Queen Noor Warns Senate: Opposing START and CTBT Puts the World on a Dangerous Path

We are happy to serve you a daily summary of the day's top nuclear policy stories each morning, with excerpts from the stories in bullet form.

Stories we're following today:

Queen Noor To Senate: We Are At A Nuclear Tipping Point - Max Bergmann in the Wonk Room [link]

• This week in Paris hundreds of world leaders and prominent global figures are attending the Global Zero summit to push for the elimination of nuclear weapons within the next 20 years. Conservatives frequently describe Obama’s vision of eliminating nuclear weapons as impractical and a byproduct of some absurd liberal utopianism. The Global Zero Summit has shown this defeatist narrative not just to be false but dangerous as well.
• In response to what she would say to U.S. Senators that are contemplating opposing the President’s efforts to ratify a new START treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, Queen Noor warned that such an approach would put the world on a dangerous path.

NOOR: We feel we are reaching a nuclear tipping point a point, beyond which the proliferation of nuclear weapons and nuclear materials can fall in to the hands of terrorists can not be reigned back in. I would say that you’re choosing between building together with the other nuclear states an environment of trust and confidence for a secure world without nuclear weapons or you are heading down the path of increased proliferation and the exponentionally increasing danger that nuclear materials will end up in the hands of non-state actors and terrorists, as well as the increasing danger of accidents taking place or miscalculations of which there have been many in the past.

Listen to it:

Russia, West Closer on Iran Sanctions: Lawmakers - Reuters [link]

• Russia and Western powers have moved closer to agreement on the need for further sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, a leading Russian lawmaker said on Thursday.
• Pro-Kremlin lawmaker Konstantin Kosachyov's remarks were the strongest recent sign from Moscow that Russia could support a resolution on new economic sanctions in the United Nations Security Council, where it has veto power.
• "As regards a tougher conversation with Iran, the application of some additional sanctions of an economic character, on this question mutual understanding between Russia and its partners in the international arena has clearly increased," he said.
• Kosachyov, head of the International Affairs committee in Russia's lower house of parliament, expressed concern over Iran's latest rocket test and its defiance of international demands it stop uranium enrichment.
• "The situation is beginning to alarm us more and more," he told state-owned Rossiya-24 television in an interview.

Ahmadinejad Raises Nuclear Hopes (Again) - Julian Borger's Global Security Blog [link]

• After three months of prevarication over the uranium export deal first agreed in Geneva in October, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) finally received what seemed like a definitive 'no' on the main terms of the bargain from Tehran last month. 
• Now, days later, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears to be saying he has no problem with the deal.
• What is going on? As is usual in dealings with Iran, no one is quite sure. ... That is par for the course. From past experience it seems likely we are witnessing an internal debate being aired in public, or a deliberate attempt to inject uncertainty back into the mix to forestall talk of sanctions or worse.
• If this was not an act of insubordination, then last night's interview had been personally permitted by Khamenei, and that suggests a calculated change of tack by the regime as a whole.
• Tehran's negotiating strategy has always been to avoid a definitive yes or no wherever possible. The aim is to steer clear of any international obligations that would limit its nuclear programme, while trying not to provoke the international community into concerted punitive action.

Activists Breach Security at Kleine Brogel - ArmsControlWonk [link]

• If you watch this video on YouTube it is very clear that a group of Belgian peace activists not only got inside the wire at Kleine-Brogel Airbase — where some US nuclear weapons may be stored — but they also got into the area where the hardened shelters are located (within the shelters are aircraft and WS3 storage vaults with US B61 nuclear gravity bombs.)
• The reality is that significant shortcomings exists in the security of European airbases where US nuclear weapons are stored. That was made absolutely clear to me on my visit to SHAPE — and it was reported in the 2008 Air Force Blue Ribbon Review. Host-nations are supposed to provide security but they often cut corners.
• The most direct route to securing US nuclear weapons in Europe is to immediately — like yesterday — consolidate all remaining forward deployed nuclear weapons to just one or two US airbases in Europe. Take your pick from Aviano, Incirlik, Lakenheath and Ramstein. This would immediately improve the overall security of the weapons, while starting a dialogue about whether forward-deployed weapons are really essential to maintaining NATO’s nuclear character twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
• Note: See also Han Kristensen's analysis, "US Nuclear Weapons Site in Europe Breached" in the FAS Strategic Security Blog.

Romanians Accept Plan for Basing of Missiles - New York Times [link]

• The president, Traian Basescu, said in a statement that Romania, a former Warsaw Pact member and now part of NATO, was prepared to negotiate with the United States to accept ground-based interceptors as part of an antiballistic missile defense system. He said it could be working by 2015.
• White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said the announcement was welcomed. “We’re pleased that Romania has agreed to participate in that defense shield,” he told reporters in Washington.

A View from the Dark Side

While Nukes Proliferate, Obama Fiddles - John Bolton in the Washington Examiner [link]

• Reducing our nuclear arsenal will not somehow persuade Iran and North Korea to alter their behavior or encourage others to apply more pressure on them to do so. Obama's remarks reflect a complete misreading of strategic realities.
• We have no need for further arms control treaties with Russia, especially ones that reduce our nuclear and delivery capabilities to Moscow's economically forced low levels. We have international obligations, moreover, that Russia does not, requiring our nuclear umbrella to afford protection to friends and allies worldwide.
• What warrants close attention is the jarring naivete of arguing that reducing our capabilities will inhibit nuclear proliferators. That would certainly surprise Tehran and Pyongyang.
• With his counterproliferation strategies, such as they were, in disarray, Obama now pins his hopes on moral suasion, which has never influenced Iran, North Korea or any other determined proliferator.