Pakistan lies. It hosted Osama bin Laden (knowingly or not). Its government is barely functional. It hates the democracy next door. It is home to both radical jihadists and a large and growing nuclear arsenal (which it fears the U.S. will seize). Its intelligence service sponsors terrorists who attack American troops. With a friend like this, who needs enemies?
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| Supporters of an Islamic separatist group march a mock nuclear missile through the streets of Karachi, February 2011. (Reuters) |
The US and Britain are leading a new wave of international sanctions targeting Iran's banks and oil industry following the International Atomic Energy Agency's report earlier this month that said Tehran worked for many years to develop nuclear weapons and may still be doing so.
Britain has used counter-terrorism powers to order its financial sector to cut all ties with Iranian banks in an attempt to undermine funding of the nuclear programme. The US announced measures intended to limit Tehran's ability to refine its own fuel as well as targeting Iran's Revolutionary Guards' financial interests.
The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, wrote to European leaders as well as the US and Japan calling for "unprecedented" sanctions against Iran, including a halt to buying its oil.
But the measures are expected to have a limited impact in the face of resistance from China and Russia to strengthening global sanctions against Iran through the United Nations security council.
Britain went the furthest by, for the first time, cutting an entire country's banking system off from London's financial sector. It said that Iranian banks "play a crucial role in providing financial services to individuals and entities within Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes".
The foreign secretary, William Hague, said the measures are part of increasing pressure on Iran to engage with the IAEA and foreign governments about its nuclear programme.
"The IAEA's report last week provided further credible and detailed evidence about the possible military dimensions of the Iranian nuclear programme," he said. "Today we have responded resolutely by introducing a set of new sanctions that prohibit all business with Iranian banks.
"We have consistently made clear that until Iran engages meaningfully, it will find itself under increasing pressure from the international community. The swift and decisive action today co-ordinated with key international partners is a strong signal of determination to intensify this pressure."
British diplomats said the Iranian central bank plays a direct role in procuring equipment for its nuclear programme and added that the sanctions were also intended to punish Tehran for its refusal to compromise over its enrichment of uranium, which can produce reactor fuel or fissile material for a bomb, despite a series of UN security council sanctions calling on it to do so. They said that denying Iran access to the international financial hub in London would raise the cost and hassle for the Iranians of doing business with the rest of the world.
Canada took a similar step against Iran's central bank.
In Washington, President Obama said additional US sanctions are intended to discourage business with Iran's petrochemical industry, which traditionally has produced plastics and similar products but has increasingly been used to refine petrol because international sanctions have hit Tehran's refineries.
"New sanctions target for the first time Iran's petrochemical sector, prohibiting the provision of goods, services and technology to this sector and authorising penalties against any person or entity that engages in such activity," Obama said. "They expand energy sanctions, making it more difficult for Iran to operate, maintain, and modernise its oil and gas sector.
"As long as Iran continues down this dangerous path, the United States will continue to find ways, both in concert with our partners and through our own actions, to isolate and increase the pressure upon the Iranian regime."
Washington designated Iran a territory of "primary money-laundering concern" in the expectation that it will discourage foreign banks from doing business with Iranian financial institutions.
However, Washington continues to avoid directly targeting Iran's central bank because if Tehran is unable to carry through financial transactions necessary to sell its oil, that could force the cost of petroleum up and hit the US economy.
The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, called the measures a "significant ratcheting-up of pressure" on Iran and said other countries will follow in the days ahead.
In his letter, Sarkozy said that Iran's nuclear programme represents a "serious and urgent threat to peace". He called for a halt to purchasing Iranian oil and for the assets of Iran's central bank to be frozen. EU foreign ministers are also expected to consider further measures at a meeting on 1 December.
The world's nuclear powers are planning to spend hundreds of billions of pounds modernising and upgrading weapons warheads and delivery systems over the next decade, according to an authoritative report published on Monday.
Despite government budget pressures and international rhetoric about disarmament, evidence points to a new and dangerous "era of nuclear weapons", the report for the British American Security Information Council (Basic) warns. It says the US will spend $700bn (£434bn) on the nuclear weapons industry over the next decade, while Russia will spend at least $70bn on delivery systems alone. Other countries including China, India, Israel, France and Pakistan are expected to devote formidable sums on tactical and strategic missile systems.
For several countries, including Russia, Pakistan, Israel and France, nuclear weapons are being assigned roles that go well beyond deterrence, says the report. In Russia and Pakistan, it warns, nuclear weapons are assigned "war-fighting roles in military planning".
