Blunt Sanctions on Iran Move Forward

On the radar: CBI Sanctions and their risks; Schwartz checks facts; A call for budget transparency; New START data; Behind the UK embassy attack; McFaul blocked once more; Russian elections; Sigal on North Korea; and NASA and Livermore pursue the Michael Bay option.

December 2, 2011 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke

Senate moves to sanction Central Bank of Iran - “The 100-0 vote came in spite of warnings from the Obama administration that the sanctions would alienate allies and drive up oil prices,” reports The Wall Street Journal.

--”To become law, the measure—attached to a defense-authorization bill that cleared the Senate on Thursday—must be approved by the House and signed by Mr. Obama to become law.” http://owl.li/7MmCx

--Said Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman yesterday, “there is absolutely a risk that in fact the price of oil would go up, which would mean that Iran would in fact have more money to fuel its nuclear ambitions, not less.” AFP has more on the story. http://owl.li/7MlZ4

Schwartz replies to fact checker - Nuclear budget guru Stephen Schwartz has a statement modifying his earlier comments to The Washington Post about Ploughshares nuclear budget estimate.

--”The fundamental point—which tends to get lost in the rather esoteric discussion of how this estimate was derived—is that more than 69 years after the creation of the Manhattan Project, no one in the government knows what the actual number is because there is not and has never been a line item for nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs in the federal budget.” http://owl.li/7Mkf5

The unaccountable nuclear budget - “So, how much does the U.S. spend on nuclear weapons? The only way to know for sure—and the only way for Congress to make informed decisions about funding—is for the administration to be more transparent about its nuclear spending, and to make a complete, detailed budget available to the public that includes operations, tactical nukes and other costs borne by the taxpayer. We also need a GAO audit of that budget, because right now, the one thing we do know is that we do not know enough,” write Mia Steinle and Danielle Brian for the Project on Government Oversight. http://owl.li/7MjFx

--Editor’s note: for additional responses to The Washington Post blog, see “More Light on Nuclear Budget Numbers” on the Ploughshares Fund blog. http://owl.li/7Mlvi

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New START data - The State Department has fresh data from the September 1 New START exchange. The US has 822 deployed delivery vehicles out of 1043 total with 1790 deployed warheads. Russia has 516 deployed delivery vehicles out of 871 total with 1566 deployed warheads. More data in the fact sheet. http://owl.li/7MkzQ

Tweet - @russianforces: “Good to see US releasing more detailed New START data…. No missile S/N or number of warheads, but good anyway”

Sequester Fact Sheet - “If we assume sequester will occur, there remains a lot of confusion about what that means for the Department of Defense’s topline,” writes Russell Rumbaugh of The Stimson Center. “So we present a basic fact sheet on what happens in sequester—including some estimates of actual topline numbers.”

--On the numbers: ”after FY13, the Defense Department budget would grow in nominal terms—not at the rate of inflation, but still nominal growth. That is because sequester evenly distributes the savings across all nine years, making the adjustment all happen up front.” (pdf) http://owl.li/7Mjrw

More on the UK Embassy attack - “The attack on the British Embassy makes the job of talking with Iran that much more difficult, and will only embolden those calling for additional sanctions and the isolation of the regime,” writes Meir Javedanfar.

--”The incident should give the West even more pause for thought. If Mojtaba Khamenei really was behind the attack, and if talk of Ali Khamenei transferring more power to him is proven to be true, then the international community has real reason to worry because an Iran with Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader is going to be even more militant and difficult to deal with.” http://owl.li/7Mi9l

Barak says strike not imminent - “"We have no intention, at the moment, of taking action, but the state of Israel is far from being paralyzed by fear...It must act calmly and quietly -- we don't need big wars," said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on the prospects of a strike on Iran. Reuters has the story. http://owl.li/7MipW

McFaul blocked, round 2 - Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) is blocking President Obama’s nominee to become ambassador to Russia over suspicions the U.S. might share sensitive missile defense information with Moscow. “The administration says it has no plans to provide such data. But it says the assurances sought by Sen. Mark Kirk are so broad, they would prevent any substantial cooperation on missile defense,” reports the Associated Press. http://owl.li/7Mh2h

Russian nationalism - There has been a lot of saber rattling from Russia lately about NATO and missile defense. Why? “The Kremlin is preoccupied with its own political survival, especially with elections coming. So it plays the nationalism card,” says The Wall Street Journal.

--“What's probably bothering the regime more is declining public support at home. Mr. Putin's decision to take the presidency back, announced in September, hasn't gone as smoothly as he hoped. Many Russians have recoiled at the thought of another decade-plus of Putinocracy.” http://owl.li/7MiHs

Dealing with North Korea - ”The only way to prevent Pyongyang from [restarting its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, producing enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon and conducting additional missile tests] is to strike a deal and keep it to test whether it is prepared to stop. Letting what we don’t know about North Korea’s weapons programs get in the way of stopping what we do know about would be a fateful error,” writes Leon Sigal in The National Interest. http://owl.li/7MiPD

Nuke designer looks to the stars - “David Dearborn is one of a small handful of people who can say they've designed their own atomic bomb, lowered it into the Nevada desert, and watched it detonate, instantly vaporizing the earth around it and swallowing the desert floor in an immense gas-filled crater...His [recent] work has been focused on new uses for existing nuclear technology. The one he's most passionate about is a peaceful application: using nuclear bombs to protect the planet from "Earth killer" space objects,” writes Adam Weinstein in Mother Jones.

-- Michael Bay must work at NASA: “A 2007 NASA study (PDF) concluded that atomic explosions "are the technology of choice for deflecting" objects near Earth.” http://owl.li/7Mhxk