Nuclear Issues

"This isolation has left Tehran no option but to turn to Moscow. And, as relations between the US and Russia have deteriorated, the Middle Eastern state has the scope to become an evermore decisive and divisive factor."

Graham Allison and Shai Feldman write that while the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government were largely on the same page during the Gaza crisis, "much greater turbulence in their relations can be expected by the middle of next year when the issues associated with Iran’s nuclear project will likely reach another crescendo."

This week, when the leaders of the G8 industrial democracies gather in France, their meeting will include discussions of what steps must be taken to strengthen global nuclear safety and global nuclear security  in the aftermath of the tragedy at Fukushima. The Belfer Center's Matthew Bunn and Olli Heinonen suggest new actions the world community should take in five key areas in order to prevent another Fukushima.

Through the capture of and subsequent announcement that it would release 15 British sailors and marines, the Islamic Republic of Iran sent its adversaries a pointed message: just as Iran will meet confrontation with confrontation, it will respond to what it perceives as flexibility with pragmatism. This message is worth heeding as the United States and Iran seem to be moving inexorably toward conflict.

WASHINGTON needs to learn to talk, listen, and engage more and condemn less.

"...the Bush administration's foreign policy rests on a deep misreading of contemporary world politics. Conducting foreign policy on the basis of flawed premises is like designing an airplane while ignoring gravity...."

The "war on terror" has always been a misnomer. It assumes that the terrorist threat can somehow be "eradicated" through the mechanism of war — through military action using bombs, guns and bullets. War may be the short-term answer to an immediate threat; it is not the answer to the long-term crises.

In September 2000, the U.S. and Russian governments signed the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement, obligating each to destroy 34 tons of plutonium. As the White House announcement said, this was "enough plutonium to make thousands of nuclear weapons"— 8,000, to be precise. How many of these potential nuclear bombs have been eliminated to date? Zero.