the meeting, Yoon said.



Iran Proposes that France Enrich Tehran's Uranium
(Angela Charlton, Associated Press)

Tuesday, October 3
A top Iranian nuclear official proposed today that France create a consortium to enrich Iran's uranium, saying that could satisfy international demands for outside oversight of Tehran's nuclear program.

Mohammad Saeedi, deputy chief of Iran's Atomic Energy Agency, made the proposal in an interview with French radio in Tehran, suggesting that France's state-controlled nuclear company and one of its subsidiaries be partners in the consortium. He did not specify what form Iran believed its participation should take.

"To be able to arrive at a solution, we have just had an idea. We propose that France create a consortium for the production in Iran of enriched uranium," Saeedi told France-Info in the interview broadcast today. "That way France, through the companies Eurodif and Areva, could control in a tangible way our enrichment activities," he added.



Israelis Reach Out to Arab Nations that Share Fears of Ascendant Iran
(Karby Leggett and Marcus W. Brauchli, Wall Street Journal)

Tuesday, October 3
Israel's summer war against Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants has redoubled its concerns about the threat from Iran, leading Israeli officials to reach out to Arab governments that share their concern about Tehran's growing influence in the region.

Leaders across the political spectrum here now agree that Israel must find ways to work with other Middle Eastern states, even if that means dealing with governments that have been hostile to Israel in the past. Asked in an interview last week if Saudi Arabia, a longtime backer of groups that have fought Israel, would be considered a moderate Arab nation Israel could potentially work with, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni replied bluntly: "Yes."

The concern about Iran comes as the international community tries to persuade Tehran to suspend a nuclear program the U.S. believes is aimed at building a weapon. Iran says the program is purely peaceful. Tehran defied one United Nations resolution that had called on it to suspend by the end of August any activities that could produce a nuclear weapon, and the U.S. and Europe are weighing further steps. Israel's worries about Iran are compounded by comments from Iranian leaders, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, suggesting a desire to see Israel eliminated as a state. "History has taught us to listen to this kind of talk," said the foreign minister, Ms. Livni, alluding to the Holocaust.

The assessment that Iran is a regional threat and could one day be a nuclear rival unnerves other countries in the region, Israeli officials and politicians say. That has led them to decide they should attempt a new embrace not only of Egypt and Jordan -- which already have formal relations with Israel -- but also Arab countries with which it has had few to no dealings.


From the International Press:


N. Korea's Nuke Test Plan, If Realized, Unacceptable: Japan
(Kyodo News)

Tuesday, October 3
Japan condemned on Tuesday North Korea's announced plan to conduct a nuclear test and warned it would respond sternly in cooperation with the international community if the North pushes ahead with the test.

''Japan and the world would definitely not tolerate a nuclear test (by North Korea),'' Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said. ''If the test is carried out, I believe the international community would respond harshly.''

Abe declined to comment on the likeliness of the test taking place but said he has instructed Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki to analyze intelligence and Yuriko Koike, Abe's national security adviser who was on her way to Washington before the news broke, to exchange information with her U.S. counterpart Stephen Hadley.

''It's clear that this kind of action will naturally have a significant impact on Japan and the whole of Northeast Asia...(and) pose a threat to peace,'' Foreign Minister Taro Aso told reporters at his ministry. ''It's simply unforgivable.''



South Africa Backs Nuclear Deal
(Harish Khare, Hindu)

Tuesday, October 3
South Africa has committed itself to supporting India in seeking access to the advanced civilian nuclear technology from the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) once the New Delhi-Washington civilian nuclear cooperation agreement of July 2005 clears the United States congressional hurdle.

The assurance was given by South African President Thabo Mbeki on Monday. He told the media: "We are awaiting the outcome of processes [in the U.S. Congress]. The NSG has already discussed the matter, recently in Brazil, but could not be resolved [as the American Congress was yet to finish its legislative process]. South Africa has absolutely no problem; we will surely support India."

Mr. Mbeki was responding to a question on his Government's approach to India's request to the NSG in re-drawing the rules of international civilian nuclear cooperation. South Africa is a key member of the 45-nation NSG.



Links of Interest:

N Korea Statement on Nuclear Test
Summarized version by the BBC, Tuesday, October 3
proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
October 5, 2006

SAVE THE DATE: Join us for the 2007 Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference taking place from April 30 – May 1, 2007 in Washington, DC. Details to come.
Featured Content:
•"The North Korea Nuclear Puzzle," Editorial, Los Angeles Times
•"Iran's Proposal to End Nuclear Standoff is Rejected by the West," New York Times
•"Letter Cites Iran's Need to Possess Atom Arms," New York Times
•"Russia Still Opposes Iran Sanctions," Associated Press

From the International Press:
•"Seoul, U.S. Monitor Test Sites," Korea Herald
•"N Korean Nuclear Test 'Just a Matter of Time'," Financial Times

Links of Interest:
N Korea Statement on Nuclear Test
Summarized version by the BBC, October 3, 2006


Pyongyang Warned on Weapon Testing
(Dafna Linzer, Washington Post)

Thursday, October 5
The Bush administration delivered a secret message to North Korea yesterday warning it to back down from a promised nuclear test, and it said publicly that the United States would not live with a nuclear-armed Pyongyang government.

North Korea "can have a future or it can have these weapons. It cannot have both," Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill said yesterday in remarks at Johns Hopkins University's U.S.-Korea Institute. It was the toughest response yet from the Bush administration, coming two days after Pyongyang announced plans to conduct its first nuclear test.

Hill did not explain how the administration would respond to a test, but he said it is willing to sit with North Korean officials and diplomats from the region to discuss the crisis. "We will do all we can to dissuade [North Korea] from this test," he said. State Department officials said Hill is considering a trip to Asia to discuss options with key allies.

ProliferationNews.org
CarnegieEndowment.org
Iran Resources
South Asia Resources
Korea Resources
China Resources

The North Korea Nuclear Puzzle
(Los Angeles Times - Editorial)

Thursday, October 5
If there is anything more unclear than what North Korea is up to, it is what the rest of the world should do about it. The reclusive nation announced Tuesday that it intends to test a nuclear weapon. Even as diplomats raised doubts about its ability to carry out such a test, they were warning North Korea not to try.

That's a sensible if unsatisfying response to the latest provocation by the Stalinist nation, which tested a long-range missile in July (it failed about 40 seconds into its flight) and last year abandoned negotiations with the U.S., China, Russia, Japan and South Korea over its nuclear program. But if the North Koreans do conduct a nuclear test, the world will need to have a better response at the ready.

Part of the difficulty, however, is knowing what the truth is. So little is known about Pyongyang's program — the North Koreans kicked out international inspectors in 2002 — that the threat is just plausible enough to be worrisome. Satellite monitoring reportedly shows increased activity around possible test sites, but there has been increased activity in the past. And because North Korea has never conducted a nuclear test, it's hard for analysts to know exactly what to look for. There is also the possibility, always present with the North Koreans, that they are simply bluffing to gain negotiating leverage.



Iran's Proposal to End Nuclear Standoff is Rejected by the West
(Elaine Sciolino, New York Times)

Wednesday, October 4
Iran has proposed that France organize and monitor the production of enriched uranium inside Iran, complicating negotiations over the fate of its nuclear program.

The United States, France and Britain rejected the proposal on Tuesday, saying it was a stalling tactic and fell far short of the United Nations Security Council’s demand that Iran freeze all uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities.

The proposal, made by Mohammad Saeidi, the deputy director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, was presented as a sign of flexibility in negotiations between Iran and six world powers represented by the European Union. “In order to reach a solution, we’ve just had an idea: we propose that France create a consortium for the production in Iran of enriched uranium,” Mr. Saeidi said in an interview in Tehran with France Info radio that was broadcast Tuesday.

A senior French official on Tuesday said: “This is totally excluded. There is nothing substantive behind it. This is not the first time the Iranians have tried to divide the international community.”



Letter Cites Iran's Need to Possess Atom Arms
(Nazila Fathi, New York Times)

Wednesday, October 4
A letter written by Iran's former supreme ruler, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and published last Friday refers indirectly to Iran's needs to pursue nuclear weapons and has become part of the struggle between moderates and the military as it tries to expand its power under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In the letter, written in 1988 near the end of a bloody, eight-year war with Iraq, and released by the former Iranian president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the ayatollah outlines the reasons why Iran must accept a cease-fire with Iraq. It does not specifically call for Iran to develop nuclear weapons, but refers indirectly to the matter by citing a letter written by the top commander of the war effort.

" The commander has said we can have no victory for another five years, and even by then we need to have 350 infantry bridges, 2,500 tanks, 300 fighter planes," the ayatollah writes, adding that the army would also need "a considerable number of laser and nuclear weapons to confront the attacks."

