Mark Hibbs, the former long-time Europe correspondent for Nucleonics Week and all-round specialist on global nuclear commerce, comments today on the IAEA’s Iran report. He notes that the agency has been unable to ferret out the line of command connecting Iran’s nuclear weapons program with the country’s political leadership, and speculates that the program may […]
Further to the point I made in yesterday’s post regarding the changed tone in the most recent Iran safeguards report, Reuters has run a piece today which expands a bit on the Amano versus ElBaradei contrast regarding Iran. Describing the differences in style between the two IAEA DGs, Fredrik Dahl and Sylvia Westall write that […]
I’d like to add my two Rial to the din of commentary on the just-released IAEA report on Iranian nuclear activities. There are a number of reasons why this report is notable, despite the fact that it uses much information that has been obtained previously and that most of the reported weapons development work took […]
The highly anticipated report released today consists of two parts: a main body about implementation of safeguards and UN resolutions, and an annex, “Possible Military Dimensions to Iran’s Nuclear Program.” It is the annex that’s getting all the attention in the press, and rightly so, inasmuch as it is surely the most trenchant and alarming […]
http://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/IAEA_Iran_8Nov2011.pdf
The report discussed in my previous post is now expected to be released on Wednesday, but from stories and commentary that have appeared today and yesterday in The Washington Post, The Guardian, The New York Times, and the Financial Times, it already is clear what some of the main points will be. Much of what […]
In the coming days, everybody seriously concerned about Iran’s nuclear weapons program will be watching with bated breath the IAEA’s Iran landing page for the agency’s impending report on the Tehran’s efforts to design and build an atomic bomb. President Obama evidently has been briefed on the report and already has in effect commented on […]
See Greg Thielmann’s excellent analysis at: http://armscontrolnow.org/2011/10/24/iranian-ballistic-missile-developments-non-barking-dog-and-dead-monkey/#more-2485
It looks like, despite all the denying on the part of the Syrian government, its stonewalling of the IAEA inspectors, and, of course, the tap dance by Pakistani nuke weapons program grandfather Dr. Khan himself, the IAEA has come up with new allegations that a previously unknown complex in Al-Hasakah, near the Iraqi border, “appears […]
Since its entry into force in February, the U.S. and Russia have been busy implementing the hard-won reductions embodied in the New START treaty to which both countries are party. On Tuesday, the State Department released new numbers reflecting reductions that have taken place under the treaty. Walter Pincus at the Wash Post profiled the […]
Former Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev has added his two rubles to the ongoing commemorations of the Reykjavik Summit that almost did away with nuclear weapons. Whether its been a post-Soviet conversion or his ability, now long out of power, to wax poetic on things nuclear, Gorbachev has been speaking out about the value of nuclear […]
The numbers are unsettling. According to a story in last Sunday’s Review section of the New York Times, Chinese manufacturers showed off 25 different kinds of remotely controlled aircraft at an aerospece show this time last year. In all, 50 countries are thought to have built or bought UAVs, and more do so all the […]
In light of the amazingly dramatic reveal of an Iranian plot to kill the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. at his favorite DC dinner spot using a Mexican drug cartel gun for hire (calling Robert Ludlum!), I thought it pertinent to cite a recent Der Speigel interview with former IAEA Deputy Director for Safeguards Olli […]
This past Friday, October 7th, was the 25th anniversary of the summit meeting of then-President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland. It was a meeting that now-famously almost led to an agreement between the U.S. and the Soviet Union to completely abolish nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, that did not come to pass. […]
Readers commenting on my earlier post about an FAS report evaluating missile defenses slated for deployment in Europe have taken me to task on two counts: for confining my comments to the executive summary and not analyzing the report itself in detail; and for neglecting the sound technical reasons Russia has for feeling concerned about […]