NYT: More and Deeper Cuts are Needed

On the radar: NYT for nuclear cuts; Luers and Pickering on diplomatic opportunity; Dagan on the risks of a military strike; Persuasion and nuclear capability; Congress clashes over nuclear cuts; When less is not more; Misreading Iran; The dream that failed; Strategic interests in a MENWFZ; and Celestial megatonnage.

March 12, 2012 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke and Mary Kaszynski

Strategy, budgets, and nukes - The nuclear guidance review “is President Obama’s opportunity to reshape the post-cold-war world to make it fundamentally safer. He needs to seize it,” writes the New York Times editorial board. “Reducing the arsenal will make it easier to rein in that bloated budget and shift resources to more critical needs.”

--The editors call on the president to “lead the way” by going down 1,000 deployed strategic warheads, and cutting tactical nukes as well as the number of warheads kept in reserve. http://owl.li/9BiVu

Opportunity for successful diplomacy with Iran - President Obama and the Iranian leadership seem cautiously ready to move on diplomacy. “This opportunity should not be squandered,” write Ambassadors William Luers and Thomas Pickering in The Boston Globe.

--Recommendations for upcoming talks: Iran should cap enrichment at 5 percent in exchange for the P5+1 providing fuel for the Tehran research reactor. To get agreement, the P5+1 should also hold off on implementing sanctions on Iran’s central bank and oil exports. On non-nuclear matters, the P5+1 should propose a separate forum for interested nations to talk directly with Iran about regional issues. http://owl.li/9BiSD

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Unintended consequences - An strike on Iran would have a "devastating impact" on Israel, former Mossad director Meir Dagan said on CBS's 60 minutes. “Wars, you know how they start. You never know how you are ending it," Dagan added. http://owl.li/9BiXI

--Watch the 60-minutes interview here. http://owl.li/9BiZr

Interests, persuasion, and weaponizing - “The reality is that any modern nation with Iran's level of technical and scientific know-how can build a weapon — Brazil, South Africa, probably even Finland if it wanted to. The reason they haven't is because they've been persuaded that it isn't in their interest to do so, since the effort would carry far more costs than benefits and it wouldn't make them any safer,” writes the Baltimore Sun.

--”That's something Iran's leaders apparently have failed to grasp up to now, but Mr. Obama is right to keep ratcheting up the diplomatic and economic pressure and hope they get the point.” http://owl.li/9Bj3K

Nuclear debate - The nuclear budget debate is heating up in Congress. Last week Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH) introduced a bill to “ensure the promises [of the New START deal] are kept” by requiring funding for nuclear modernization.

--Meanwhile Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) sent a letter to Rep. Turner calling for ending plans to build two new nuclear facilities. “At a time when the Senate and president have formally committed to reducing our nuclear stockpile, it makes no sense...to expand our capacity to produce components of nuclear weapons,” Markey argued. Jeremy Herb reports for The Hill. http://owl.li/9BiJz

The case against strengthening counterforce - “As the Obama administration prepares to make critical decisions about the future of the US nuclear arsenal, it would do well to ignore calls to develop new low-yield counterforce options, as they would actually increase the probability of nuclear war and undermine US nonproliferation goals,” writes Kingston Reif in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. http://owl.li/9BiU4

Misreading Iran - “A war with Iran is not inevitable, but it might yet become so if the debate does not become both more honest and realistic. Indeed, the west has misread Iran for the best part of a century and more, not least since the country's revolution,” writes Peter Beaumont in The Guardian. http://owl.li/9Bj1q

Cover Art - A year after Fukushima, The Economist this week features a special report on “Nuclear Energy: The Dream that Failed.” Includes analysis on costs, safety risks, and proliferation dangers of nuclear technology. http://owl.li/9Bj5R

Rationale behind a nuke-free Middle East - “Yes, it sounds far-fetched...[but] a nuclear-free Middle East is the best compromise for the current conditions, and it is the strategically rational move to take for both Israel and Iran,” argues Boaz Atzili in The Christian Science Monitor. http://owl.li/9BjbP

Asteroid tracking - An asteroid called 2011 AG5 will pass by Earth, with a 1 in 625 chance of hitting our planet in 2023 or 2040. If AG5 hits, the collision would be equal to about a 100 megaton explosion - twice the explosive energy of the largest nuclear weapon ever tested (but equal to its design yie). Neatorama has the story and managed to not mention Bruce Willis. http://owl.li/9Bj8A