In a famous public statement a few days later, Khomeini compared the decision to accept a cease-fire to "drinking a chalice of poison."

The ILNA Labor News Agency, which first published the letter, removed the word "nuclear" within a few hours, after receiving a call from the National Security Council, according to a reporter with the agency. The reporter requested anonymity for fear of official retribution. Other local wire services deleted the word as well.



Russia Still Opposes Iran Sanctions
(Ryan Lucas, Associated Press)

Thursday, October 5
Russia's foreign minister said Thursday that Moscow remains opposed to sanctions against Iran in the dispute over Tehran's nuclear program.

Sergey Lavrov said in Warsaw that he will discuss the standoff with Iran in a meeting with his U.S., British, German, French and Chinese counterparts on Friday in London.

"I think that until all diplomatic possibilities have been exhausted, sanctions would be extreme," Lavrov told reporters after meeting with his Polish counterpart, Anna Fotyga. "I think we need to do all we can to push Iran toward starting negotiations."



From the International Press:

Seoul, U.S. Monitor Test Sites
(Jim Dae-woong, Korea Herald)

Thursday, October 5
Intelligence authorities here are on alert for any signs of provocative activities by North Korea following its threat to conduct a nuclear test Tuesday.

The Seoul government is now working closely with U.S. intelligence agencies on identifying the North's possible test site.

Gen. Lee Sang-hee, chairman of the Joint Chiefs Staff and Gen. Burwell B. Bell, commander of the United States Forces Korea, yesterday agreed to further enhance cooperation and information exchange to ward off any provocations by the North.

Experts and media reports have focused on Gilju in North Hamgyeong Province and Hagap, Mount Mumyeong and Gimdangol in Jagang Province as possible underground test sites.



N Korean Nuclear Test 'Just a Matter of Time'
(Anna Fifield and Guy Dinmore, Financial Times)

Wednesday, October 4
A North Korean nuclear test is now a just matter of time, a growing number of analysts say, as an increasingly desperate Pyongyang tries to ease the external pressures that are crippling the economy and might even be threatening Kim Jong-il’s leadership.

A nuclear test has always been considered North Korea’s trump card, a last-ditch option that would invite the strongest of responses, not just from the US and Japan but potentially from benefactors China and South Korea.

North Korea’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that the US’s “threat of a nuclear war and its vicious sanctions and pressure” had put the state in danger, its boldest declaration yet.

North Korea’s leadership is under severe economic pressure. Financial sanctions imposed by the US in September last year appear to have had a tougher than expected effect.

Pyongyang has condemned the sanctions, refused to return to six-party talks, conducted the missile tests, and threatened to extract more spent plutonium fuel rods from its Yongbyon reactor.

Links of Interest:

N Korea Statement on Nuclear Test
Summarized version by the BBC, Tuesday, October 3
proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
October 10, 2006

SAVE THE DATE: Join us for the 2007 Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference taking place from April 30 – May 1, 2007 in Washington, DC. Details to come.
Featured Content:
•"N. Korea Blast Rattles Global Structure," Associated Press
•"For U.S., a Strategic Jolt After North Korea's Test," New York Times
•"Mutually Assured Disruption," Op-Ed by David Frum, New York Times
•"W.House Raises Doubts About N.Korean Nuclear Arms," Reuters
•"China Rules Out War Over N.Korea But Not Sanctions," Reuters

From the International Press:
•Seoul Opposes Military Action Against North, Korea Times
• Diet Builds Pressure on N. Korea, Asahi Shimbun

Links of Interest:
• Resource: International News and Commentary on DPRK Nuclear Test, Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
•President Bush's Statement on North Korea Nuclear Test
White House, October 9, 2006
•Text of North Korean Statement on Nuclear Test
BBC, October 9, 2006


U.S. Leadership with China, South Korea and Japan Key to Containing Nuclear Chain Reaction
(George Perkovich, Carnegie Analysis)

Monday, October 9
Without prompt, effective, leadership by the United States in response to the reported nuclear test by North Korea on October 8, two other consequences could follow: regionally, a nuclear chain reaction could take place in the form of an arms race, or, internationally, Iran could take a cue to be more provocative in the nuclear arena.

ProliferationNews.org
CarnegieEndowment.org
Iran Resources
South Asia Resources
Korea Resources
China Resources

The most important thing is for the United States to take the lead in involving Japan, South Korea and China in very intensive diplomacy about how all of the major powers in Northeast Asia can avoid the temptation to engage in an arms race which will exacerbate fears of a nuclear confrontation in the region. Given that some people perceive that Japan's new leadership might wish to reconsider Japan's nuclear policy, it is vitally important that the United States lead an intense and sustained effort with Japan, South Korea and China to clarify each other's intentions and policies in ways that avoid any nuclear competition. These countries must take up the difficult task of determining what is the new objective toward North Korea -- is it to dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons program, to limit the size of its arsenal, to limit its capacity to deliver its weapons on missiles, to prevent further proliferation of nuclear materials or technology to other states or terrorist groups, to isolate them further or to change the existing regime?



N. Korea Blast Rattles Global Structure
(Charles J. Hanley, Associated Press)

Tuesday, October 10
Long after the shock waves fade from seismographs, the impact of Monday's mammoth blast in North Korea will unsettle the peace of East Asia and beyond. Others may now feel pressured to join the atomic weapons club, says a father of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

"My fear is that North Korea will be followed by South Korea, Japan and Taiwan in due course," said George Bunn, a chief U.S. negotiator of the 1970 pact. "It's very bad for the treaty."

Another leading scholar of nuclear proliferation, George Perkovich, said that as an "urgent matter of statesmanship" regional powers must quickly disavow a nuclear arms race.

"The U.S., China and Japan and South Korea have to, at a very high level, get together quickly to agree among themselves _ and publicly if possible _ that each of them won't take steps to heighten the sense of insecurity and tension in the region," said Perkovich, of Washington's Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Within hours of Pyongyang's claim that it had set off a nuclear test explosion, the U.N. Security Council convened, members condemned the action, and the United States said it would push for sanctions punishing North Korea.

What happens in the coming days will particularly interest Iran, locked in its own confrontation with major powers suspicious that its nuclear program hides weapons plans.



For U.S., a Strategic Jolt After North Korea's Test
(David Sanger, New York Times)

Tuesday, October 10
North Korea may be a starving, friendless, authoritarian nation of 23 million people, but its apparently successful explosion of a small nuclear device in the mountains above the town of Kilju on Monday represents a defiant bid for survival and respect. For Washington and its allies, it illuminates a failure of nearly two decades of atomic diplomacy.

North Korea is more than just another nation joining the nuclear club. It has never developed a weapons system it did not ultimately sell on the world market, and it has periodically threatened to sell its nuclear technology. So the end of ambiguity about its nuclear capacity foreshadows a very different era, in which the concern may not be where a nation’s warheads are aimed, but in whose hands its weapons and skill end up.

As Democrats were quick to note on Monday, four weeks before a critical national election, President Bush and his aides never gave as much priority to countering a new era of proliferation as they did to overthrowing Saddam Hussein.

Mr. Bush and his aides contend that Iraq was the more urgent threat, in a volatile neighborhood. But the North’s reported nuclear test now raises the question of whether it is too late for the president to make good on his promise that he would never let the world’s “worst dictators” obtain the world’s most dangerous weapons.



Mutually Assured Disruption
(David Frum, New York Times - Opinion)

Tuesday, October 10
The North Korean nuclear test — if that indeed is what it was — signals the catastrophic collapse of a dozen years of American policy. Over that period, two of the world’s most dangerous regimes, Pakistan and North Korea, have developed nuclear weapons and the missiles to launch them. Iran, arguably the most dangerous of them all, will surely follow, unless some dramatic action is soon taken.

It is, alas, an iron law of modern diplomacy that the failure of any diplomatic process only proves the need for more of the process that has just failed. Thus those who have long supported negotiating with North Korea are now calling for the Bush administration to begin direct talks with the Kim Jong-il regime. Sorry, but all this would accomplish would be to reward an actual proliferator in order to preserve the illusion that the world still has a meaningful nonproliferation regime.

Some even suggest, in worried tones, that the North Korean test might provoke Japan to go nuclear, as if the worst possible consequence of nuclear weapons in the hands of one of America’s direst enemies would be the acquisition of nuclear weapons by one of America’s best friends.



W.House Raises Doubts About N.Korean Nuclear Arms
(Steve Holland, Reuters)

Tuesday, October 10
The White House on Tuesday tried to raise doubts about the strength of North Korea's nuclear program and sought to play down the significance of its reported test of an atomic weapon.

