U.S. Approach to Iran is Working

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

Stories we're following today: Wednesday January 19, 2011.

U.S. Strategy on Iran is Working - Joe Cirincione for CNN International [link]

• The nuclear clock is still ticking in Iran. Its scientists and engineers are smart and dedicated, and the regime seems determined to acquire nuclear technology that can be used to make fuel for reactors or the cores of nuclear weapons. But the clock has slowed. Time is now on the side of efforts to negotiate an end to Iran's program.
• Credit must be given to the Obama administration. The president's critics have blasted his Iran strategy, portraying him as weak and naive. Some have been campaigning for military strikes as the only solution to a threat they have claimed was urgent and otherwise unstoppable.
• The president, however, now appears to have been playing a deeper game than critics understood. The strategy could be called "Engage, Sanction and Sabotage." It began two years ago with Obama's offer to talk directly to the Iranian regime as he extended the hand of friendship in his inaugural address.
• Concurrently, the administration, as the Times reports, was developing the most sophisticated cyberweapon ever deployed in "a joint American and Israeli effort to undermine Iran's efforts to make a bomb of its own."
• The sanctions make it much harder for Iran to recover from the cybersabotage. They hamper Iran's ability to import the high-tech materials, such as carbon fiber and maraging steel, needed to replace these machines or build the more advanced centrifuges Iran desires.
• Diplomatic solutions have their risks. But they are far preferable to the risks of war with Iran. Or the risks of an Iranian response to the cyberwar we are apparently now waging. Now is the time to press the U.S. advantage and capitalize on the gains the administration has won.
  

US, China in New Nuclear Security Deal - Associated Press [link]

• President Barack Obama plans to announce a deal to step up cooperation with China on nuclear security, U.S. officials say.  The agreement, which is to be signed by U.S. and Chinese energy officials during the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao, would establish a jointly financed nuclear security center in China, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record before Obama's announcement.
• The U.S. sees the agreement as an opening to expand security cooperation with China. The U.S. has spent billions of dollars on extensive cooperation on nuclear security with Russia and often has used the issue as way to stimulate further political cooperation. But it has had very limited interaction with China on nuclear security.\
• The U.S. considers China a vital player in attempts to contain North Korea's nuclear weapons program and its aggression against South Korea. The U.S. also needs Chinese support to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions, as China is a veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council.
• The venture would be aimed at training to improve security at nuclear facilities and accounting of nuclear materials. U.S. officials also hope to hold joint exercises on response to nuclear disasters and terrorism and to share nuclear detection technology.
• The officials also said the two countries plan to open up the center to other countries in Asia, hoping China can use its influence to improve nuclear security in the region. The idea for the center was first proposed by Hu at Obama's nuclear security summit in April.

Arms Control Association Receives Prestigious MacArthur Foundation Award - ACA Press Release [link]

• The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced today that the Arms Control Association has been selected as a recipient of their Award for Creative and Effective Institutions.
• "We are honored to receive the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions," said Arms Control Association Executive Director Daryl G. Kimball. "The award recognizes institutions around the globe that are leaders on critical issues and challenges. We are very proud to be recognized as one of these high-impact organizations," said Kimball, who has worked in the nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament field for more than twenty years and has led ACA for the past decade.
• The 2010 MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions recognizes 11 exceptional Foundation grantees and helps ensure their sustainability with capacity-building grants. All of the recipients' annual operating budgets are less than $5 million.
• "These exceptional organizations effectively address pressing national and international challenges and they have had an impact that is disproportionate to their small size," said MacArthur President Robert Gallucci. "The MacArthur Foundation is proud to recognize them. It is our hope that these Awards will help position them for long-term growth and even greater impact in the years ahead," said Gallucci, who worked for 21 years in the U.S. government on arms control, nonproliferation, and international security.
• The nonpartisan, member-supported Arms Control Association was founded in 1971 and is based in Washington, DC. With fewer than a dozen full-time staff in Washington plus an international representative in Berlin, the organization works to promote public understanding of and support for effective arms control solutions to strengthen U.S. and global security.

Note: The Arms Control Association is a Plougshares grantee.

Tactical Nukes in Europe a "Tiny Fraction" of Cold War Arsenal, Report Says - Global Security Newswire Daily [link]

• The United States maintains between 150 and 200 B-61 gravity bombs at bases in Europe, a "tiny fraction" of its top deployment of 7,300 tactical nuclear weapons on the continent in 1971, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reported in its newest edition.
• "The current level represents a tiny fraction of the 1971 peak of 7,300 U.S. tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Europe. Since then (with the exception of a period in the mid-1980s), the Europe-based arsenal has been shrinking. The most dramatic reductions occurred in 1986-87, when the United States withdrew nearly 2,000 weapons from European soil," wrote analysts Robert Norris and Hans Kristensen.
• Aviano Air Base in Italy hosts roughly 50 weapons and Incirlik Air Base in Turkey houses 60-70 bombs, the report's authors asserted. Büchel Air Base in Germany, Ghedi Torre Air Base in Italy, Kleine Brogel Air Base in Belgium, and Volkel Air Base in the Netherlands each hold between 10 and 20 of the weapons, they said.
• The NATO Strategic Concept devised last year places less emphasis on the alliance's nonstrategic nuclear deterrent than the document's 1999 predecessor, the analysts wrote.
• Russia is believed to hold roughly 2,000 deployed tactical nuclear weapons within its borders. The Obama administration has said it hopes before long to begin talks on drawing down the former Cold War rivals' tactical nuclear arsenals.

