On the radar: Sanctions relief must be on the table; Sen. Tester on the value of New START; Arms control opponents are awfully quiet about Bush’s record; SASC goes for CMRR; Allison on breakout; and a Recurring Payne.

Date May 30, 2012 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke

Sanctions as part of a deal - Sanctions were useful in getting Iran to the negotiating table, but sanctions relief must be offered if the P5+1 wants to make a deal to limit Iran’s enrichment program and keep Iran from the bomb. A Bloomberg editorial lays out this argument and proposes a compromise.

--Recommended interim deal: Iran exports its 19.75% uranium, mothballs Fordow, ensures full transparency with the IAEA, and halts construction of further enrichment facilities and heavy water plants. In exchange, the P5+1 offers to postpone the EU oil embargo and communicates that a limited right to enrich would be on the table in a future, permanent agreement. http://bloom.bg/KSZU6b

Softball - “As the Senate took up the New START Treaty 18 months ago, I had the responsibility of protecting Malmstrom and strengthening the security of our nation. This important treaty did both,” writes Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) in the Great Falls Tribune. http://bit.ly/NdIwZK

Hardball - “In 1996, Malmstrom lost its flying mission and closed its runway. In 2005, during the last Base Realignment and Closure effort, Montana lost its F-16 mission. And in 2006, President Bush's Pentagon made the decision to remove 50 of Malmstrom's ICBMs. All of that happened while Congressman Rehberg (R-MT) was in public office. And he did not stand up to the President then,” writes Sen. Jon Tester in a stinging rebuke of Rep. Rehberg’s recent efforts to block New START implementation. http://bit.ly/NdIwZK

Welcome to Early Warning - Subscribe to our morning email or follow us on twitter.

--Have a tip? Email earlywarning@ploughshares.org. Want to support this work? Click here.

CMRR - Washington is wrapped in knots over the CMRR facility - the proposed multi-billion dollar plutonium lab at Los Alamos. NNSA says it can do without it, the President did not request it, and both appropriations committees did not fund it. However, the House defense bill includes provisions to fund it. Now, the Senate Armed Services Committee markup of its defense bill wants to restore $150 million for the CMRR, cap its total costs and bring it online by 2024. The Albuquerque Journal has the story.

--Department of the Obvious: Said Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), “There are competing visions in Congress and the administration about us getting on track to replace the aging CMR building.” http://bit.ly/KHoaXV

Event - Arms Control Association Annual Meeting: Monday, June 4th from 9:00am to 1:30pm. Acting Undersecretary of State Rose Gottemoeller keynotes.

--Panel 1 on further nuclear reductions features Lt. Gen. Dirk Jameson, Jon Wolfsthal, Trine Flockhart. Panel 2 on Iran features Amb. Thomas Pickering, Amb. Hossein Mousavian and Tarja Cronberg. Details here. http://bit.ly/LeMDCO

Deal seeking - Both the U.S. and Iran entered the Baghdad talks with maximalist positions, and neither budged. That’s common to any negotiation, writes Reza Marashi at The National Interest. However, Marashi notes, now the hard work really begins as the U.S. and Iran seek an agreement that can be sold to their domestic constituencies.

--One possible solution, says Marashi, is for the P5+1 to match verifiable Iranian concessions on enrichment with a delay in the EU oil embargo. This would “allow the necessary political space for diplomacy to run its course.” http://bit.ly/KI43Ja

Tweet - @cirincione: “Here's what I do in those State Dept meetings. I'm at far end, next to Blair, Slocombe and Gallucci.” http://bit.ly/JN7WzZ

Breakout - Iran appears not to have made a decision to acquire nuclear weapons. If Iran ever made that decision, “How Close is Iran to exploding its first nuclear bomb?” asks Graham Allison in Scientific American. http://bit.ly/KHj7qb

Payne - Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Keith Payne is a common source of nuclear weapons proponents’ talking points, and he did not like the recent Global Zero report chaired by former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. James Cartwright.

--To discredit the report, Payne writes in The Washington Times that the report’s assumptions on the international threat environment are flawed. http://bit.ly/LeQjoc