IRAN -- NUCLEAR PROGRAM
AP Photo
September 1, 2008
"US-Iranian Tango"
Op-Ed, The Jerusalem Post
By Chuck Freilich, Senior Fellow, International Security Program
"...Engagement with Iran does not constitute appeasement, nor a slippery slope leading to further concessions. It can be these things if mishandled, but there is no reason for it to be anything other than a coherent, integrated policy. A policy based solely on sticks, without carrots, will surely fail. Engagement, however, should be conducted from a position of strength, with a concomitant attempt to increase pressure, such as heightened restrictions on international trade, banking and investments...."
August 22, 2008
Memo to President-elect McBama
Memorandum, Aspen Strategy Group
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government; Faculty Chair, Dubai Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School
Graham Allison writes in a memo to a fictional President-elect McBama on the suject of nuclear terrorism, "You pledged that you would make preventing this catastrophe an organizing principle of your administration. This memo provides a brief outline of strategy and organization to fulfill that promise."
August 19, 2008
Former U.S. Diplomat R. Nicholas Burns Appointed to Harvard Kennedy School Faculty
Press Release
By Doug Gavel
R. Nicholas Burns, formerly the highest-ranking career diplomat at the U.S. Department of State, has been appointed Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics. He will serve on the Board of Directors at Belfer Center.
August 11, 2008
"The Importance of Iran"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
The American-European-led diplomatic minuet with Iran is the most interesting and significant political dynamic in the world today. What happens on the Iran issue will determine power relations for years to come -- far beyond Iran's immediate neighborhood.
AP Photo
August 9, 2008
"Chinese, Russian Stall Tactics on Iran"
Op-Ed, The Boston Globe
By Joshua Gleis, Associate, International Security Program
"...The Chinese and Russians say they do not support stronger sanctions because they don't believe in their effectiveness. Off the record, however, both countries recognize that any form of sanctions that restrict their own business ventures is not going to stop the Iranians from pursuing their end goal of acquiring nuclear weapons.Thus in the meantime, the Russians and Chinese are angling themselves to maximize the economic benefits of such a precarious state of affairs in the Middle East...."
August 5, 2008
"Stephen M. Walt on the U.S., Iran, and the New Balance of Power in the Persian Gulf"
Q&A
By Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs; Faculty Chair, International Security Program and Kayhan Barzegar, Research Fellow, Project on Managing the Atom/International Security Program
Walt: “…..by maintaining a (new) balance you don’t get conflict breaking out and you tilt in favour whichever side seems to be falling behind. At the same time, you do try to discourage conflict whenever possible. You certainly don’t try to control the region yourselves and if the balance breaks down as it did in 1991 and you have to intervene you go in, you get out as quickly as possible. But you don’t try to organize these societies. You don’t try to tell them how to live. You don’t try to tell them how their governments should be organized and you don’t try to transform them at the point of a rifle barrel. This is not disengagement, but it is also not trying to control the region or dictate its political evolution.”
“…we are not going to have a stable long-term situation in the Persian Gulf until the United States and other countries in the region—including Iran—do come to some understanding about the various issues that concern them. Achieving that goal will require genuine diplomacy…The United States will also have to recognize that Iran’s size, potential power, large population, and its geo-strategic location inevitably make it a major player in the security environment in the Persian Gulf, and ignoring that fact is unrealistic…”
AP Photo
August 4, 2008
"After Olmert"
Op-Ed, Human Events
By Chuck Freilich, Senior Fellow, International Security Program
"...In mid September, Olmert's Kadima party will hold primaries to elect his successor as party head, until which time he will stay on as premier. The two leading candidates are, Tzipi Livni, the current foreign minister and clear frontrunner among the public, and Shaul Mofaz, a former chief of staff and defense minister, now minister of transportation, the frontrunner among the party rank and file, who actually vote in the primaries...."
AP Photo
July 19, 2008
"Bush's U-turn Toward Common Sense"
Op-Ed, Los Angeles Times
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government; Faculty Chair, Dubai Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School
Graham Allison applauds the decision by the Bush administration to send U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns to the European Union meeting with Iran on Saturday (July 19). This "flip-flop toward reality," Allison says, "represents a major step in overcoming fierce internal struggles within the U.S. and Iran that had left both stuck at stalemate."
Dean Calma/IAEA
July 12, 2008
IAEA Safeguards: Dealing Preventively with Non-Compliance
Report
In a study commissioned by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Pierre Goldschmidt, former Deputy Director-General for Safeguards at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), outlines a new approach to strengthening the IAEA's hand in cases when states violate their safeguards agreements. Goldschmidt argues that the UN Security Council should pass a generic resolution laying out steps the Security Council would take to deal with any state found to be in violation of its safeguards obligations. Any state which violated its safeguards pact would be required to accept a broader inspection regime going well beyond the Additional Protocol until the IAEA was able to draw the conclusion that all of its nuclear facilities and materials were under safeguards. If the IAEA is unable to draw such a conclusion with 60 days, the state would be required to cease all its sensitive nuclear activities. Goldschmidt offers a draft text for the resolution and for the "Model Temporary Complementary Protocol" that defines the broader inspection regime, along with an article-by-article analysis.
July 11, 2008
"Joseph Nye on Smart Power in Iran-U.S. Relations"
Q&A
By Joseph S. Nye, Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations and Kayhan Barzegar, Research Fellow, Project on Managing the Atom/International Security Program
This interview elaborates on the applicability of Nye’s theory of “smart power” in the context of the Middle East and particularly Iran. The discussion further pushes the boundaries on how the current U.S policymakers should take into account soft and smart power towards Iran.
Nye: “… if the Americans, in efforts to try to stop the Iranian’s nuclear weapons program, were to bomb nuclear facilities in Iran, they might gain a few years of slowing down the nuclear weapons program but they would lose the whole generation of younger Iranians who would respond in a nationalistic way. So I think that would be a very large cost for a very limited benefit.”