The report is the first in a series of papers for the Trident Commission, an independent cross-party initiative set up by Basic. Its leading members include former Conservative defence secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind, former Liberal Democrat leader and defence spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell and former Labour defence secretary Lord Browne.
There is a strong case, they say, for a fundamental review of UK nuclear weapons policy. The Conservatives in Britain's coalition government say they want to maintain a Trident-based nuclear weapons system. However, they have agreed to a "value for money" audit into a Trident replacement as four new nuclear missiles submarines are alone estimated to cost £25bn at the latest official estimate. The Lib Dems want to look at other options. The paper, by security analyst Ian Kearns, is entitled Beyond the United Kingdom: Trends in the Other Nuclear Armed States.
Pakistan and India, it warns, appear to be seeking smaller, lighter nuclear warheads so they have a greater range or can be deployed over shorter distances for tactical or "non-strategic" roles. "In the case of Israel, the size of its nuclear-tipped cruise missile enabled submarine fleet is being increased and the country seems to be on course, on the back of its satellite launch rocket programme, for future development of an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM)," the report notes.
A common justification for the new nuclear weapons programmes is perceived vulnerability in the face of nuclear and conventional force development elsewhere. For example, Russia has expressed concern over the US missile defence and Conventional Prompt Global Strike programmes. China has expressed similar concerns about the US as well as India, while India's programmes are driven by fear of China and Pakistan.
Pakistan justifies its nuclear weapons programme by referring to India's conventional force superiority, the report observes.
In a country-by-country analysis, the report says:
Iran's nuclear aspirations are not covered by the report.
- The US is planning to spend $700bn on nuclear weapons over the next decade. A further $92bn will be spent on new nuclear warheads and the US also plans to build 12 nuclear ballistic missile submarines, air-launched nuclear cruise missiles and bombs.
- Russia plans to spend $70bn on improving its strategic nuclear triad (land, sea and air delivery systems) by 2020. It is introducing mobile ICBMs with multiple warheads, and a new generation of nuclear weapons submarines to carry cruise as well as ballistic missiles. There are reports that Russia is also planning a nuclear-capable short-range missile for 10 army brigades over the next decade.
- China is rapidly building up its medium and long-range "road mobile" missile arsenal equipped with multiple warheads. Up to five submarines are under construction capable of launching 36-60 sea-launched ballistic missiles, which could provide a continuous at-sea capability.
- France has just completed deployment of four new submarines equipped with longer-range missiles with a "more robust warhead". It is also modernising its nuclear bomber fleet.
- Pakistan is extending the range of its Shaheen II missiles, developing nuclear cruise missiles, improving its nuclear weapons design as well as smaller, lighter, warheads. It is also building new plutonium production reactors.
- India is developing new versions of its Agni land-based missiles sufficient to target the whole of Pakistan and large parts of China, including Beijing. It has developed a nuclear ship-launched cruise missile and plans to build five submarines carrying ballistic nuclear missiles.
- Israel is extending its Jericho III missile's range, and is developing an ICBM capability, expanding its nuclear-tipped cruise missile enabled submarine fleet.
- North Korea unveiled a new Musudan missile in 2010 with a range of up to 2,500 miles and capable of reaching targets in Japan. It successfully tested the Taepodong-2 with a possible range of more than 6,000 miles sufficient to hit half the US mainland. However, the report, says, "it is unclear whether North Korea has yet developed the capability to manufacture nuclear warheads small enough to sit on top of these missiles".
There's more, though nothing fully substantiated - make sure you take a look!The story of the world's worst case of nuclear smuggling took a new twist on Thursday when documents surfaced appearing to implicate two former Pakistani generals in the sale of uranium enrichment technology to North Korea in return for millions of dollars in cash and jewels handed over in a canvas bag and cardboard boxes of fruit.
The source of the documents is AQ Khan, who confessed in 2004 to selling parts and instructions for the use of high-speed centrifuges in enriching uranium to Libya, Iran and North Korea. Extracts were published by the Washington Post, including a letter in English purportedly from a senior North Korean official to Khan in 1998 detailing payment of $3m to Pakistan's former army chief, General Jehangir Karamat, and another half-million to Lieutenant General Zulfiqar Khan, who was involved in Pakistan's nuclear bomb tests.
Both generals denied the allegations. "What can I say. [These are] bits of old info packaged together. [There is] not an iota of truth in the allegations against me. [There is] no reason on earth for anyone to pay me for something I could not deliver," Karamat wrote in an email to the Guardian. Lt Gen Khan told the Washington Post that the documents were "a fabrication".
The issue is seen as critically important by western governments. Seven years after Khan, the godfather of the Pakistani nuclear programme, made his public confession on Pakistani television, there is still uncertainty over the extent to which he was a rogue operator or just a salesman acting on behalf of the Pakistani state and its army. Western officials are also unsure whether the covert nuclear sales are continuing.