A Nuclear Iran? Not So Fast - Doyle McManus in The LA Times [link]

• After years of warning that an Iranian atomic bomb is right around the corner, Israeli officials now say Iran is at least four years away from deploying a nuclear weapon, maybe more.
• The Obama administration has applied a sophisticated array of pressures on Iran that go well beyond the sanctions and diplomatic "engagement" that have been the public face of its policy. The measures are showing results — and for that, the administration deserves some credit.
• One factor has been sabotage, including the implanting of a virus in the computers that control Iran's centrifuges. Neither Israel nor the U.S. has claimed credit for that, but they haven't criticized it either, and they readily acknowledge that it produced positive results.
• Another key accomplishment has been a painstaking tightening of international export controls to prevent Tehran from buying the high-technology goods it needs to keep its program going.
• U.S. officials acknowledged that China's uneven enforcement of technology exports to Iran is still a significant concern. The issue will probably come up in private during this week's visit to Washington by China's president, Hu Jintao.
• There's still no guarantee that President Obama's approach will work. If it does, it will still take long and painfully gradual work. But the first two years of diplomatic engagement and stepped-up pressure appear to have bought a precious commodity: time. That's no small achievement.

Congress Must Get Serious About the Threat of Nuclear Terrorism - Sarah Williams and Alexandra Toma for The Hill [link]

• Currently, more than 30 countries possess significant amounts of material that could be used to make a nuclear weapon, and much of it is stored in less-than-secure facilities. Enough material exists to create tens of thousands of new nuclear weapons, and the only way to ensure terrorist groups do not obtain even an ounce of it is to reduce the number of places nuclear material is stored and secure those facilities that remain.
• When Congress closed the books on its lame duck session in December, it did so without funding programs meant to ensure that nuclear material will not be accessible to terrorists. The 112th Congress’ first order of business must be to correct this grave mistake by funding the last six months of the FY2011 budget at the necessary level.
• At the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit, our president stood with 46 world leaders and announced that multi-lateral, cooperative efforts to secure all vulnerable nuclear material are central to both global and national security. Key proliferation prevention programs at the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Departments of Defense and State support this goal. Not fully funding these programs is trusting too much of our national security to chance.
• Congress must take a step towards strengthening our national security and include President Obama’s $320 million request in the fiscal year 2011 budget. Not doing so will slow the implementation of proven, practical, and efficient programs designed to prevent nuclear terrorism. We must be serious about our commitment to securing global stockpiles of nuclear material to make certain none falls into the wrong hands.

View from the Dark Side

The West Needs to Stand Up to Beijing - John Bolton in The Financial Times [link]

• Mao Zedong once said that "all political power comes from the barrel of a gun". Whether his apostolic successor President Hu Jintao, visiting President Barack Obama this week in Washington, believes this particular line in Mao's catechism is unclear. Completely clear, however, is that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) not only believes it, but is implementing it.
• Systematic expansion of China's strategic nuclear weapons and delivery capabilities; rapid growth in submarine and blue-water naval forces; substantial investments in anti-access and area-denial weapons such as anti-carrier cruise missiles; fifth-generation fighter-bomber platforms; and sophisticated cyber-warfare techniques all testify to the PLA's operational objectives.
• During US defense secretary Robert Gates' Beijing meetings last week, China tested its stealthy new J-20, a prototype combat aircraft. Many scoffed at the notion that Mr Hu seemed surprised when Mr Gates raised the test, and at the Chinese leader's explanation that the timing was coincidental. Was the J-20 flight intended to embarrass Mr Gates and Mr Obama prior to Mr Hu's Washington visit, or was it a signal to China's civilian leadership about who is actually in charge? In truth, both seem likely.
• Both Mr Hu and the PLA undoubtedly understand that China is dealing with the most leftwing, least national-security-oriented, least assertive American president in decades. This matters because China will be heavily influenced by its perception of US policies and capabilities. Mr Obama's extravagant domestic spending, and the consequent ballooning of America's national debt, has enhanced China's position at America's expense. Indeed, the only budget line Mr Obama has been interested in cutting, which he has done with gusto, is defence.
• China should take careful note: neither Mr Hu nor the PLA ought to assume that Mr Obama truly represents broader US public opinion. There could be a different president two years hence, ready to reverse his agenda of international passivity and decline. Beijing can certainly take advantage of Mr Obama for now, both because of his philosophical and leadership weaknesses. But so doing could cost them in the future, if America in 2012 goes to the next level in rejecting Mr Obama's failing policies.