Nuclear Talks With Iran Yield Little Progress, Greater Isolation

Today's top nuclear policy stories, with excerpts in bullet form.

Stories we're following today: Monday January 24, 2011.

Iran Nuclear Talks Break Down Without an Agreement - Joby Warrick in The Washington Post [link]

• Diplomatic efforts to end the eight-year-old impasse over Iran's nuclear program ran aground Saturday after Iranian officials refused to bargain with the United States and other world powers unless they first agreed to conditions including an immediate halt to economic sanctions.
• The standoff, played out over two days inside a picturesque palace on the shores of the Bosporus, ended with dueling diplomatic statements and deepening pessimism about prospects for solving one of the Obama administration's most vexing security challenges.
• U.S. and European officials said, however, they were encouraged by the cohesion shown by the six countries on the other side of the negotiating table. Those countries - the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany - have often disagreed on Iran, but the group was in lock step in their opposition to Iran's proposed conditions, according to U.S. and E.U. officials who participated in the talks.
• After a frustrating start, the talks devolved into what one U.S. official described as "circular discussions" interrupted by lengthy breaks. At one point Friday, the Iranian delegation left the negotiations for Friday prayers followed by a lunch.
• George Perkovich, director of the nonproliferation program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Studies, a Washington nonprofit group, said the talks had resulted in Iran "further isolating itself and losing support."
• "Clearly there are signs that Iran's nuclear program has slowed," said the senior Obama administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the talks. "I think there is time and space for diplomacy."

The Computer Worm That Could - The Boston Globe [link]

• A bloodless cyber warfare attack has delayed, at least for a few more years, any need to choose between bombing Iranian nuclear sites and allowing that government to acquire nuclear weapons. The appropriate response is a sigh of relief — along with a renewed commitment to halting Iran’s nuclear weapons program through diplomatic and economic pressure.
• The departing chief of Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, without mentioning the cleverly designed computer worm called Stuxnet, has said Iran will not be capable of making a nuclear weapon before 2015. This is roughly the same delay that air strikes against Iran’s known nuclear sites would produce.
• Given a respite, America and its allies must now pursue two mutually reinforcing tracks: ratcheting up sanctions on Iran and intercepting materials for its nuclear program, while also persuading Iran of the economic and security benefits it will gain from an agreement to stop short of developing nuclear weapons.
• Stuxnet’s effectiveness against Iran offers a reminder that US officials must be ready to defend the American power grid, financial system, and industrial base against computer worms. Regardless, Stuxnet’s creators have shown that, even if only Iran can call a halt to its own nuclear program, there are powerful technical ways to slow it down.

Foreign Policy Issues Obama May Address in Speech - Arshad Mohammed in Reuters [link]

• Foreign policy seldom makes headlines in the State of the Union speech, but President Barack Obama cannot avoid it with U.S. forces fighting a difficult war in Afghanistan and American diplomats trying, with no obvious success, to curb nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.
• Now in its 10th year, the U.S.-led war against al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan is likely to be the foreign policy issue of greatest interest to most Americans.
• Obama has promised to start bringing home some of the roughly 97,000 U.S. troops in the country in July.
• The United States appears to be inching toward a resumption of aid-for-disarmament talks with North Korea, which has twice conducted nuclear tests and has stepped up belligerent behavior toward South Korea in the last year.
• Obama is likely to mention China but most unlikely to break new ground a week after holding extensive talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao during his state visit to Washington.

Point Man on U.S. Sanctions to Depart - Jay Solomon in The Wall Street Journal [link]

• The point man for the Obama administration's financial wars on Iran, North Korea and al Qaeda, Stuart Levey, has decided to leave his senior U.S. Treasury Department post at what is turning out to be a particularly critical time.
• Senior Obama administration officials disclosed Mr. Levey's departure, after nearly a decade in government service, but stressed that it doesn't signal a shift in U.S. policy or a slackening of Washington's financial campaigns against Tehran, Pyongyang and international terrorist groups.
• They said the White House is set to nominate David Cohen, Mr. Levey's deputy at Treasury and longtime confidante, to succeed him as the undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. Mr. Levey, a Republican, was one of the few senior members of President George W. Bush's national security team to stay on under Mr. Obama.
• Mr. Levey's strategy has specifically focused on using international companies' needs for the U.S. dollar, and their fears of being barred from the American financial system, as leverage to gain their cooperation. At times, the Treasury Department hasn't even needed to formally sanction foreign companies, but merely register Washington's fears about their activities, in order to impact their businesses.
• Mr. Cohen said the Treasury has "rewritten the rules of economic warfare" in recent years. But he added: "We'd like to add some new plays."

South Korea to Soon Propose Nuclear Talks With North - Reuters [link]

• South Korea will soon propose holding talks with the North that could pave the way for a resumption of six-party negotiations aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions in return for aid, an official said on Monday.
• The meeting, which would be a major breakthrough after a two-year suspension of the disarmament-for-aid process, will be proposed separately from high-level military talks between the rival Koreas.
• "As soon as (internal) discussions conclude, we will be making a proposal to the North on high-level military talks and also official meetings on denuclearization," said Unification Ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-ju.
• Tensions on the Korean peninsula rose sharply last year when a South Korean navy ship was sunk by a torpedo attack in March that Seoul blamed on Pyongyang. The North bombarded a South Korean island late in the year, the first such attack in decades.
• Washington and Beijing, the two key players in the six-party process, have argued that North-South dialogue is a prerequisite for a resumption of the talks also involving the two Koreas, Russia and China. Pyongyang walked out after rejecting nuclear inspections and pronounced the talks finished in 2009.

A View From The Dark Side

Senate Misinformed about New START - “The Foundry” a Heritage Foundation Blog [link]

• Although the U.S. Senate gave its advice and consent to the ratification of New START, a strategic nuclear arms control treaty with the Russian Federation, the debate about the substance and ramifications of the treaty is far from resolved.
• Despite the Obama Administration’s claims to the contrary, Russian officials have publicly stated that the Russian Federation will not have to cut even a single warhead as a result of reductions stipulated in the treaty. But this question also remains—on how many other issues with New START was the Senate misled?
• During the New START debates, a number of experts expressed concerns about the negative impact of New START’s provisions in the preamble, the body, the protocol, and the annexes of the treaty for the U.S. missile defense program. To that end, Senators John McCain (R–AZ), Bob Corker (R–TN), and Joe Lieberman (I–CT) attached an understanding to the treaty on December 22, 2010, that specifically rejects the Russian claim that the language in the preamble is legally binding.
• This raises the question of whether the two diametrically opposed understandings will or should bar the exchange of the instruments of ratification between the two parties and prevent entry into force of New START.
• NOTE: The U.S. Senate ratified the New START Treaty on December 22nd, 2010 by an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 71-26. The U.S. military and every living former Secretary of State lauded the vote as a victory for American security.