Obama To Revive U.S.-Russian Civilian Nuclear Deal

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

Stories we're following today, Friday, May 7, 2010:

Obama Plans Revival of Russian Nuclear Deal - The New York Times [link]

• President Obama is preparing to revive a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with Moscow that his predecessor shelved two years ago.
• Word of the possible move has generated consternation in Congress, where some lawmakers were already skeptical of the deal and now worry that Mr. Obama is giving Russia too much.
• [The deal would] allow extensive commercial nuclear trade, technology transfers and joint research between Russia and the United States. It would clear the way for Russia to import, store and possibly reprocess spent nuclear fuel from American-supplied reactors around the world, a potentially lucrative business.
• Officials said that America’s nuclear industry would benefit from the revived agreement and noted that the United States had similar cooperation deals with dozens of other countries. As for Russia’s support for sanctions against Iran, the officials argued that China, not Russia, was the real obstacle in the United Nations Security Council.

The Incredible Shrinking Iranian Influence - Joe Cirincione in Foreign Policy [link]

• The trumpeted U.S.-Iran showdown at the United Nations was over moments after it began. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad strutted and fretted his almost-hour on the stage of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference on May 3.
• At the last conference, five years ago, Iran's complaints of Western nuclear discrimination struck a powerful chord among member states and helped wreck the gathering. This year, bellwether states like Mexico, South Africa, Brazil, and Egypt are tipping the other way.
• Iran's waning influence in conference halls mirrors global attitudes. A recent BBC World Service survey found that twenty-five out of 28 countries polled believe Iran's influence on the world is mainly negative.  By contrast, global views of the United States' influence have improved sharply. For the first time since 2005, the world sees U.S. influence as more positive than negative.
• The bottom line? Ahmadinejad's diplomatic offensive flopped. The regime is, as U.S. Vice President Joe Biden says, more isolated domestically, regionally, and internationally than it has ever been.

In Unusual Move, Iran's Foreign Minister Invites U.N. Security Council to Dinner - The Washington Post [link]

• In a highly unusual move, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki hosted a dinner Thursday for the 15 members of the U.N. Security Council, including a senior U.S. diplomat.
• The United States has long restricted diplomatic contacts with Iran, allowing for limited contacts to deal with regional conflicts such as Afghanistan and Iraq.
• A U.S. official said before Thursday's dinner that the United States had low expectations that the gathering would lead to a diplomatic breakthrough but that it was willing to give the Iranians a chance to make their case.
• The United States maintained that its presence at the dinner should not be interpreted as a sign that it is backing away from sanctions. "This is a dual-track strategy of engagement on one hand and pressure on the other," a U.S. official said.

Israel Needs a New Nuclear Policy - Haaretz [link]

• The Security Council's permanent members this week reiterated an old call to establish a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East.
• In brief, if the Egyptians say that without disarmament there will be no peace, Israel says peace now, disarmament later.
• However, the periodic demand for regional disarmament is different this time, on two counts: Israel describes the nuclear weapons Iran is expected to acquire as a threat to its survival, and U.S. President Barack Obama is passionately striving for a nuclear-free world, not merely region.
• In this situation, Israel must adopt a new policy - one that does not go as far as total and immediate disarmament, but does agree to freeze new nuclear activities.  The expanse between excessive weaponry and disarmament is not a slippery slope. Israel should enter it.

Would a Nuclear Iran Spark a Regional Arms Race? - Matthew Ygelsias for Think Progress [link]

• The conventional wisdom is that if Iran acquired nuclear weapons capability that this will likely spark a region-wide nuclear arms race.
• But there is no real reason to assume that Iran’s neighbors will automatically build their own nuclear weapons.
• Israel, after all, has possessed nuclear weapons since the late 1960s, and none of its neighbors—all of whom were at war with Israel at the time it developed nuclear weapons—acquired their own bombs.
• Interestingly, there has been a test case over the last decade of the arms race model in Northeast Asia. North Korea’s withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003 and subsequent nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009 have not set off a wave of proliferation in the region. Japan and South Korea, both technically capable of building nuclear weapons and having legitimate security concerns vis-à-vis North Korea, have not begun their own weapons programs.
• Their failure to do so calls into question the accuracy of the simple security-based arms race model many policymakers and pundits have adopted to warn about the consequences of an Iranian bomb.

On the Lighter Side

Nerf Develops New Line of Biological Weapons - The Onion [link]

• Nerf, the popular toy manufacturer, announced Tuesday that it was introducing a new line of foam-based biological weapons capable of causing "massive outbreaks of fun."
• According to company officials, the Nerf biological weapons represent the next logical step in foam warfare, offering kids all the enjoyment of deploying a disease-causing agent, while still being safe for indoor play.
• Developed over the past 15 years by top toy designers in exile from Russia, the microscopic Nerf neurotoxins are sold in two sizes: Bacterial Blast and Pandemic Pump. When released upon unsuspecting populations ages 6 and up, the cushy spores harmlessly infect a host by entering the nose, lungs, and eyes, before gently ricocheting off the internal organs.
• One vial of Nerf biotoxin, priced at $14.99, can entertain up to 20 children or one densely populated metropolitan area for up to six unforgettable days.