Senator Lugar Calls for Legislation to "Close the Verification Gap"

Close the Verification Gap - Senator Richard Lugar in the Washington Times [link]

• This comprehensive verification regime, which undergirds every existing U.S.-Russian strategic arms control treaty, will expire Dec. 5. Unless Congress moves quickly to replace the regime with a short-term fix, important continuity and confidence will be lost, putting at risk our working relationship with Russia and, ultimately, our national security interests.
• These inspections are not some Cold War anachronism. They are essential to give both sides confidence there is no militarily significant cheating. 
• I urge Congress and the administration to move quickly to approve and implement this legislation. We must not allow to lapse a principle that has served us well in protecting our national security since Mr. Reagan's presidency.

U.S. Officials Optimistic About New Nuclear Treaty with Russia - Washington Post [link]

• After months of negotiations with Russia, Obama administration officials are hopeful about a breakthrough -- possibly this week -- that would enable the two sides to sign a successor to their most extensive nuclear weapons treaty before it expires Dec. 5.
• Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in remarks released Saturday that both sides "have every chance to agree on a new treaty, determine new [weapons] levels and control measures and sign a legally binding document [by] the end of the year."

ElBaradei Suggests Turkey as Compromise on Iran Nuclear Impasse - Bloomberg [link]

• Iran’s enriched uranium could be shipped to Turkey as a means of easing U.S. and European concerns over the Persian Gulf country’s nuclear ambitions, the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency said.
• “It should work,” ElBaradei said in an interview today on Public Broadcasting’s Charlie Rose television show as he ends his tenure as IAEA chief. “Iran has a lot of trust in Turkey.” The Obama administration would agree to this proposal because the U.S. is “very comfortable with Turkey,” he said.
• Click here to watch the video of Charlie Rose's interview with Mohamed ElBaradei.

Berlin '89: When the Impossible Became Real - Joe Cirincione in the Huffington Post [link]

• It took years for the West to understand that the events of 1989 were not a fraud or a feint. David Hoffman describes in this new book, The Dead Hand, how President George H.W. Bush "lost" the year 1989.
  • The fall of the wall was a European earthquake, but in Washington and Moscow, miscommunication and suspicion meant the leaders were badly out of sync. While Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was eager to move on cutting nuclear arsenals, President George H.W. Bush was cautious and uncertain, and a promising moment slipped away.
• We cannot let another policy moment slip away. Twenty years after, we are at another historic point, ripe with transformational possibility. Domestically, we see it in issues like health care. Internationally, we see it in potentially profound changes in nuclear forces and policies, and in the very structure of global relations.

Obama Faces a Tall Agenda on Asia Trip - Los Angeles Times [link]

• Obama is scheduled to stop in Japan, Singapore, China and South Korea, bringing to 20 the number of nations he has visited since taking office in January.
• At the heart of the White House strategy is China, which figures into virtually every major U.S. objective: ensuring that North Korea and Iran forswear nuclear weapons; tackling the threat posed by global warming, and hastening the worldwide economic recovery.