Two days after North Korea reported detonating a nuclear weapon, U.S. intelligence experts still were unable to conclude whether this in fact happened given the relatively small yield of the underground blast.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said it would take more time, possibly days, to come to a conclusion, and that there was a "remote possibility that we'll never know."

On Tuesday, Snow sounded a note of suspicion, telling reporters that North Korea was claiming to have detonated a nuclear weapon only two years after expelling international weapons inspectors and presumably working in earnest to build a weapon.

"What's interesting here is that if there was a nuclear test, ask yourself: They just unlocked Pyongyang a couple of years ago. You seriously believe that they have actually done everything within two years? You could have something that is very old and off the shelf here as well," Snow said.



China Rules Out War Over N.Korea But Not Sanctions
(Lindsay Beck, Reuters)

Tuesday, October 10
China declined on Tuesday to rule out possible U.N. sanctions against North Korea for carrying out a reported nuclear test but said any military action was unimaginable.

It said it had no information about widespread speculation that secretive North Korea might be ready to conduct a second test.

Asked what Beijing thought of the possibility of military action, Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a news conference: "I think this is an unimaginable way."



From the International Press:

Seoul Opposes Military Action Against North
(Park Song-wu, Korea Times)

Tuesday, October 10
Seoul will not support the U.N. Security Council's (UNSC) move to adopt a resolution that includes a threat of military action against North Korea for its nuclear test, Prime Minister Han Myung-sook said in Seoul on Tuesday.

Her remarks came at an interpellation session in the National Assembly as the council is currently drafting a resolution that is expected to invoke the U.N. Charter's sensitive Chapter 7.

``We must oppose Article 42 (of Chapter 7) to be quoted in the resolution as it is very sensitive and may inflict damage (on the Korean Peninsula),'' Han told lawmakers.

Article 42 allows the use of air, sea, or land forces. Such action can include demonstrations, a blockade, and other operations by the forces of U.N. member states.

Seoul has opposed making an ``umbrella reference'' to the chapter, saying it could open the door for putting the Korean Peninsula in danger of military conflict. Instead, the government wants to specify which article in the chapter will be quoted in the resolution.



Diet Builds Pressure on N. Korea
(Asahi Shimbun)

Tuesday, October 10
The Lower House on Tuesday unanimously adopted a resolution that condemns North Korea's proclaimed nuclear test and calls for action by the United Nations Security Council to eliminate Pyongyang's threat to peace.

The resolution described North Korea's nuclear weapons development program as "a major challenge to the peace and stability of the international community." It said Monday's apparent nuclear test was "a reckless outrage that was completely unacceptable" and said there is "no room to legitimize" the test based on any reason.

The Lower House called on the Japanese government "to seek a peaceful resolution while working together with the international community for diplomatic efforts, including cooperating with the United States and other interested nations, on possible measures, including those based on Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter."

That chapter calls on the U.N. Security Council to implement sanctions--or even the use of armed force--against threats to peace.




Links of Interest:
Resource: International News and Commentary on DPRK Nuclear Test
Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

President Bush's Statement on North Korea Nuclear Test
White House, October 9, 2006

Text of North Korean Statement on Nuclear Test
BBC, October 9, 2006

proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/HJ12Dg01.html
Arms races past haunt Asia's present
By Ronan Thomas

Diplomats have been muttering about the prospect of a nuclear-armed North Korea for almost 20 years. With this week's reported nuclear test at Gilju, Kim Jong-il has pushed past the doorman at the world's nuclear club. The membership committee appears powerless to act.

The Gilju test, if true, is surely no surprise, given Kim's long-proclaimed desire to inoculate his regime from external attack. North Korea is now the world's ninth nuclear-armed power. The seismograph of regional Asian diplomatic and strategic
calculations has jumped its track.

As with India's and Pakistan's entry into the club in 1998, shock waves are being felt in world capitals. Cold War doctrines and the language of arms races are being dusted off. From Washington to Tokyo, Beijing to Seoul, policymakers are reaching for the theory textbooks. The concepts of deterrence, appeasement, containment, domino theory, rational actor strategy and the nature of nuclear brinkmanship all jostle for their attention.

The prospect of a new North Asian arms race is now emerging rapidly. The main actors will be the United States, Japan, South Korea, China, Russia and Taiwan, all outraged at the Pyongyang's behavior. The locus of attention: the Korean Peninsula. It will be a long and dangerous enterprise.

But arms races are easier to turn on than turn off. A glance at the historical record of arms races past is sobering and salutary for the present. Today's international policymakers would do well to consider their perilous track record.

Navies to nukes
From the 1870s to the present day, arms races have exacted a heavy price from individual powers. States on the rise have entered them enthusiastically; powers on the slide have been obliged to follow suit. Arms races predate the formation of standing armies - witness Rome and Carthage - but the 20th century saw some of the most costly and destructive.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, arms races were predominantly European and naval.

As early as the mid-1870s, naval rivalry became acute between a newly unified Italy and France over contested North African possessions. In the 1880s, Italy's faltering membership of the so-called Triple Alliance with Austria-Hungary and Germany resulted in growing naval competition with Vienna over naval command of the Adriatic. The first naval arms race of the modern age emerged as Italy and Austria-Hungary vied for battleship supremacy. Italy lost: the Hapsburg navy dominated the Adriatic with better ships and by 1914 Italy was deterred from direct naval engagement

In the North Sea the most dangerous arms race yet seen began in 1904 after Britain reorganized its navy and later unveiled the nuclear deterrent of its day, HMS Dreadnought. The Dreadnought, an armored battleship launched in 1906 whose revolutionary design, firepower and speed outclassed every competitor overnight, rewrote naval history. It lit the fuse on an intense multimillion-pound naval race lasting until the outbreak of World War I (1914-18). The pace was unrelenting: between 1906 and 1914, Britain built 38 dreadnoughts and other battle cruisers versus Germany's 24.

Sir John "Jackie" Fisher and his German counterpart, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, jockeyed constantly to close the naval gap, backed by two industrial colossi and presaging the later intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) race of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Deterrence overrode all other naval considerations.

Britain was obsessed with maintaining its "two-power standard": naval supremacy equivalent to any two competitors. Prussian Germany wanted naval supremacy of its own: boosted by Kaiser Wilhelm's deep-rooted envy of the Royal Navy. But as new alliance structures emerged - Britain/Japan (1902), Britain/France (1904), Britain/Russia (1907) versus Austria-Hungary/Germany - the costly naval deterrence strategy failed. Germany's fear of encirclement prompted the guns of August 1914 to open fire.

On land, the bloody conflict on western and eastern fronts and in the collapsing Ottoman Empire proved that arms races and deterrence were no guarantee of security in Europe. At sea, the only major naval engagement at Jutland in 1916 ended in stalemate.

After World War I the United States and Japan also decided on new naval building programs of their own. Along with weakened Britain, they sought to regulate competition and expenditure. The naval conference of 1921 aimed to take the heat out of arms rivalry.

Yet even as one arms race cooled, another was fast emerging. The rearmament of Germany and rise of Imperial Japan in the 1930s were not matched by Western powers. The age of appeasement had arrived and there was the flawed belief that both the Nazi and Japanese political leaders were rational actors. Britain in particular did not appreciate the full nature and extent of the Axis Powers' rearmament until as late as 1937. It failed to modernize both its army and the Singapore naval base, with disastrous consequences. Memories of the Great War were long, appeasement seemed easier and rearmament was politically problematic. So Britain's deterrent value to Berlin and Tokyo failed. Britain by 1939 - along with the US in 1941 - had failed to appreciate that a "first strike" strategy by an enemy could reap spectacular rewards, at least in the short term.

Enter nuclear weapons
In the ashes of 1945, with the Cold War deepening, the United States' and the Soviet Union's nuclear-arms race until 1991 cost the US and its allies at least US$8 trillion. Russian historians still debate Soviet expenditure but it was clearly enough to bankrupt the country. The world avoided a nuclear exchange over Cuba in 1962 by a whisker. Nevertheless, 1945-91 was a clear example of an arms race with positive outcomes. The US and its allies deterred and finished off the evils of communism in Europe, outbuilding, outsmarting and outspending a totalitarian opponent. But arms races remain addictive.

India and Pakistan entered the nuclear arena in 1998. Both powers' kiloton-strength tests in that year threw the regional military balance into confusion and, today, stalemate. As with the US-Soviet face-off, the realities of Indo-Pakistani mutually assured destruction (MAD) and rational-actor theory continue.

Which brings us to this week's Gilju test. With the North Korean test, the history of arms races has been given a nudge. As British Prime Minister Tony Blair is so fond of saying, "The kaleidoscope has been shaken." A new arms race in North Asia is almost inevitable.

The next few months will be critical. At the United Nations, trade sanctions against North Korea under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter are in prospect. The jury is out as to as to whether they will be effective. Like India and Pakistan, North Korea now has a nuclear-tipped guarantee against external molestation.

