I’ve been a little lazy about this whole Divine Strake business. Fortunately, several of my colleagues—John Pike, Andy Lichterman, Hans Kristensen,, John Fleck and Bill Arkin—have been all over the story. Long story, short (via Hans): DOE is making a…
1. Bernard Gwertzman recently conducted an interview with Flynt Leverett (former NSC, now Brookings) containing another description of Iran’s efforts to engage the United States. Leverett has previously discussed this particular Iran offer. Here he says: In the spring of…
Jeffrey’s post about the National Security Archives’ recently-released documents related to the South African and French nuclear arsenals reminded me that Mordechai Vanunu issued his estimate of the Israeli nuclear weapons arsenal this past December. Vanunu, in a 21 December…
Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Manouchehr Mottaki told the Conference on Disarmament last Thursday that Iran is open to a regional fuel cycle consortium: In our view one possibility to resolve the issue could be establishment of regional consortiums on…
I am off to Geneva for a couple of days, back Sunday. The blogging might be light between now and then. I’ll be talking about non-state actors and the threat to space assets as part of the UNIDIR conference, Building…
I bought Jeffrey Richelson’s Spying on the Bomb: American Nuclear Intelligence from Nazi Germany to Iran and North Korea. The book is amazing, particularly the chapter dedicated to the 1979 “flash” over the South Atlantic that may have been a…
The AP has more about the alleged accelerated pace of Iran’s centrifuge program. Some people at the IAEA are none too amused by recent press reports on the matter: U.N. inspectors should know by next week how far Iran has…
Three items. (1) Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel quote unnamed US officials arguing that Iran could “begin producing highly enriched uranium much sooner than currently forecast” perhaps as early as 2007, and produce enough HEU for a nuclear weapon within…
Chris Nelson has a depressing Nelson Report today. Apparently no one in the Bush Administration believes that Six Party Talks can succeed: Recently, we heard a very highly informed Asia policy player, on background, explain and confirm that the basic…
The Times prints, in full, the British strategy for securing Russian and Chinese support for tougher measures against Iran. My favorite reference is to assembling a new package on Iran that could have the explicit support of the US. “Nick…