Take the time to read the rest... While additional analysis appears in another Guardian article: "Saudi Arabia worries about stability, security and Iran".A senior Saudi Arabian diplomat and member of the ruling royal family has raised the spectre of nuclear conflict in the Middle East if Iran comes close to developing a nuclear weapon.
Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to Washington, warned senior Nato military officials that the existence of such a device "would compel Saudi Arabia … to pursue policies which could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences".
He did not state explicitly what these policies would be, but a senior official in Riyadh who is close to the prince said yesterday his message was clear.
"We cannot live in a situation where Iran has nuclear weapons and we don't. It's as simple as that," the official said. "If Iran develops a nuclear weapon, that will be unacceptable to us and we will have to follow suit."
Officials in Riyadh said that Saudi Arabia would reluctantly push ahead with its own civilian nuclear programme. Peaceful use of nuclear power, Turki said, was the right of all nations.
Turki was speaking earlier this month at an unpublicised meeting at RAF Molesworth, the airbase in Cambridgeshire used by Nato as a centre for gathering and collating intelligence on the Middle East and the Mediterranean.
According to a transcript of his speech obtained by the Guardian, Turki told his audience that Iran was a "paper tiger with steel claws" that was "meddling and destabilising" across the region.
"Iran … is very sensitive about other countries meddling in its affairs. But it should treat others like it expects to be treated. The kingdom expects Iran to practise what it preaches," Turki said.
Turki holds no official post in Saudi Arabia but is seen as an ambassador at large for the kingdom and a potential future foreign minister,
Diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks and published by the Guardian last year revealed that King Abdullah, who has ruled Saudi Arabia since 2005, had privately warned Washington in 2008 that if Iran developed nuclear weapons "everyone in the region would do the same, including Saudi Arabia".
There's more—take a look!The UN's nuclear watchdog has referred Syria to the security council for failure to co-operate with an enquiry into its suspected covert nuclear weapons programme.
The decision, by a 17 to six vote, with 11 abstentions and one absentee, at the 35-nation governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), increases Syria's isolation. It reflects a formal judgment that it is not in compliance with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty after an IAEA report found that a site known as Dair Alzour, bombed by Israel in 2007, was "very likely a nuclear reactor" for producing plutonium, which Syria should have declared.
"Syria's nuclear intentions at Dair Alzour are clear; the reactor there was built for the express purpose of producing plutonium for possible use in nuclear weapons," Glyn Davies, the American envoy to the IAEA, said.
However, the security council referral is unlikely to lead to sanctions in the near future. The council is not required to act, and Russia and China have signalled that they will oppose punitive measures. Both powers voted against Syria's referral, which was proposed by the US and 12 allies at the IAEA board meeting in Vienna.
It's very unpleasant to be given lectures on good behavior by the profiteers of nuclear proliferation, but if you can hold still and swallow your vomit, there are lessons to be learned from the exposure to it.
On April 27, the New York Times ran a long interview with Aisha el-Qaddafi, daughter of the "King of Kings" and rabid demagogue. Having served as a member of Saddam Hussein's legal defense team—an experience that seems to have taught her little—she had just had the experience of being referred to the International Criminal Court. In between various claims about the traitorous nature of the rebellious Libyans, she managed to insert an interesting retrospective claim about the past:
She complained of the "betrayal" of Arabs whose causes her father had supported and the Western allies to whom he had turned over his weapons of mass destruction. "Is this the reward that we get?" she asked. "This would lead every country that has weapons of mass destruction to keep them or make more so they will not meet the same fate as Libya."
Then last weekend, in an article written for Newsweek that did not even touch upon his role in selling nuclear weaponry to third countries, Pakistan's notorious A.Q. Khan made a similar point, if point it is:
Don't overlook the fact that no nuclear-capable country has been subjected to aggression or occupied, or had its borders redrawn. Had Iraq and Libya been nuclear powers, they wouldn't have been destroyed in the way we have seen recently. If we had had nuclear capability before 1971, we would not have lost half of our country—present-day Bangladesh—after disgraceful defeat.
