The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has done indispensable work over the years in assessing the vast amount of research out there on the Earth's climate system and putting it all together into an accessible summary for policymakers and laypeople. I'd very much recommend the IPCC's Working Group 1 report from 2007 to anyone who wants to delve deeper into the basics of how scientists know that humans are warming the planet.
Jeff Herf, Richard Just, and I were just talking to each other (no, what we were really doing is e-mailing each other, a less civilized form of communication) about the victory that everybody is claiming for Obama diplomacy because the Iranian dictatorship has, sort-of, promised to turn over some of its uranium to the Russians. Look, any uranium it does transfer temporarily is a little less that we have to worry about now. Still, we don't know exactly how much uranium Tehran actually has left.
The announcement that Iran has been constructing a covert facility to enrich nuclear fuel for the last few years without notifying the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) raises the stakes for the upcoming October 1 meeting of six leading countries with Iran. The underground facility is located on an Iranian Revolutionary Guard base outside the religious city of Qom.
For years, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez cast himself as President Bush's arch-nemesis, repeatedly accusing the Bush administration of plotting to overthrow the Venezuelan government and to assassinate him. This was how Chávez justified an unprecedented military buildup and his tightening alliances with Russia and Iran. So, when Chávez first announced his intention to acquire nuclear technology for civilian purposes in 2005, some skeptics initially dismissed it as braggadocio to challenge Bush--sparking fears of another ostensibly peaceful nuclear program that could one day produce weapons.
The FT yesterday used President Obama's own metaphor from Washington's relations with Moscow. He has, that is, resolved to press "the reset button" with Vladimir Putin's Russia But, of course, he can do so only from our side. Putin has sent him a big mazal tov but no reciprocal gift.
Quite to the contrary. As the Financial Times points out, Russia has embarked on an aggressive foreign policy in Latin America, partnering with Hugo Chavez, the wild man of the region. Russia is also now doing military exercises with Belarus. It is consolidating its gains from Georgia, ill-gotten gains, if ever there are those. Perhaps worst of all, it has already told the world that it will block further sanctions on Iran just at the time information has leaked from the International Atomic Energy Agency informing everyone that Tehran is actually on the brink of nuclear weapons. On the brink...not a few years down the line.
And what has Obama done? He has resolved to leave Poland and the Czech Republic without missile defenses.
With success, it seems:
VIENNA (Reuters) - U.N. inspectors are set to report that Iran has slowed the expansion of its disputed nuclear program and is cooperating more with them just as major powers prepare to discuss harsh sanctions against Tehran.
About ten days after the start of Iran's insurrection, I asked a senior administration official what, if anything, the White House knew about the people behind the demonstrations. His reply: "I think it is fair to say senior administration officials are busily trying to understand how the opposition is generated and where it came from." In other words, there's a lot about the protesters we still don't know.
As the world frets about climate change and starts rooting around for sources of carbon-free energy, nuclear power is poised for a comeback. Peter Scoblic wrote a fantastic piece in this week's TNR about that renaissance, and how it will increase the danger of nuclear proliferation. It's also worth asking, though, how large a role nuclear power can actually play in a carbon-constrained future. Here's Peter:
Consider this scenario: The Saudis have gone nuclear. So have the Egyptians. Both countries had been signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but that agreement is now dissolved. Riyadh and Cairo acquired their weapons from Pakistan, a Sunni ally, in response to the nuclear threat from Shia Iran. Meanwhile, Iraq continues to fester, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is far from settled, and Iranian proxies remain firmly entrenched within Lebanon's combustible sectarian mix--a mix that pits Sunni against Shia and just so happens to exist on Israel's northern border.
Two weeks ago, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) voted to refer the matter of Iran's nuclear program to the U.N. Security Council. There is plenty to like about the IAEA resolution, starting with the large majority it commanded among the organization's member states--even the usually recalcitrant Russians and Chinese signed on.
Two weeks ago in Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) gave Iran until October 31 to prove it does not possess a hidden nuclear weapons program. The agency's board demanded Iran answer a host of outstanding questions about its nuclear activities and quickly comply with requests for expanded inspections. The board's action was widely lauded as surprisingly strong--most had expected it to issue only a weak statement, and few had thought a deadline would be imposed.
Foreign policy is always difficult in a democracy. Democracy requires openness. Yet foreign policy requires a level of secrecy that frees it from oversight and exposes it to abuse. As a result, Republicans and Democrats have long held that the intelligence agencies--the most clandestine of foreign policy institutions--should be insulated from political interference in much the same way as the higher reaches of the judiciary. As the Tower Commission, established to investigate the Iran-Contra scandal, warned in November 1987, "The democratic processes ...
