Nuclear Deadline Nearing for Iran

Stories we're following today:

A Nuclear Deadline Looms for Iran – and for Obama – TIME [link]

• Nobody is expecting Iran's proposals to come close to meeting current Western demands, and that could leave Obama facing the unenviable choice either of being painted as feckless, or else moving down a road of escalation that puts a diplomatic solution further beyond reach.
• "We can expect that the new Iranian package, much like the most recent Western proposals presented to Iran, will mostly be a repackaging of old positions," says Trita Parsi, an Iran analyst and president of the National Iranian American Council [Note: NIAC is a Ploughshares Fund grantee].
• By simply setting the [September 15] deadline, [President Obama] may have made it harder for himself to fend off demands that he escalate the confrontation.

U.S. Wants Results from Obama Nuclear Meeting at UN – Associated Press

• [U.S. Ambassador Susan ] Rice said the Sept. 24 meeting will highlight the need to strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and emphasize the importance of preventing and disrupting trafficking of nuclear material. It also will deal with way to secure uranium and plutonium that can be used to build nuclear weapons as well as efforts to move toward nuclear disarmament.
• Note: Follow this link [http://usun.state.gov/briefing/statements/2009/september/128596.htm] to read Ambassador Rice’s full remarks from a press conference held in the UN Press Briefing Room yesterday.

Obama Facing Hurdles to Nuclear Disarmament Goals – Associated Press 

• There is little indication Obama will have the votes he needs for a cornerstone of his nonproliferation efforts: Senate ratification of a nuclear test ban treaty. If Obama can't get the treaty approved, he probably will have a hard time persuading the rest of the world to rein in nuclear weapon programs.
• Political realities have made focusing on the test ban treaty difficult. Obama's top priorities these days are passing a massive health care overhaul and overcoming violence in Afghanistan. On arms control, his administration is now focused on another goal: securing a successor to a bilateral treaty with Russia that expires in December.
• [Senator Jon] Kyl told the AP he believes he can defeat Obama's push for the treaty. "I think they are dead set on ratifying it," he said. "That doesn't mean it is going to happen."

Deterred from Logic on Nukes – Peter Scoblic in The New Republic [link]

• Writing in response to Jonathan Tepperman’s recent article in Newsweek, “Why Obama Should Learn to Love the Bomb,” Peter Scoblic declares, “I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone suggest that they know ‘the truth’ about nuclear weapons, but I’m quite certain that Tepperman hasn’t found it.”
• Scoblic writes: “Toward the end of the article, having spent more than 2,000 words explaining how nukes protect us, Tepperman adds that a key problem with the “dreamy ideal” of disarmament is that it distracts us from the more important problem: “making the world we actually live in--the nuclear world--safer.” Given that his point was that nukes made us safe, it was a little jarring to read that it needs to be made safer, because that suggests there is some danger now.”

Russia Says Progress Made on U.S. Nuclear Arms Deal – Reuters [link]

• [Russian Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov said negotiators had made progress on difficult issues and would report to both presidents when they meet on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh later this month.