At the same time, Seoul remains the easiest of targets; threats by the North against it can be used as blackmail. Other measures, including UN interception of North Korean vessels at sea - Mr Kim has tried to send Scud missiles to Yemen before - are under consideration. North Korea's relations with its communist ally China and rival South Korea will be tested as never before. Chinese diplomacy will be critical.

Then there is the lurid prospect of Japan and South Korea announcing nuclear-weapons acquisitions of their own. New Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe may find that his flight schedule includes Beijing and Seoul far more than he imagined. Japan's pacifist constitution may have to be revised in light of new Northeast Asian realities. Even Taiwan may be frightened or emboldened enough to consider its own nuclear insurance policy. Add to this the great unknown of Iran (likened by some to Germany rearming in the 1930s) and policymakers, strategists and journalists are assured plenty of sleepless nights, column inches and studio time in the months ahead. Iran will be watching closely to see how the UN handles Mr Kim and will draw appropriate conclusions.

Meanwhile, the historical lessons learned from arms races and nuclear-weapons acquisition still pertain. Possession of a nuclear "big stick" gives a country more confidence, not less, especially in times of crisis. Arms races have unpredictable outcomes, are always expensive and often explosive. The product of nations on the way up or down, they can succeed spectacularly, as in 1945-91, or disastrously as in 1906-14 and in the 1930s. Appeasement of an aggressor is a high-risk strategy, to say the least.

The international community now can either appease or deter a defiant, nuclear-armed North Korea. Deterring Mr Kim and the generals in Pyongyang may take decades. But if the latest intelligence assessments are correct, North Korea now has four to six warheads. If these can be delivered, then deterrence, for all its risks, is the only option.

Ronan Thomas is a British correspondent.

(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing

"AH, BUT EVEN IF THAT WERE TO HAPPEN, IT IS NOT AS IF EARTH IS A MAJOR PLANET ANYWAY."

--An astronomer, remarking on the consequences of the world being destroyed 30 times over by nuclear weapons; Cold War black humor cited in Chan Akya, "Not a Major Planet" (Asia Times, October 11)
http://atimes.com/atimes/Korea/HJ11Dg02.html

"RELIABLE REPLACEMENT WARHEAD"

--Rubric given by Congress and the White House for plans for "a new generation of U.S. nuclear weapons"; cited in Norman Solomon, "Welcome to the Nuclear Club" (antiwar.com, October 10)
http://www.antiwar.com/solomon/?articleid=9824

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
October 12, 2006

SAVE THE DATE: Join us for the 2007 Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference taking place from April 30 – May 1, 2007 in Washington, DC. Details to come.
Featured Content:
•"A Blink, A Nod, A Bomb," Op-Ed by Henry Sokolski, Wall Street Journal
•"Kim Jong-Il's Suicide Watch," Op-Ed by B.R. Myers, New York Times
•"North Korea Isn't Our Problem," Op-Ed by Anatol Lieven and John Hulsman, Los Angeles Times
•"Iran Unfazed by Outrage Over North Korea's Test," Los Angeles Times

From the International Press:
•"Rumsfeld to Reconfirm Nuclear Umbrella for South Korea," Korea Times
•"Japan May Not Want to Go Nuclear But It's No Technical Hurdle: Analysts," Japan Times

Links of Interest:
• Resource: International News and Commentary on DPRK Nuclear Test, Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
•President Bush's Statement on North Korea Nuclear Test
White House, October 9, 2006
•Text of North Korean Statement on Nuclear Test
BBC, October 9, 2006


In Search of a North Korea Policy
(William J. Perry, Washington Post - Opinion)

Wednesday, October 11
North Korea's declared nuclear bomb test program will increase the incentives for other nations to go nuclear, will endanger security in the region and could ultimately result in nuclear terrorism. While this test is the culmination of North Korea's long-held aspiration to become a nuclear power, it also demonstrates the total failure of the Bush administration's policy toward that country. For almost six years this policy has been a strange combination of harsh rhetoric and inaction.

ProliferationNews.org
CarnegieEndowment.org
Iran Resources
South Asia Resources
Korea Resources
China Resources

President Bush, early in his first term, dubbed North Korea a member of the "axis of evil" and made disparaging remarks about Kim Jong Il. He said he would not tolerate a North Korean nuclear weapons program, but he set no bounds on North Korean actions.

The most important such limit would have been on reprocessing spent fuel from North Korea's reactor to make plutonium. The Clinton administration declared in 1994 that if North Korea reprocessed, it would be crossing a "red line," and it threatened military action if that line was crossed. The North Koreans responded to that pressure and began negotiations that led to the Agreed Framework. The Agreed Framework did not end North Korea's aspirations for nuclear weapons, but it did result in a major delay. For more than eight years, under the Agreed Framework, the spent fuel was kept in a storage pond under international supervision.



A Blink, A Nod, A Bomb
(Henry Sokolski, Wall Street Journal - Opinion)

Wednesday, October 11
As if the Bush administration wasn't busy enough with Iraq and Iran, now it must face the immediate policy fallout from Pyongyang's weekend nuclear test. U.S. diplomats filed a United Nations resolution condemning the test and calling for the naval interdiction of North Korean vessels and the freezing of the outlaw state's financial assets. It's unclear if this will fly with the other members of the Security Council. But with critics of the administration already blaming the test on the White House's unwillingness to talk directly with Kim Jong Il, action of some sort is certain.

What's less clear, however, is whether any of these measures will keep other states from following Pyongyang's model misbehavior. A Security Council resolution, however "tough," may fail to dissuade other would-be proliferators, especially Iran, if it does not clearly link sanctions with North Korea's longstanding violations of the nuclear rules.

North Korea is an exceptional proliferator, to be sure. It not only signed and defied the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which prohibits acquiring bombs, it formally withdrew and tested a nuclear device. In contrast, India, Israel, and Pakistan never signed, and Iran and Iraq never tested. But precisely because Pyongyang so brazenly violated the NPT, it's critical that any sanctioning or punishment be tied to this crime.



Kim Jong-Il's Suicide Watch
(B.R. Myers, New York Times - Opinion)

Thursday, October 12
Hours after Monday’s nuclear test, President Bush issued a stern warning to North Korea — but only against the passing of nuclear technology to other states or non-state entities. The president’s declaration thus reflected a confident consensus in Washington that while Kim Jong-il may try selling his nukes, he would never dream of using them himself. Why not? The explanation was given by a former national security adviser, Donald Gregg, on Monday: “Don’t panic. Kim Jong-il’s objective is survival ... not suicide.” These long-term diagnoses of Mr. Kim’s psyche are a roundabout way of saying that because he is not a fundamentalist Muslim, he is unlikely to do anything really crazy.

This sort of cultural profiling, however, can get us into real danger. Japan’s emperor during World War II, Hirohito, was neither religious nor suicidal, and he led his nation into a war that no rational leader could have hoped to win. The point is relevant, because although journalists persist in calling North Korea a Stalinist state, its worldview is far closer to that of fascist Japan.

While the North Koreans could kill a lot of people, they do not pose as great a threat to world security as imperial Japan did. Never have they shown any interest in forging an empire. All the same, the irrationality of their worldview is such that we should, at the very least, stop assuming that they would never use their own weaponry.



North Korea Isn't Our Problem
(Anatol Lieven and John Hulsman, Los Angeles Times - Opinion)

Wednesday, October 11
The United States is bogged down in what appears to be an unwinnable war in Iraq; it is facing very unpleasant options in regard to neighboring Iran's nuclear program; senior NATO officers say that the situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating fast; in the former Soviet Union, Georgia and Russia are moving toward military confrontation, with the U.S. seemingly unable to restrain either; in large swaths of Latin America, new nationalist and populist movements are challenging U.S. interests.

And now the totalitarian regime in North Korea has defied the international community by testing a nuclear bomb — and the U.S. appears to have neither military nor effective economic measures with which to respond.

If all this does not prove the reality of American overreach, what does? If U.S. power is to be placed on a firmer basis, its exercise must be more limited. Certain commitments will have to be scaled back or even eliminated if the U.S. is to be able to concentrate on dealing with its most truly vital challenges and enemies.

This is not an argument for isolationism but for the kind of calm, clearheaded global strategy adopted in the past by American leaders such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon: a morally courageous willingness to recognize the greatest threats to the U.S. and to deal with secondary concerns accordingly. When Roosevelt formed an alliance with the Soviet Union against Hitler, or Nixon went to China to do a deal with Chairman Mao, it was assuredly not because they admired the Stalinist or Maoist systems or were prepared to sacrifice vital U.S. interests to them.

North Korea must be treated as a regional problem to be managed by a regional concert of powers, with China in the lead. The U.S. role in all this should be sympathetic — and distant.



