January 6, 2014 | Edited by Lauren Mladenka and Geoff Wilson

Hold off on sanctions - In a letter sent today to members of the Senate, a bipartisan group of senior foreign policy experts urged senators not to pass new sanctions against Iran, warning that additional sanctions would jeopardize ongoing diplomatic efforts and potentially move the U.S. closer to another war in the Mideast. Signatories include Amb. Ryan Crocker, Stephen Heintz, Amb. Daniel Kurtzer, Amb. William Luers, Jessica T. Mathews, Amb. Thomas Pickering, Paul Pillar, Jim Walsh and Frank Wisner.

--The experts argue that, contrary to what the supporters of the new sanctions bill say their intentions are, “The bill will threaten the prospects for success in the current negotiations and thus present us and our friends with a stark choice – military action or living with a nuclear Iran.” Furthermore they hold that, to pass new sanctions on Iran now would be to act against the spirit of the November agreement, and would convince Iran and our other negotiating partners, “that the US is no longer proceeding in good faith… [and] could lead to an unraveling of the sanctions regime that theU.S. and its partners have so patiently built.” Read the full letter to the co-sponsors of the new sanctions bill here. http://bit.ly/1gAYOuw [1]

The hazard of sanctions - “The historic Geneva deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program is scheduled to go into effect later this month. Once it does, the world will be farther away from a devastating war and a nuclear-armed Iran,” writes William Davnie and Kate Gould in an article. “However, the U.S. Senate could reverse that progress through a vote on new sanctions as early as this week, putting the United States and Iran on a collision course toward war.” Full story at The Star Tribune. http://strib.mn/1iJy3ra [2]

Report - “Iran’s Nuclear Program: Tehran’s Compliance with International Obligations” by Paul Kerr of the Congressional Research Service. December 20, 2013. (pdf) http://bit.ly/1eCe34D [3]

Positioning the House on Iran - “House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced Friday his intention to seek a bipartisan resolution on what a final nuclear deal should look like,” reports Julian Pecquet for The Hill. “The resolution would likely call for new sanctions if Iran reneges on its commitments and demand that Iran not be allowed to enrich uranium as part of a final deal.” http://bit.ly/19MAIOi [4]

Domestic balancing in Iran - Maintaining “the existing political consensus within Iran’s domestic politics” is key to reaching a comprehensive nuclear deal, which “is a result of perceiving a win-win situation in the course of the nuclear negotiations; the intense US pressure on minimizing Iran’s interests in the talks will break the consensus among the political forces inside Iran,” writes Kayhan Barzegar.

--”There are two main trends in the conduct of Iran’s nuclear negotiations,” says Barzegar. The “interaction” trend believes “in confidence-building and the existence of political will before both parties in order to reach a meaningful nuclear deal in the course of the negotiations,” while the “resistance” trend “focuses more on the political-security aspect of the nuclear dossier,” stressing the need for Iran to maintain its bargaining power such as uranium enrichment.

--”At present, these two dominant trends in the conduct of the nuclear negotiations function as a constructive cooperation, expecting that Iran’s nuclear interests are relatively preserved. But the imposition of any new sanctions by US Congress will weaken this cooperation, resulting in further fragility of the existing nuclear consensus in Iran’s domestic politics for the continuation of the talks.” Read the full article in Al-Monitor. http://bit.ly/1a0j4ky [5]

Iran’s role with Syria talks - “Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday that Iran might play a role at the peace talks on Syria in Switzerland this month,” reports Michael Gordon for The New York Times.

--“Mr. Kerry said there would be limits on Iran’s involvement unless it accepted that the purpose of the conference should be to work out transitional arrangements for governing Syria if opponents of President Bashar al-Assad could persuade him to relinquish power.” However, whether or not the Iranians would be willing to do so remains highly uncertain given the close past relationship between Iran and Syria, and the fact that Iran has provided military and political support to Mr. Assad in the past. Read the full article here. http://nyti.ms/1a0inru [6]

B61 view - The B61 gravity bomb life extension program is, “necessary to meet deterrence requirements, assure allies, stem further proliferation, and allow prudent reductions to the [nuclear] stockpile,” argues Thomas Karako in a blog post for The Hill. Read the full piece here. http://bit.ly/19MByua [7]

Skepticism - The U.S. and South Korea are skeptical of North Korean president Kim Jong Un’s recent statement on the importance of fostering better relations with South Korea, reports Global Security Newswire. Full article here. http://bit.ly/1987rNa [8]

Nuclear in 2013 - From the Iran interim nuclear agreement to the dirty bomb implications of the Boston Marathon attack, John Mecklin of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has 2013’s most important nuclear developments. See the list here. http://bit.ly/1iasCic [9]

Written work in 2013 - Alex Wellerstein posts a bibliography of nuclear history scholarship published in 2013, with links to the books you might have missed. http://bit.ly/1cTeNDP [10]

Dessert -

Kim Jong Un’s birthday present- Dennis Rodman and an ex-All Star squad including Kenny Anderson, Cliff Robinson and Vin Baker plan to give North Korean president Kim Jong Un a birthday basketball game Wednesday, despite a slew of death threats. Eric Talmadge reports for AP. http://bit.ly/JYs96i [11]

Events:

--"The Trillion Dollar Nuclear Triad: US Strategic Nuclear Modernization over the Next Thirty Years." Discussion with Jeffrey Lewis and Jon Wolfsthal at the Monterey Institute’s Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Jan. 7th from 1:00-2:30. RSVP by email to CNSDC@MIIS.edu

--Joseph Cirincione, Ploughshares Fund, and Eric Schlosser book discussion of Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World Before It Is Too Late. Jan. 8th from 6:00-7:30 at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. Register here. http://bit.ly/1km1MYR [12]

--”Inside Iran.” Discussion with David Ignatius and Robin Wright at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Jan. 9th from 9:30-11:00. RSVP here. http://bit.ly/1f8fMmN [13]