An Urgent Threat, No Room for Politics

On the radar: Nonpartisanship and nonproliferation; Missed opportunities with Iran; Securing nuclear material on 9/11; Budget pressure on the complex; Hawks shift from sanctions to regime change; Jobs and military spending; Fatalism on Iran; and FMWG gets a facelift.

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

Put politics aside, reduce the nuclear threat - Even after two decades of successes reducing nuclear weapons and preventing nuclear terror, the “amount of nuclear tinder that remains in the world today could still ignite a calamity of historic proportions,” write Samuel Berger and Steve Andreasen in Foreign Policy. Given the gravity of the threat, political candidates from both political parties should be encouraged to continue a nonpartisan approach to reducing nuclear threats to the American people.

--President Obama “must continue to lead,” write Berger and Andreasen. The president should use upcoming opportunities with Russia and NATO to advance cooperative missile defense and press for a reduction of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. http://ow.ly/6pPj3

Back when Iran was ready to cooperate on US goals - Despite persistent overtures from Iran after 9/11 to support US goals on issues from Al Qaeda to Afghanistan, Iran got the cold shoulder from the Bush administration. With that opportunity missed, Iran was left to harden its position as an adversary instead, writes Barbara Slavin. http://ow.ly/6pQ3N

--”Improved U.S.-Iran relations [in the early 2000s] would likely have strengthened Iranian reformists and might have even prevented the election of the neoconservative Ahmadinejad. U.S. refusal to negotiate with Iran about its nuclear programme – unless Iran first suspended that programme – certainly did not stop the programme; if anything, it resulted in Iran accelerating uranium enrichment.”

Early Tweet - @frankmunger: “As 9/11 unfolded, DOE worked urgently to protect nuke materials. http://bit.ly/nvrtgX”

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Senate gets tough on nukes budget - The Senate Appropriations Committee bill, released yesterday, increases overall funding for nuclear weapons programs by $250 million over the FY11 level. But cuts to the Life Extension Program for the B-61 bomb, construction of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility show that the Senate isn’t giving weapons programs/NNSA a free pass. Analysis from Nick Roth at Nukes of Hazard. http://ow.ly/6pkpd

Sanctions hawks moving to “other measures” - Mark Dubowitz, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, has not been shy in the past about pushing for more sanctions on Iran. That line may have run its course. In a recent op-ed in Forbes, he argued for a softer version of regime change instead.

--”Washington and Brussels have never followed through with a strategy to translate economic pressure into material support for the millions of Iranian dissidents who could overthrow the regime without foreign military intervention.” http://ow.ly/6pOPx

Military spending inefficient at job creation - “In all the debate over the job-creating impacts of defense spending, thought this chart would be illustrative,” writes Mark Thompson for TIME. “It reminds me of growing up in Rhode Island, where the dads who helped build submarines for Electric Boat always had bigger boats than everybody else.” http://ow.ly/6pUxz

A half empty glass on Iran - Given advancements in Iran’s uranium enrichment program and lags in monitoring arrangements, analyst Greg Jones argues for fatalism: “we must reckon with the fact that we likely won’t have time to preempt Tehran’s efforts to build a nuclear bomb. The international community has no choice but to already treat the Islamic Republic as a de facto nuclear state.” http://ow.ly/6pU19

--Most experts argue there is time for a diplomatic solution with Iran, and that the IAEA, given greater access, could effectively monitor Iran’s nuclear program. Jones, looking at the current situation, says otherwise. In his view, “there is little that can be done” about Iran and the bomb.

--In line with most expert opinions, Jones notes that there does not “appear to be any realistic military options to stop Iran.” It remains to be seen what policy options would be left for the U.S. and its partners, from Jones’ perspective.

FMWG’s new digs - Check out the Fissile Material Working Group’s new blog, which boasts an interactive map of fissile materials and a comprehensive news sources page. http://ow.ly/6oX6f