Both of the shady characters I have just quoted are, of course, engaged in special pleading. (The shudder-inducing Khan even calmly invites us to think of how Pakistan could have improved upon its conventional-weapons genocide against the Bangladeshis and threatened to level Indian cities into the bargain.) But in various forms, this argument has gotten itself repeated in more respectable forums as well. The vastly overrated Mohamed ElBaradei, in his new book The Age of Deception, attributes almost all rogue-state nuclear delinquency to the arrogance of the United States. The Libyan stockpile, for example—the entire existence of which he managed to miss during his tenure at the International Atomic Energy Agency—was "really" acquired in response to the April 1986 U.S. bombing of Tripoli. He speaks of a meeting with Qaddafi in which the latter "spoke earnestly of his desire to develop Libya." George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in a brilliant review of ElBaradei's book, also cites his blissful naiveté about Iran and North Korea. Learning that senior Iranian mullahs planned to go after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad if he came to any agreement with Washington, he commented: "I sighed. Tehran had been spending way too much time following D.C. politics, I thought."
The regime of Kim Jong-il, meanwhile, is "isolated, impoverished, feeling deeply threatened by the United States but nonetheless defiant." Defiant enough, certainly, to test one of its missiles by firing it without warning across the mainland of non-nuclear Japan, there to "splash down" in the Pacific.
Is it seriously argued that this whole loosely connected nexus would conduct itself more rationally if the United States adopted a more lenient strategy and showed more awareness of the needs and dreads that prompt dictators to go nuclear? We know one thing for sure. No state has ever surrendered its program without having to face the gritty question of regime change. It can do this either voluntarily, or it can do so under compulsion. The two great first instances are Brazil and South Africa, two very influential countries that had gone a long way on the nuclear road in the final Cold War years, only to decide that the nukes were an obstacle to their integration into the warmer and closer global family. (A "swords into ploughshares" sculpture, fashioned from parts of an abandoned nuclear weapon, was presented to the offices of the IAEA in Vienna in 1994.)
Nobody ever threatened either Brazil or South Africa with outside force. Rather, denuclearization was a part of the agreed democratic transformation of both former dictatorships. Turning from carrot to stick, the insane refusal of Saddam Hussein to come into compliance with the U.N. resolutions meant that his country was forcibly and comprehensively "inspected." This in turn led Libya to approach British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush for a handover (of large stockpiles of materiel, not so much of finished or usable weaponry). Inspection of this trove led to the realization that a good deal of it could only have come from our "ally" Pakistan. As a result, the A.Q. Khan network—which had also had dealings with North Korea and probably Syria, and also escaped the attention of El Baradei and the IAEA—was identified and partially shut down. In counterproliferation terms, this process ought to be credited as something of a success. The same goes for Israel's recent obliteration of a secret Syrian site—since belatedly confirmed by the IAEA as a nuclear facility—without even a squeal of protest from an embarrassed Syrian President Bashir Assad.
In studying the remaining cases, it's impossible not to notice the continuing connection between the weapons programs and the character of the regime. North Korea's nukes are the perfect symbol of its own stunted, starved, isolated character and of its continued willingness to risk an apocalyptic outcome on the peninsula. The Iranian program is clearly designed to forward the mullahs' policy of regional military blackmail (and probably also to gratify some of their less rational impulses of Messianism and anti-Semitism). But North Korea is already in a position to destroy much of South Korea with conventional weapons alone, and Tehran can, and does, easily threaten smaller Gulf states with its existing forces. Pakistan can continue to menace India with its own arsenal, but it is vulnerable to an annihilating second strike from New Delhi that would obliterate it as a state. Thus, the course of future confrontation and potential blackmail has already been determined, but by the dictatorships themselves. It is wrong for Aisha Qaddafi and A.Q. Khan to imply that the threats come from the other direction, or that nuclear arsenals can or will underwrite the security of such dictatorships indefinitely. (That logic, after all, would license a pre-emptive strike on Tehran's nuclear facilities.) The possession of illegally acquired nuclear weapons remains a huge threat and burden to neighboring states and to international law, but history shows that it is also nearly insupportable for the offending state and has a long-run tendency to shorten the lifespan of its despots. It's a good thing that, so far, disarmament and democratization have shown themselves to be natural allies.
About the Global Governance Monitor
The challenge of global governance has never been more imperative and more daunting to realize. The headlines are filled with transnational challenges, from terrorism to climate change to weapons of mass destruction. To foster better understanding of modern global challenges--and the international community's record in responding to them--the International Institutions and Global Governance (IIGG) program has launched the Global Governance Monitor.
The Global Governance Monitor is a tool that shows how the international community is doing in addressing the most daunting threats that it faces. For each issue area, the monitor provides:It's pleasing to see that each of the areas reported on within the CFR Global Governance Monitor have fairly recent updates... Two areas of current concern to us—War and Nuclear Proliferation—have updates of 28 February and 18 November respectively.
We hope that by monitoring the world's performance now, we can help U.S. and international policymakers identify remaining gaps in global regimes and propose new institutions or partnerships to fill them.