Iran Unfazed by Outrage Over North Korea's Test
(Alissa J. Rubin, Los Angeles Times)

Wednesday, October 11
Iranian officials made clear Tuesday that international outrage at North Korea's declared test of a nuclear bomb would not deter them from moving ahead with their own nuclear program.

Indeed, the North Korean test comes as a relief to Iran because it takes the focus off its program — which Tehran says is aimed only at producing electricity, not weapons — and channels American ire toward Pyongyang, analysts said. They added that the international community's uncertainty about how to punish North Korea seems to have reinforced the Iranian government's belief that it has little to fear by proceeding with its program, vindicating its decision to resist international pressure to suspend it.

Tuesday, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Iran would insist on its right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to develop the nuclear fuel cycle for civilian purposes.

"Our policy is clear … insisting on the nation's right without any retreat," state television quoted Khamenei as saying to a meeting of high-ranking government officials.

Two years ago, the Islamic Republic tried the path of negotiation, suspended its enrichment program and got nothing for it, Khamenei suggested. Now, he said, the program will proceed full bore.

"Two years ago [when] we started suspending uranium enrichment, if we didn't experience that path, we would have blamed ourselves for not testing that path," he said. "But today, we are going ahead with courage because no one can provide an acceptable reason why Iran's nuclear path is wrong."




From the International Press:

Rumsfeld to Reconfirm Nuclear Umbrella for South Korea
(Jung Sung-ki, Korea Times)

Thursday, October 12
South Korea and the United States will discuss the U.S. military’s provision of nuclear weapons in case of war on the Korean Peninsula when their defense ministers meet next week, a senior military official said yesterday.

"The two sides will discuss joint countermeasures to the North’s claimed nuclear test as the No.1 agenda item at the talks in Washington, D.C on Oct. 21," the official told reporters. Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung will leave for Washington next Thursday for talks with his U.S. counterpart, Donald H. Rumsfeld.

"I believe Seoul and Washington will discuss the U.S. provision of an improved and concrete nuclear umbrella for South Korea in a sincere manner at the Security Consultative Meeting (SCM)," the official said, asking not to be identified.

South Korea plans to ask the United States to specify nuclear-weapons supporting measures, including the list of tactical nuclear arms that the U.S. military is willing to offer, according to the official.



Japan May Not Want to Go Nuclear But It's No Technical Hurdle: Analysts
(Eric Prideaux and Akemi Nakamura, Japan Times)

Wednesday, October 11
Japan will not respond to North Korea's nuclear test by developing its own atomic weapons, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday, although analysts said the nation has the technology to quickly pursue such a path. Abe told an audience at Waseda University in May 2002 that it was not a violation of the Constitution for Japan to possess atomic bombs.

However, in Abe's declaration during a question-and-answer period at a House of Representatives Budget Committee, he referred to Japan's three nonnuclear principles of, according to the Foreign Ministry, "not possessing,not producing and not permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons into Japan."

"I would like to clearly state that there will be no change regarding the three nonnuclear principles," Abe said.

Experts were quick to point out that Japan does possess the knowledge and resources to go nuclear should it decide to. "The country has enough plutonium and uranium," said Yasuhiko Yoshida, an international politics professor at Osaka University of Economics and Law who is a former director of public information at the International Atomic Energy Agency. "It could make an atomic weapon in six months."

That estimate may even be generous. Military-affairs expert Tetsuya Ozeki, as director at private foreign-affairs think tank ATWI Research Institute, believes the country could develop a nuclear weapon in as little as a week. But he thinks to create one would be foolish.

Even with the central government rejecting the nuclear option, few doubt that North Korea's Monday morning atomic test, about 385 km northeast of Pyongyang, will have far-reaching consequences on foreign policy and defense.



Links of Interest:
Resource: International News and Commentary on DPRK Nuclear Test
Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

President Bush's Statement on North Korea Nuclear Test
White House, October 9, 2006

Text of North Korean Statement on Nuclear Test
BBC, October 9, 2006

DPRK Nuclear Test, Statement by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, October 9, 2006

proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
October 17, 2006

SAVE THE DATE: Join us for the 2007 Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference taking place from April 30 – May 1, 2007 in Washington, DC. Details to come.
Featured Content:
•"Cracking the Arms Race," Book Review by George Perkovich, Washington Post
•"U.S. Confirms N. Korea Blast was Nuclear," USA Today
•"N. Korean Nuclear Conflict Has Deep Roots," Washington Post
•"China Said to Start Enforcing North Korea Sanctions," New York Times
•"Bush Unleashes the Nuclear Beast," Op-Ed by Joseph Cirincione, Los Angeles Times

From the International Press:
•"LDP Policy Chief Calls for Debate on Nuke Option," Kyodo News
•"Seoul Can Build A-Bombs Within 1 Year," Korea Times
•"An Irresistible Invitation," Op-Ed by William Pfaff, International Herald Tribune

Event:
"Next Steps on North Korea: Options Beyond Sanctions,"
co-sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Stimson Center, October 12, 2006
Click here for an event summary and a transcript of remarks.

Links of Interest:
• UN Resolution 1718 - Security Council Condemns Nuclear Test by Democratic People's Republic of Korea, October 14, 2006
•Resource: International News and Commentary on DPRK Nuclear Test, Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace


Rice Trip to Push Full Sanctions for North Korea
(Glenn Kessler and Dafna Linzer, Washington Post)

Tuesday, October 17
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that she will push for full implementation of U.N. sanctions against North Korea as punishment for its recent nuclear test when she makes a critical visit to Asia and Russia this week.

ProliferationNews.org
CarnegieEndowment.org
Iran Resources
South Asia Resources
Korea Resources
China Resources

The sanctions prohibit trade with North Korea in illicit materials, weapons and luxury items. "Every country in the region must share the burdens as well as the benefits of our common security," Rice said in comments aimed at China and South Korea, Pyongyang's two largest trading partners. She called on nations to "collectively isolate" North Korea, adding that it "cannot destabilize the international system and then expect to exploit elaborate financial networks built for peaceful commerce."

Rice also warned Iran -- which faces possible U.N. sanctions over its nascent nuclear enrichment program -- that the Security Council will begin work on a resolution condemning Tehran for not suspending that effort. Iran "can now see that the international community will respond to threats from nuclear proliferation."



Cracking the Arms Race
(George Perkovich, Washington Post - Book Review)

Book Review of SHOPPING FOR BOMBS: Nuclear Proliferation, Global Insecurity, and the Rise and Fall of the A.Q. Khan Network by Gordon Corera

It is tempting to demonize A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani engineer who became infamous for selling nuclear weapons designs and production equipment to North Korea, Iran, Libya and perhaps others. Demonizing the fiery nationalist who brought the bomb to Pakistan -- the state that nurtured the Taliban and remains a den of terrorist training and Islamist fanaticism -- can actually be reassuring: If Khan is written off as simply evil, then his deeds can be written off as peculiar sins that do not reflect flaws in the international system.

Unfortunately, life is more complicated. As the BBC reporter Gordon Corera vividly narrates in his fine new "Shopping for Bombs," it was prosperous Western engineers and business people who eagerly provided the wares that Khan marketed, and it was largely governments from the "advanced" world, including the United States, that failed to correct the weaknesses in export rules that Khan's network exploited. Khan was a brilliant shopper, trade expediter and salesman, not a great technologist. Now exposed as an arms peddler and confined to his villa in Islamabad, he is certainly an egomaniacal and amoral man, but the systemic dangers he represents are far larger than any one person.



U.S. Confirms N. Korea Blast was Nuclear
(Bill Nichols and Barbara Slavin, USA Today)

Monday, October 16
Bush administration confirmed on Monday for the first time that North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test last week. The office of National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said radioactive materials found in air samples confirmed the test.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed concern that North Korea might be planning a second test. "We're watching it," she told reporters. "I hope they would not take such a provocative act."

In a statement, Negroponte's office said the blast was small by standards of nuclear tests; less than 1 kiloton. Each kiloton is equal to the force produced by 1,000 tons of TNT. The bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima was 15 kilotons. The confirmation came as Rice prepared to visit Japan, South Korea and China this week to try to shore up efforts by Asian allies to punish North Korea.



N. Korean Nuclear Conflict Has Deep Roots
(Walter Pincus, Washington Post)

Sunday, October 15
Democrats and Republicans have been quick to use North Korea's apparent nuclear test to benefit their own party in these final weeks of the congressional campaign, but a review of history shows that both sides have contributed to the current situation.

There is more than 50 years of history to Pyongyang's attempt to gain a nuclear weapon, triggered in part by threats from Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower to end the Korean War.

