The Nuclear Future of Egypt

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

Stories we're following today: Wednesday February 9, 2011

Analysts Worry Over Egypt's WMD Past in Uncertain Future - Global Security Newswire [link]

• As Egypt remains in a state of political upheaval, observers worry about what would happen to any potential WMD resources in the hands of a potential new government with unpredictable foreign policy aims, NBC News reported yesterday.
• Intelligence documents and U.S. officials indicate that Washington's longtime ally has clandestinely conducted research on nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction for decades.
• Last year, the International Atomic Energy Agency announced it had launched a probe into the origins of highly enriched uranium particles that turned up at an Egyptian atomic research center in 2007 and 2008. The U.N. nuclear watchdog also chastised Cairo in 2005 for not reporting a number of atomic experiments over the years. The Arab state has conducted both plutonium processing and uranium enrichment endeavors, NBC reported. The plutonium work seems to have been abandoned two decades ago.
• Thus far, Egyptian protesters have been focused on domestic political and economic grievances with the Mubarak regime. Foreign policy matters and religious issues have largely been absent from their demands, which include free and fair elections and a new constitution. Former IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei has become a senior opposition figure and has been raised as a potential leader of any transitional government.
• Egypt also used chemical weapons against Yemen in the 1960s. It has neither signed nor ratified the Conventional Weapons Convention.

Nuclear Weapons Case to be Examined by Commission - Richard Norton-Taylor in The Guardian [link]

• The [British] government's decision to go ahead with a new, but as yet undefined, nuclear missile system will be subjected to unprecedented independent scrutiny by a group of senior defence, diplomatic, scientific, and political figures.
• The government has decided to put off a decision on the shape and size of a new nuclear weapons system until 2015, as part of the coalition agreement, after the next general election is due.
• "This is the first time in a very long time that we have had a wholesale review of nuclear weapons policy", Campbell said. He added: "It is high time it was subjected to rigorous analysis".
• Ian Kearns, research director of the British American Security Information Council (BASIC) who proposed the new commission, said that it would be an "open-minded look at the issue from first principles … Should the UK be a nuclear power at all and if it should, is Trident the only or best way to go about it?"
• Kearns continued: "Given the government's decision to delay Trident renewal until after the next election, there is an important opportunity before the country for a fresh an in-depth debate. This commission will provide a focal point for that debate".

Korea Talks Ended Abruptly Without Any Ease in Strains - Mark McDonald in The New York Times [link]

• Military discussions between North and South Korea ended on Wednesday with no improvement in their badly strained relations and no agreement about whether to hold more substantive talks in the future.
• A Defense Ministry official in Seoul said the talks ended abruptly at 2:30 p.m. when the North Korean delegation “unilaterally walked away from the table and out of the meeting room.”
• The aim of the meeting, which was described by government officials as low-level and preliminary, was to make arrangements for substantive, high-level military talks in the future. But the two sides “failed to narrow the differences over the agenda for a high-level meeting,” said Kim Min-seok, a spokesman for the South Korean Defense Ministry.
• The failure of the talks on Wednesday also was likely to create more uncertainty about the resumption of the so-called six-party talks about North Korean nuclear programs.
• Beijing and Pyongyang have recently pressed for a prompt resumption of the six-party process, which broke down in April 2009 when North Korea withdrew from the talks and expelled United Nations nuclear inspectors.
• Seoul, Washington and Tokyo — alarmed at the North’s revelations of an expanded uranium enrichment program — have rejected the idea of new six-party talks until substantive inter-Korean talks are held.

Calming Fears Of A Nuclear Iran - Matt Duss for Think Progress [link]

• Debating the question “Can the World Live With a Nuclear Iran” at the annual Herzliya Conference, Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Brian Katulis said that, while neither the U.S. nor Israel wants it to get to that point, the Obama administration “has been aggressively confronting these challenges.”
• Responding to the sense of panic in the room, and in the country, over the prospect of a nuclear Iran, Katulis said, “Let’s remember, in this region of the world, the U.S. and Israel are the strong horses. We can shape events, and we’ve seen a very aggressive approach from this administration working on all fronts.” “After years of passive appeasement of Iran by the Bush administration, we finally have a strategy in place,” Katulis said, “and it’s working to put pressure on Iran.”
• “We will do everything we can to prevent a nuclear Iran, within confines of sane policy,” Halevi continued, indicating that he did not consider military strikes within that category. Halevi also declared it important to understand that “The U.S. and Israel are winning this war… Israel is in a situation in which it is one of the most powerful forces in the Middle East, [yet] we have this inferiority complex.”

Foreign Aid on the Chopping Block - John Feehery in The Hill [link]

• According to a Gallup poll released right before the president’s State of the Union address, a majority of Americans said they favor cutting U.S. foreign aid, but more than six in 10 opposed cuts to education, Social Security and Medicare.
• Another survey, released in 2010 and conducted by The WorldPublicOpinion.org project at the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes, asked the question: "What percentage of the federal budget goes to foreign aid?" The median answer was roughly 25 percent, according to the poll of 848 Americans. In reality, about 1 percent of the budget is allotted to foreign aid.
• We are also giving $68 million to the Russians to help them secure their nuclear weapons. That seems to me to be a good investment.
• Republicans are going to do their best to slash this spending, and in some cases, I might be for cutting it. But cutting foreign aid is not going to balance the budget. It is only going to lessen our influence in the rest of the world. I am all for putting pressure on our foreign assistance programs to make sure we are getting the best bang for the buck. I am not for taking us out of the foreign assistance game entirely, though. Isolationism is not going to make America more secure.