Toward A Nuclear-Free World

The Next Steps on Nonproliferation - Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton in Foreign Policy [link]

• In an age of pressing global challenges, none threatens our nation or our world as urgently as the possible spread of nuclear weapons. The United States has a special responsibility to meet this challenge, and under President Obama, we seek to lead the international community in minimizing these dangers and reinvigorating the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
• If we do not reverse this trend and strengthen the international nonproliferation regime, we will find ourselves in a world with a steadily growing number of nuclear-armed states, and an increasing likelihood of terrorists getting their hands on nuclear weapons.
• As the president has acknowledged, we might not achieve the dream of a world without nuclear weapons in our lifetime. But by making the reduction of nuclear threats one of our highest national priorities and by reaching out to a diverse group of international partners, we can help build and lead a unified international effort that will make us safer and stronger.

Waiting for Answers on Fordo: What IAEA Inspections Will Tell Us - FAS Strategic Security Blog [link]

• After a cascade of disclosures and official announcements, followed by a great deal of conjecture from experts and the media, the Fordo enrichment plant, Iran’s newest enrichment facility located in the mountains near Qom, opened its doors on October 25 to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections.
• The Agency has an indispensable role of providing an objective technical account of the facility and ultimately determining whether Iran violated its Safeguards Agreement. But how much can we expect to learn from the first visit to the facility and would that provide sufficient information to resolve the accusations made against Iran?

Ridding Germany of US Nuclear Weapons - New York Times [link]

• Germany’s new foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, has taken a different view on the continuing presence of these weapons on German soil. In a bid to distinguish himself as quickly as possible in his new job, he called Saturday — the day Chancellor Angela Merkel clinched an accord with her new coalition partners, the Free Democrats — “for a country free of nuclear weapons.
• The bombs are there because of bureaucratic resistance to change and NATO’s inability to address the issue of the future of nuclear weapons in NATO,” said Hans Kristensen. He is director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, an independent research group that monitors U.S. nuclear weapons.

Obama Chooses Missile Defense Critic for Advisory Post - Foreign Policy's The Cable [link]

• President Obama today nominated of Philip Coyle, a leading critic of Bush administration missile defense schemes, to be a top White House scientific advisor.
• Coyle, who was the head weapons tester at the Pentagon during the Clinton administration, was nominated to become the Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. There he will lead a team tasked with giving scientific advice to Obama on a range of national security issues and will report to Director John Holdren.

A View from the Dark Side

Getting Ready for the Islamic Bomb - Washington Times Editorial [link]

• The United States maintains that an Iranian nuclear weapon would be "unacceptable," but this is empty rhetoric. Witness the case of North Korea.
• The United States should be planning for the more probable contingency of an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear program. When Israel says something is unacceptable, it means it, and Israel is not afraid to back up its statements with force.
• A war is brewing, and the United States should get serious about which side it wants to be on.