In 1950, when a reporter asked Truman whether he would use atomic bombs at a time when the war was going badly, the president said, "That includes every weapon we have."

Three years later, Eisenhower made a veiled threat, saying he would "remove all restraints in our use of weapons" if the North Korean government did not negotiate in good faith an ending to that bloody war.



China Said to Start Enforcing North Korea Sanctions
(John O'Neil and Norimitsu Onishi, New York Times)

Monday, October 16
China has begun inspecting trucks crossing its border with North Korea, a senior State Department official said today, despite statements by Chinese officials over the weekend that that the country would not let United Nations sanctions interfere with its trade with the Pyongyang regime.

R. Nicholas Burns, undersecretary for political affairs, said in an interview on CNN that there were “some indications” that “the Chinese are beginning to stop trucks along their 800-mile border and to inspect all of them.”



Bush Unleashes the Nuclear Beast
(Joseph Cirincione, Los Angeles Times - Opinion)

Sunday, October 15
The Non-Proliferation Treaty is now considered one of the most successful security pacts in history. Every nation in the world is a member except Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. Most of the 183 member states that do not have nuclear weapons believe what the treaty says: We should eliminate nuclear weapons. But now, suddenly, the threat is back. In the last six years, we seem awash in nuclear threats: First it was Saddam Hussein, then North Korea and Iran. How did it happen? Is nuclear restraint dead?

At the heart of the problem is the strategy George W. Bush chose, which rejects international treaties as the solution to proliferation. He and his advisors saw these agreements as limiting U.S. flexibility and viewed the United Nations and other global gatherings as arenas where the world's Lilliputians could tie down the American Gulliver. Bush scuttled the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, walked away from the nuclear test ban treaty secured by President Clinton, opposed efforts to enforce the treaty banning biological weapons, mocked the U.N. inspectors before the Iraq war and sent low-level officials to critical negotiations, including last year's NPT conference. The world now believes that the chief architect of the global nonproliferation system has abandoned its creation.

Instead, the administration preferred to rely on U.S. military might and technology, such as anti-missile systems, to protect the United States. Rather than negotiate treaties to eliminate weapons, it forged a strategy to eliminate the regimes that might use them against us. The Bush team felt they knew who the bad guys were, and they aimed to get them — one by one.

But the strategy has backfired. Both Iran and North Korea accelerated their programs, making more progress in the last five years than they had made in the previous 10. Now North Korea's test threatens to trigger an Asian nuclear-reaction chain that could prompt South Korea, Taiwan and even Japan to reconsider their nuclear options.




From the International Press:


LDP Policy Chief Calls for Debate on Nuke Option
(Kyodo News)

Monday, October 16
Japan needs to discuss whether it should go nuclear in response to North Korea's declared nuclear test, the policy chief of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party said Sunday.

Shoichi Nakagawa, chairman of the LDP's Policy Research Council, made the contentious comment on a TV Asahi talk show, saying the Constitution does not rule out the option of possessing nuclear arms.

As a member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Japan is not allowed to produce or possess nuclear weapons.

While stressing the nation should maintain its three-point nonnuclear principles of not possessing, producing or allowing the entry of nuclear weapons into Japan, Nakagawa said, "There could be an argument that possession of nuclear weapons diminishes the likelihood of being attacked as we could fight back in such an event."



Seoul Can Build A-Bombs Within 1 Year
(Korea Times)

Monday, October 16
A South Korean lawmaker yesterday claimed the country is capable of building atomic bombs in a year if there were no opposition from overseas.

Rep. Suh Sang-kee at the main opposition Grand National Party made the remarks after interviewing several anonymous nuclear scientists at home.

``According to many domestic experts, South Korea currently has technologies enough to develop atomic bombs with uranium within a year,'' Suh said.



An Irresistible Invitation
(William Pfaff, International Herald Tribune - Opinion)

Monday, October 16
The main government destabilized by North Korea's claimed nuclear explosion is clearly the government of the United States. Washington said it would prevent this from happening.

The Clinton administration negotiated with an opaque Pyongyang to exchange security assurances and qualified help in peaceful nuclear-power development for an unreliable promise not to develop weapons. The Bush administration spurned negotiation, insulted Kim Jong Il and made empty threats.

However, this is only a step in what probably will be the eventual failure of the entire nonproliferation effort. A complete breakdown is likely so long as the five governments recognized in 1968 as legitimate possessors of nuclear weapons do not honor their commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to reduce and eventually eliminate their own nuclear arsenals.

The North Korean test is a demonstration to Washington that it can't keep - and improve - its own nuclear forces and expect the nonproliferation treaty to survive.




Event: "Next Steps on North Korea: Options Beyond Sanctions"
On October 12, 2006, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in collaboration with the Henry L. Stimson Center, hosted a discussion prompted by the apparent North Korea nuclear test entitled “Next Steps on North Korea: Options Beyond Sanctions” with Randy Schriver, a founding partner of Armitage International LLC and a Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and Alan D. Romberg, Senior Associate at the Henry L. Stimson Center. Carnegie Senior Associate Michael Swaine moderated the discussion.

Click here to access a summary of the event and a full transcript of remarks.

Links of Interest:

UN Resolution 1718 - Security Council Condemns Nuclear Test by Democratic People's Republic of Korea, October 14, 2006

Resource: International News and Commentary on DPRK Nuclear Test
Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

AN OFFER KIM CAN'T REFUSE - AARON L. FRIEDBERG (WASHINGTON POST, OCTOBER 16): It should be made clear to all, including Kim, that the objective of ratcheting up financial pressure is not to topple him but to squeeze him until he chooses to abandon his nuclear ambitions.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...1500997_pf.html

THE ARMS-CONTROL ILLUSION: A SHORT HISTORY OF NONPROLIFERATION FAILURE - (OPINION JOURNAL FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL PAGE, OCTOBER 14): The world will need more such cooperation and creative thinking to contain a proliferation threat that is only going to grow. But the beginning of wisdom is to realize that the threat hasn't ended merely because a rogue regime signs an arms-control treaty.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110009090

THE LOGIC OF PROLIFERATION: HOW BUSH'S BELLIGERENCE PROMPTED NORTH KOREA TO PURSUE NUCLEAR WEAPONS - FLOYD RUDMIN (COUNTERPUNCH, OCTOBER 14-15)
http://www.counterpunch.org/rudmin10142006.html

THE MAKINGS OF A NUCLEAR STANDOFF - JAMES CARROLL (BOSTON GLOBE, OCTOBER 16): America is not the cause of North Korea's bomb. The tyrant Kim Jong Il is. But neither is America innocent of this terrible turn in the world's story. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...tandoff?mode=pf

STILL 1,126 NUCLEAR TESTS BEHIND THE UNITED STATES: NORTH KOREA'S BOMB - JOHN CHUCKMAN (COUNTERPUNCH, OCTOBER 14-15): Harsh sanctions against North Korea, already advocated by the emotionally-numb Bush, are a foolish response.
http://www.counterpunch.org/chuckman10142006.html

MORE NORTH KOREAS? GET USED TO IT: BAD AS A NUCLEAR HERMIT KINGDOM IS, THE U.S. JUST CAN'T CONTROL PROLIFERATION - WILLIAM LANGEWIESCHE (LOS ANGELES TIMES, OCTOBER 16): It is important to recognize that the spread of nuclear weapons is a condition over which we do not have control and for which there is no solution.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-...-opinion-center

NUCLEAR SCAPEGOATING AND NORTH KOREA - EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON TIMES, OCTOBER 16): Given the historical record, it is unseemly and dishonest for Democratic partisans like Mr. Carter and Sen. John Kerry to pretend that President Bush is the central reason for the failure to stop North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20061015-101425-1267r.htm

NUKE REBUKE - STEVE COLL (NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 16): On Bush's watch, atomic weapons have been revalued -- not quite to the point of legitimacy, perhaps, but certainly upward, as sources of influence, national pride, and anti-American defiance. The North Korean test matters most as a symbol of accumulating trouble.
http://www.newyorker.com/printables/talk/061023ta_talk_coll

BUSH UNLEASHES THE NUCLEAR BEAST: IF THE ADMINISTRATION WON'T ABIDE BY TIME-TESTED NUCLEAR TREATIES, WHY SHOULD ANYONE ELSE? - JOSEPH CIRINCIONE (LOS ANGELES TIMES, OCTOBER 15): Bush administration officials have proved expert at smashing the agreements their predecessors so painstakingly built, but in doing so they broke the bars that had caged the nuclear beast.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commen...omment-opinions