- a cinematic overview of the challenge, which explains why international cooperation is needed;
- an interactive timeline that traces the world's efforts to craft collective responses to the challenge;
- an issue brief that evaluates the overall performance of the regime and suggests potential reforms to improve international cooperation;
- a matrix that catalogs relevant international treaties, organizations, and initiatives;
- an interactive map that details critical countries and groups; and
- a resource guide for further information on the topic.
George Shultz served as President Reagan's Secretary of State, and Bill Perry as President Clinton's Secretary of Defense. Henry Kissinger was National Security Advisor and Secretary of State to both President Nixon and Ford. Sam Nunn was Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee for eight years. Their key roles in the Cold War has led many to call them 'Cold Warriors.' That status makes their recent, repeated calls for fundamentally re-examining our nuclear posture all the more noteworthy. Their most recent attempt to awaken society to the unacceptable risk posed by nuclear weapons is an Op-Ed in today's Wall Street Journal titled Deterrence in the Age of Nuclear Proliferation. [subscription-free link]With such an authorship, this short document is definitely worth a read!
The US Senate ratified an arms control treaty with Russia today that reduces the number of both countries' nuclear weapons, giving President Barack Obama a major foreign policy success in the closing hours of the outgoing session of the current Congress.
Thirteen Republicans broke with their top representatives in the upper house and joined 56 Democrats and two independents to provide the necessary two-thirds vote to approve the treaty. The vote was 71-26.
The accord, which still must be approved by Russia, would restart weapons inspections as successors to President Ronald Reagan have embraced his edict of "trust, but verify".
Calling the treaty a national security imperative, Obama had pressed for its approval before a new, more Republican Congress assumes power in January.
The Obama administration has argued that the United States must show credibility in its improved relations with its former cold war foe, and that the treaty was critical to any rapprochement. The White House is counting on Russia to help pressure Iran over its nuclear ambitions.
The new strategic arms reduction treaty (Start) – signed by Obama and the Russian resident, Dmitry Medvedev, in April – would limit each country's strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550, down from the current ceiling of 2,200. It also would establish a system for monitoring and verification. US weapons inspections ended last year with the expiry of a 1991 treaty.
Iran took a step towards nuclear self-sufficiency today, using locally mined uranium for the first time in an act of defiance to the west on the eve of the resumption of talks over its atomic programme.
The Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran announced it had used domestically produced uranium yellowcake (refined ore) at its conversion plant in Isfahan. The mining and milling of uranium ore is not banned by UN resolutions (which focus on uranium enrichment), but one of the ways the international community has sought to close down Iran's nuclear programme is to stop it importing yellowcake.
Today's announcement appeared to a signal that such measures would not stop Iran pursuing its nuclear ambitions. For the time being, however, it is little more than a symbolic step as Iran's ore deposits are mostly low grade and its capacity to produce yellowcake is limited.
The timing of the announcement is unlikely to be accidental, observers said, coming the day before Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, is due to meet diplomats from six major powers in Geneva, to resume a dialogue over Iran's ambitions after a break of 14 months. ....
... The regime has shown no sign of making concessions over the central issue – UN demands for Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium. Tehran insists the programme is for entirely peaceful means, and portrays the UN sanctions against it as an attempt to deny its sovereign rights.
The revelations, in secret memos from US embassies across the Middle East, expose behind-the-scenes pressures in the scramble to contain the Islamic Republic, which the US, Arab states and Israel suspect is close to acquiring nuclear weapons. Bombing Iranian nuclear facilities has hitherto been viewed as a desperate last resort that could ignite a far wider war.
The Saudi king was recorded as having "frequently exhorted the US to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons programme", one cable stated. "He told you [Americans] to cut off the head of the snake," the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir said, according to a report on Abdullah's meeting with the US general David Petraeus in April 2008.
UNITED NATIONS — North Korea is supplying banned nuclear and ballistic equipment to Iran, Syria and Myanmar using "surreptitious" means to avoid international sanctions, according to a UN report released Friday.
China had blocked publication of the report which has been ready for six months, diplomats said.
North Korea is involved with "the surreptitious transfer of nuclear-related and ballistic missile-related equipment, know-how and technology" to countries including Iran, Syria and Myanmar, said the report.
A UN sanctions committee panel of experts called for heightened vigilance to stop the nuclear trade and for more detailed investigation into the sophisticated means used by North Korea to circumvent sanctions.
North Korea, known officially as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, "employs a broad range of techniques to mask its transactions, including the use of overseas entities, shell companies, informal transfer mechanisms, cash couriers and barter arrangements," said the investigators.
