EU Tightens Sanctions on Iran

On the radar: Banking and trade targeted; Positioning on enrichment; After Nunn-Lugar; U Thant, unsung hero of the crisis; U.S.-Israel security cooperation; MOX transparency needed; Missileer during the crisis; and Christoph Waltz as Mikhail Gorbachev.

October 15, 2012 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke

EU sanctions - The European Union announced a raft of new sanctions on Iranian banks and exports today.

--The new sanctions prohibit all transactions between Iranian and European banks unless explicitly authorized by national authorities. They ban short-term export credits, guarantees and insurance. They ban purchases and transportation of Iranian natural gas. They also prohibit the export of raw materials that could be used in Iran’s nuclear or ballistic missile programs. BBC News has the story.

--"The objective of the EU remains to achieve a comprehensive, negotiated, long-term settlement which restores international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear programme, while respecting Iran's legitimate right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy under the Non-Proliferation Treaty," reads the EU statement. http://bbc.in/SYbc97

Positioning - ”If a guarantee is provided to supply the 20 percent (enriched) fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor, our officials are ready to enter talks about 20 percent enrichment," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said at an event on Friday, according to Iran’s Press TV.

--"If our right to enrichment is recognised, we are prepared to offer an exchange. We would voluntarily limit the extent of our enrichment program, but in return we would need a guaranteed supply of the relevant fuels from abroad," said Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi last week. Yeganeh Torbati at Reuters has the quotes. http://bit.ly/TTOO6I

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Threat reduction - Nunn-Lugar, “one of the most farsighted foreign policy initiatives of its generation,” is set to lapse if Russia and the U.S. do not renew or replace it. The Washington Post editorial board notes Nunn-Lugar’s accomplishments and looks at the program’s future.

--”A wise next step would be to negotiate a replacement agreement that would better fit Russia’s revival, keeping both countries engaged and focused on the unfinished business. That might be difficult in the current political environment, but Nunn-Lugar stood the test of time over two decades, and it is too soon to give up on its mission,” writes The Post. http://wapo.st/OBLjjh

Tweet - Live tweeting the @MissileCrisis62: US analysts use recon photos to identify 23/24 missile sites in Cuba as well as parts of a Soviet MRBM in San Cristobal.

Missile Crisis history - The Cuban Missile Crisis ended in a peaceful resolution in part because Kennedy and Khrushchev were able to come to a compromise. One of the most underappreciated heroes of the crisis was UN Secretary General U Thant, the man who helped mediate the crisis, create space for that compromise, and “pull the superpowers back from nuclear annihilation.” New post at The Bulletin. http://bit.ly/V1Umbp

--Longform article: “The Closest Brush: How a UN Secretary-General Averted Doomsday” by A. Walter Dorn and Robert Pauk in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. (pdf) http://bit.ly/Ts0ZSO

Event - Book discussion of “The Soviet Cuban Missile Crisis: Castro, Mikoyan, Kennedy, Krushchev, and the Missiles of November” by Svetlana Savranskaya. Wed. Oct 17th from 3:30-5:00 at the Wilson Center. RSVP and details here. http://bit.ly/QIhmvt

U.S.-Israeli cooperation - A recent public row between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Iran policy “resulted from a long-building revolt by Israel’s professional security establishment against the very idea of an early military attack, particularly one without the approval of the United States,” writes Graham Allison and Shai Feldman in The New York Times.

--The authors note that increased American security assistance to Israel accompanied by a concerted effort at tightening institutional links between the two countries’ defense and intelligence communities resulted in converging assessments that Israel should not prematurely attack Iran before all nonmilitary options are exhausted. http://nyti.ms/WdgO6p

Shadow war - “U.S. Suspects Iran Was Behind a Wave of Cyberattacks” by Thom Shanker and David Sanger in The New York Times. http://nyti.ms/RLMiuM

MOX - While the official cost estimate for the Mixed Oxide program has hovered at $4.8 billion for years, a coalition of concerned organizations noted in a recent letter that design changes and other factors will add at least $2 billion to the cost of the project. The organizations call for updated budget figures for both construction and operating costs. http://bit.ly/Rtjerq

Missileer - “I don’t think any of us had any doubt about what we would do...You do your job. If you’ve got to fire this thing, fire it,” said former Atlas missileer Wayne Colton. In October 1962, then-Capt. Colton was responsible for an Atlas 4 ICBM with a 4-megaton warhead as the United States moved to DEFCON 2 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Free Lance-Star of Fredericksburg has the story of Lt. Col. Colton’s service and those fateful days 50 years ago. http://bit.ly/SW6xJ6

Reykjavik - “Inglourious Basterds” star Christoph Waltz has signed on to play Mikhail Gorbachev in the upcoming movie “Reykjavik”. Michael Douglas, a Ploughshares Fund board member, will play Ronald Reagan. The film starts shooting in March. Screen Daily has the story. http://bit.ly/RxluRX