THE NEW NORTH KOREA: ABSURDISTAN WITH THE BOMB -- WHAT DOES NORTH KOREA'S LEADER KIM JONG IL WANT? BY TESTING A NUCLEAR WEAPON, THE ENIGMATIC DICTATOR HAS ANGERED HIS CLOSEST ALLY CHINA AND SHIFTED THE ASIAN BALANCE OF POWER. BUT THE COUNTRY MAY JUST BE LASHING OUT IN PARANOIA - (SPIEGEL, OCTOBER 16)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiege...,442823,00.html

KRAUTHAMMER, KENNEDY & KOREA: IS COMMON SENSE STILL A VIABLE OPTION IN THE MODERN "INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY?" - ANDREW C. MCCARTHY (NATIONAL REVIEW, OCTOBER 16): It may be far more practical and beneficial to warn China to rein in North Korea than to appeal to the Chinese as if they were a dependable ally -- which, manifestly, they are not.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmVlO...zZkYTRhZDMzNTc=

NUCLEAR TAG TEAM: THE LONE SUPERPOWER THAT COULDN'T - DAVID E. SANGER (NEW YORK TIMES, OCTOBER 15): As America barrels toward a nuclear showdown on opposite sides of Asia, perhaps the best measure of Americas power in these matters is its need for Russia and China to cooperate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/weekinre...agewanted=print

WITHOUT SANCTION: HOW TO DEAL WITH A MADMAN WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS IF ECONOMIC SANCTIONS HAVE LITTLE IMPACT ON HIM - ROBERT B. REICH (AMERICAN PROSPECT, OCTOBER 13): Kim Jung Il may not be rational, but the Chinese leadership is. And they're our best hope now for a rational outcome to this mess regarding North Korea.
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?sectio...articleId=12102

THE THINK-TWICE SANCTIONS ON NORTH KOREA - MONITOR'S VIEW (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, OCTOBER 16): The sanctions imposed by the Security Council, even though watered down by China and Russia, at least keep a global consensus together for a more critical goal of the United States: threatening the economies of Iran and other bomb-leaning states if they get close to going nuclear.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1016/p08s02-comv.html

UN SANCTIONS: BUSH'S ELECTION-EVE CONVERSION - GRAIG CRAWFORD (HUFFINGTON POST, OCTOBER 14): You almost have to laugh at President Bush touting United Nations sanctions against North Korea as "swift and tough," considering how he once derided similar sanctions against Iraq as ineffective (when arguing for an invasion). Now that his own team is behind a nearly identical UN move against North Korea, suddenly he is on board with this approach?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-crawfo...ec_b_31707.html

SECURITY COUNCIL IN NAME ONLY: FAILING TO STOP NORTH KOREA FROM GOING NUCLEAR MAY HAVE BEEN THE LAST STRAW FOR THE ONETIME GUARDIAN OF WORLD ORDER - NIALL FERGUSON (LOS ANGELES TIMES, OCTOBER 16)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-...nion-columnists

NO U.N. PANACEA - ED ROYCE (WASHINGTON TIMES, OCTOBER 15): It will be business as usual at the U.N., to North Korea's advantage.
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/200610...02320-4782r.htm

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/10/1...orea_effect.php
The North Korea Effect
Elizabeth Spiro Clark
October 17, 2006


Elizabeth Spiro Clark is a retired Foreign Service officer who writes extensively on issues of global democratization.

Two factors have altered the politics of the Bush administration’s confrontation with Iran: the North Korean nuclear test and the deteriorating situation in Iraq.

On the surface, it seems the nuclear test should have strengthened the case for a military attack on Iran. After all, the Bush administration could argue that it might be too late to stop the North Koreans from developing the bomb but not too late to preempt Iranian nuclear development. However, at his October 11 press conference President Bush repeatedly embraced multilateral diplomacy—tough diplomacy, of course.

Bush said Americans he talked to asked him why he did not just take North Korea out militarily. He put the talk of a military option in terms of having a rhetoric that underlined the consistency in his goals. Bush seemed relieved and happy that other players, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia, were now agreeing with the U.S. on the necessity of sanctioning North Korea. On Iran, too, Bush could find himself in the embrace of the tough multilateral negotiations strategy—might it be time to coin the acronym TMNS?—and may have to, as in North Korea, further transform the military option into a symbol of consistency.

Bush also made the point last week that North Korea is not Iraq. The administration tried diplomacy in Iraq and failed, he insisted. According to the president, the administration is still trying negotiations with North Korea. Leaving aside the logical and factual gaps in that formulation, Bush has left himself an opening with his comment that North Korea and Iraq were “different cases” to change course in Iran. Bush can back off regime change as a goal in Iran to give himself “time” for negotiations, and a dodge for not preempting in Iran what the administration says is intolerable in North Korea.

Until now, the prescription for all the “axis of evil” states was the same: regime change; now, “cases are different.” The North Korea test is forcing an intellectual awakening in the White House—that going it alone has its drawbacks. This will lead to a new appreciation for nuance in administration calculations.

Ever since the Bush administration requested and got $75 million from Congress last February to aid the Iranian democratic opposition—echoing the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998—the policy has been to increase pressure on Iran. A whole series of statements and actions mimicked the lead-up to the war in Iraq, most notably taking the Iranian case to the Security Council where our sanctions demands were certain to fail to get support, leaving the way open for breaking off negotiations and setting up a “coalition of the willing”—a coalition of one this time—to take military action. Even the Administration’s “compromise” to agree to join EU negotiations with Iran was classic unilateralism; the U.S. leaving conditions in place it knew would not be accepted by the Iranians or our allies, refusing to drop regime change as a goal or to discuss Iran’s security concerns. More recently, the case for a march to war with Iran has been fed by reports that the Air Force does not share the negative attitude of the other services for military action against Iran.

The second big change is in the situation in Iraq. The president repeatedly said that he would “finish the job” in Iraq, although “tactics” could change. He echoed his March 21 press conference statement that it would be up to his successor to make decisions on withdrawing from Iraq. However, when Bush spoke in March, the situation in Iraq had not deteriorated to its present point. Signposts to collapse are now everywhere. On her recent trip to Baghdad, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had to be helicoptered into the Green Zone because the road to the airport was not safe. (What war does helicoptering into—and out of—embassies recall?)

Rice moved on from Baghdad to visit Irbil in Kurdistan. Kurdistan, with the best military forces in Iraq guaranteeing its borders, is all but independent from Iraq already. Irbil is building an airport that will take the largest aircraft in the world. Is the administration signaling that the current policy of securing Baghdad may not last forever? The current negotiations between the Iraqi government and tribal chiefs in Anbar province could be read as a lead-in to claiming we are “finishing the job” there, standing up an antiterrorist government in a province that has been described as the heart of both foreign terrorist infiltration and the insurgency. These could be among the “adjustments of tactics” designed to cover up the fact that Iraq is collapsing—fast.

In his press conference, Bush made much of the “huge stakes in the Middle East;” if we don’t “win” there they will attack America “here.” That is a mantra that could be used to justify expanding military operations to Iran. Bush may even conceivably believe that America would face a serious threat that Iran would use its nuclear bombs against the U.S. if it should develop them.

Maybe, though, if Bush can be beguiled into tough multilateralism he can discover and embrace the concept of “containment.” A strategy that combines containment, deterrence and negotiated settlements is already, in fact, taking shape within the administration, according to reporting by Guy Dinmore in the October 13 Financial Times. John Hillan, assistant secretary of state for political and military affairs, is said to be pushing military assistance to the Gulf states to beef up their cooperation as a counter to a nuclear Iran. The same report quotes Cliff Kupchan of the Eurasia Group consultancy as actively looking for an alternative to the “binary choice” of living with a nuclear Iran or staging military strikes. If the realities of the U.S. constraints in Iraq and the epiphany that multilateralism may have its advantages in situations like North Korea, perhaps the Bush administration can be coaxed off the ledge with Iran.

PROLIFERATION NEWS
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
October 19, 2006

SAVE THE DATE: Join us for the 2007 Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference taking place from April 30 – May 1, 2007 in Washington, DC. Details to come.
Featured Content:
•"Disarming the Mullahs," Op-Ed by Henry Sokolski, Weekly Standard
•"Europeans Back Gradual Steps Against Iran's Nuclear Program," Reuters
•"Japan, Acting to Calm U.S. Worries, Rules Out Building Nuclear Arms," Washington Post
•"South Korea Says It Will Continue Projects in North," New York Times

From the International Press:
•"North Korea's Nuclear Gambit Means Iran Has Some Hard Choices to Make," Editorial, Daily Star - Lebanon

Event:
"Next Steps on North Korea: Options Beyond Sanctions,"
co-sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Stimson Center, October 12, 2006

Links of Interest:
• UN Resolution 1718 - Security Council Condemns Nuclear Test by Democratic People's Republic of Korea, October 14, 2006


Is the Bush Doctrine Dead?
(Pat Buchanan, Yahoo! News - Opinion)

Wednesday, October 18
Between Sept. 11, 2001, and his State of the Union Address in 2002, George W. Bush had America in the palm of his hand.

