15 posts
Trick or treat! The About Iran Blog, which is run anonymously, has posted images from a defense exhibition in Tehran. The images show placards with technical data for the Shahab, Ghadr, Qiam and Seijil missiles. This is definitely a treat.
Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance Rose Gottemoeller, in a speech at Stanford, praised one of my students, Tamara Patton, for her outstanding work on modeling Pakistan’s Khushab Plutonium Production Complex: I recently learned about some…
Earlier this week, I posted about a location in Syria that some folks in the IAEA believe was originally intended to house centrifuges as part of a nuclear weapons program. This is just a housekeeping post, bringing that conversation up…
Workers at PANTEX dismantled the last B53 nuclear gravity bomb, a nine-megaton behemoth affectionately known as the “Crowd Pleaser.” It sheer size and unfathomable explosive power — 600 Hiroshimas! — are so difficult to comprehend that one can’t help think…
Reporters are calling around town inquiring about this site, which is located at 36°30’33.99″N, 40°46’34.75″E near the town of Al Hasaka in Syria (sometimes transliterated as Hasakah or Hasekeh). The facility is said to be of some interest to the…
Before wars exhaust America’s patience and treasury, they can generate even more far-reaching aspirations. Higher purposes vary. During the Spanish-American War, President William McKinley felt obliged to set his sights beyond Cuba in order to uplift, civilize, and Christianize Filipinos.…
The other day, I posted a picture of an Iranian give-away at the IAEA General Conference — a laser-pointer shaped like a centrifuge. Another reader, who also must remain anonymous, sent along this image of the booth. Gosh, that’s a…
Readers know that I yield to no one in my love of atomic schwag. A colleague, who sadly must remain anonymous, snapped this picture of a giveaway from the IAEA General Conference held last month. Yes, the Islamic Republic of…
In February 2004, senior IAEA officials led by then-Director General Mohamed ElBaradei held a one-off meeting in Tehran with former President and parliamentarian Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Based on an assessment of Iran’s nuclear program which the IAEA is currently preparing for the…
Critical foreign languages won’t make or break a career, but they can help aspiring wonks gain comparative advantage in the job market. Learning a critical foreign language can also lead to great travel opportunities, and travel, as Mark Twain once…
