On the radar: Central Bank sanctions in conference; Pros meet cons of the military option; Greater nuclear transparency; Esfahan and the explosion; Downed drone update; Odds of military action; Latest on the China report; and Ending the counterforce mission.

December 9, 2011 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke and Mary Kaszynski

Congress sticks to sanctions - The administration argues that crippling sanctions would undercut international cooperation on Iran, as well as driving up oil prices. Republicans and Democrats in Congress, however, are pressing forward with sanctioning Iran’s Central Bank, AP reports. http://owl.li/7Ul0f

Inside the sanctions conference - Josh Rogin goes behind the closed doors of the conference on the defense authorization bill, where the back-and-forth between Congress and the White House on the CBI sanctions amendment is taking place .http://owl.li/7Ul3q

The wrong signals to Iran - The Washington Post editorial board argues that “the public spelling out of reasons against military action” hurts the credibility of the military option. Using an interesting assumption on security incentives and nuclear proliferation, the Post writes, “The more Iran worries about a military attack, the more likely it is to scale back its nuclear activity.” http://owl.li/7Ul6H

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Details under New START - The State Department in its latest New START data release re-established the U.S. practice of providing detailed numbers on the strategic forces counted by the treaty. “This is a good development that has gone totally unnoticed in the news media. The pressure is now squarely on Russia to follow suit,” writes Hans Kristensen. http://owl.li/7Uk9U

Update: explosion near Iran nuclear facility - The nuclear site near Esfahan, Iran, where an explosion reportedly occurred several weeks ago, shows no visible damage, according to satellite images obtained by ISIS. The images also show that nearby buildings have been torn down. it’s unclear if this activity is related to the blast. http://owl.li/7Ukbv

Joe on the drone - A U.S. official tells CBS that the drone in the video released yesterday is likely the one that went missing last week. The Pentagon has yet to confirm, however.

--Iran says it plans to reverse engineer the sensitive technology; experts say that may prove difficult. “You can get dimensions, you can get chemical composition, but it's very hard to duplicate the performance of the parts you're trying to reverse engineer," Joe Cirincione says. http://owl.li/7UknX

Analysis: Military option more likely - The chance of a military strike against Iran has roughly tripled in the past year, according to the senior geopolitical risk analyst at Barclays Capital. The analyst added that Increased sanctions, even without a military strike, could cause a spike in oil prices. Reuters reports. http://owl.li/7UkrH

Sources and China’s Nukes - Georgetown Professor Philip Karber’s sources for counting China’s nuclear warheads are “not credible or authoritative,” writes Gregory Kulacki. The latest version of the report cites a Chinese language blog post that traces back to a Hong Kong magazine article, neither of which is reliable, Kulacki argues. http://owl.li/7Ukux

No movement on US-DPRK talks- U.S. special envoy Glyn Davies called on North Korea “to indicate to us that they are prepared to take concrete steps to make it worthwhile to get back into the six-party process,” Global Security Newsire reports. http://owl.li/7Ukxm

Ending the counterforce mission - “The organizing principle of future US-Russian arms control should be coordinated reduction in the ability to strike the other's vulnerable weapons (the counterforce mission) along with negotiated reductions in the vulnerability of the remaining weapons. Better to negotiate weapons away on both sides in peacetime than blow them up in a nuclear war,” writes Ivan Oelrich in The Bulletin. http://owl.li/7UkAA