ProliferationNews.org
CarnegieEndowment.org
Iran Resources
South Asia Resources
Korea Resources
China Resources

But in that speech, Bush blew it. Singling out Iran, Iraq and North Korea as state sponsors of terror seeking weapons of mass destruction, Bush yoked them together in an "axis of evil" and issued this ultimatum: "I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."

Neoconservatives celebrated this bellicosity as neo-Churchillian. Yet all it accomplished was to fracture the U.S. and foreign coalitions that had united behind Bush. As some of us wrote at the time, to call Iran and Iraq, mortal enemies in the eight-year war of the '80s that took a million lives, an "axis" was absurd.

Bush's speech was a blunder of the first magnitude. First, he had no authority to attack any of those nations, as Congress had not authorized war. Second, he had neither the plans nor forces in place to do so. Yet he had put all three on notice this was what he had in mind.



Disarming the Mullahs
(Henry Sokolski, Weekly Standard - Opinion)

October 23 Issue
Now that North Korea has called America's diplomatic bluff by testing a nuclear device, and the wrangling has begun over how best to sanction Pyongyang, the question arises of what's in store for Iran. Will we bomb? Some insiders say yes, that President Bush has already decided that if Iran fails to freeze its enrichment program, he will direct our Air Force to attack Iran's nuclear plants sometime before he leaves office.

The urgency for bombing, of course, turns on the assumption that we can know precisely when Iran will acquire its first nuclear weapon--which we can't. A decision to bomb also presumes we can set Iran's nuclear weapons program back significantly with a single targeting campaign. This, at best, is unclear. Iran, for instance, might have a parallel, hidden nuclear weapons effort. Given Tehran's ability to tunnel a kilometer deep, and its stonewalling on what it has done with the advanced uranium enrichment plant designs it bought and claims it chose not to build, there's cause for concern. No bombing campaign is likely to destroy Iran's nuclear engineers. Whatever plants we destroy, they can rebuild.

A decision to bomb should turn less, then, on when we think Iran will "go nuclear" (something we are sure to get wrong) or how effective our first strike might be (also a matter of uncertainty) than on what we and Iran are likely to do with the time such a strike might conceivably buy. Although there's some confusion about what we might do--bomb indefinitely or persuade the Iranian people that we are on their side--what Iran might attempt is pretty clear.



Iran Seems Unmoved by Specter of Sanctions Against North Korea
(Nazila Fathi, New York Times)

Thursday, October 19
For the most part, Iran’s leaders have offered silence on what lessons they draw from the sanctions that the United Nations Security Council adopted last weekend to punish North Korea for its nuclear test — other than to say, as they have in the past, that they intend to continue what they call a peaceful nuclear program.

On Monday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the sanctions on North Korea would not deter Iran. And on Tuesday, he said efforts aimed at preventing Iran from having nuclear technology were doomed to fail, the state-controlled IRNA news agency reported.

At the United Nations, Britain, France, Germany and the United States are working on a Security Council resolution calling for sanctions against Iran for defying the organization’s call to stop enriching uranium. The resolution, which they hope to introduce early next week, may include a ban on nuclear or missile cooperation with Iran. On Tuesday, the 25 European Union foreign ministers met in Luxembourg and agreed to call for limited sanctions on Iran.



Europeans Back Gradual Steps Against Iran's Nuclear Program
(Reuters)

Wednesday, October 18
The European Union, spurred by North Korea’s nuclear test, backed limited United Nations sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program on Tuesday after Iran rejected conditions for opening negotiations.

The 25 foreign ministers of member nations, meeting here, called for incremental measures concentrating first on individuals and materials involved in Iranian uranium enrichment activities, which the West suspects are aimed at making a bomb.

After four months of talks with the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, Iran this month rejected a United Nations demand that it suspend enrichment.

“The Iranians’ refusal leaves us no choice today but to take to the Security Council route,” the French foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, told reporters. “The Security Council should adopt gradual, reversible measures proportionate to Iranian actions.”

Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, called it the “first step in sanctions,” but stressed that the Europeans’ offer of cooperation remained on the table if Iran was willing to meet the conditions.



Japan, Acting to Calm U.S. Worries, Rules Out Building Nuclear Arms
(Glenn Kessler, Washington Post)

Thursday, October 19
Japan "is absolutely not considering" building a nuclear arsenal in response to the North Korean nuclear test, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso said Wednesday, moments after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reiterated that Japan was protected by the American nuclear umbrella.

Rice arrived here Wednesday on the first stop of a tour through northeast Asia and Russia. Her trip is aimed at allaying concerns and coordinating strategy against the Pyongyang government in the wake of the test.

The question of whether Japan would go nuclear has stoked worries within the U.S. government and increased tensions in the region. Earlier in the day, Aso told a parliamentary committee that while Japan's nonnuclear principles remain unchanged, "it's important to have discussions on the matter."



South Korea Says It Will Continue Projects in North
(Thom Shanker and Martin Fackler, New York Times)

Thursday, October 19
The government of South Korea told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today that it had no intention of pulling out of an industrial zone and a tourist resort in North Korea, even though both put hard currency into the pocket of the Pyongyang regime.

During a press conference with Ms. Rice, the South Korean foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon, said he explained "the positive aspects" of the industrial park at Kaesong, and also described how the tourism zone around Mount Kumgang was "a very symbolic project" for reconciliation between the two Koreas.

If Secretary Rice was disappointed by the statement, her public comments instead emphasized the importance of the U.S.-South Korean alliance. The goal, she said, is not to elevate tensions on the peninsula, but to implement sanctions under a Security Council resolution as a multinational effort forcing force North Korea to return to 6-party negotiations and end its nuclear program.

"I did not come to South Korea, nor will I go anyplace else, to try and dictate to governments what they ought to do in response to resolution 1718," Ms. Rice said after meetings with President Roh Moo-hyun and Foreign Minister Ban, recently chosen as the next secretary general of the United Nations.

"What I do think is very important is that everyone take stock of the leverage that we have to get North Korea to return to the six-party talks and negotiate seriously the dismantlement of its nuclear weapons programs," she said.




From the International Press:


North Korea's Nuclear Gambit Means Iran Has Some Hard Choices to Make
(Daily Star - Editorial)

Saturday, October 14
The Middle East needs no outside assistance to maintain its usual level of tension, and the diplomatic pressure on Iran to allow closer international oversight of its nuclear activities has been building for months, so the global agitation over North Korea's purported testing on Monday of a nuclear device could not have come at a worse time. Pyongyang's misguided - and as yet unclear - gambit has helped Washington to gain the European support it needed to bring Tehran before the United Nations Security Council. The Iranians have thus far been unbending in articulating and defending what they see as their clear rights, and the unfolding of the crisis seems to await only a determination by the White House as to whether it wants any form of escalation toward sanctions and/or military action to come before or after the mid-term elections on November 7.

There is still the possibility that Iran's government is banking on its ability to eke out a last-minute agreement that prevents a head-on collision between itself and the international community. Such an approach would be risky, however, because history has demonstrated repeatedly that the processes of international power politics are capable of trumping the intentions of the governments in question and leading to confrontations that look so avoidable in hindsight. Iran's leaders need to be very aware of this tendency as they plot a course through the politico-military minefield that now lays before them and their people. It is easy to dismiss current US policy rhetorically, but it would be foolhardy to ignore the momentum it has gained because of developments on the other side of the world.

The United States now feels - with increasing justification - that it has the tools necessary to "steel" its European allies into dealing harshly with Iran. The merits of the American argument, and the double standards on which it is manifestly based, have been made even more irrelevant than they were when their only motive force was provided by a preponderance of US military power and diplomatic influence. The acquiescence of Britain, France and Germany is not enough to ensure that the Security Council would endorse painful sanctions and/or the use of armed force against Iran, but it very nearly guarantees that America will feel free to employ the more muscular approach that its allies have previously sought to prevent, or at least dilute.




Event: "Next Steps on North Korea: Options Beyond Sanctions"
On October 12, 2006, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in collaboration with the Henry L. Stimson Center, hosted a discussion prompted by the apparent North Korea nuclear test entitled “Next Steps on North Korea: Options Beyond Sanctions” with Randy Schriver, a founding partner of Armitage International LLC and a Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and Alan D. Romberg, Senior Associate at the Henry L. Stimson Center. Carnegie Senior Associate Michael Swaine moderated the discussion.

Click here to access a summary of the event and a full transcript of remarks.

Links of Interest:

UN Resolution 1718 - Security Council Condemns Nuclear Test by Democratic People's Republic of Korea, October 14, 2006

Resource: International News and Commentary on DPRK Nuclear Test
Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.