Defense & Security Archive

At their Oct. 1 meeting in Geneva, representatives from Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany) appeared to make considerable progress. The Iranian government representative agreed to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect its recently revealed second, secret uranium enrichment facility near the city of Qum. Iran also expressed interest “in principle” in sending its stockpiles of low enriched uranium to Russia and France for further enrichment and conversion into fuel rods for an experimental reactor used for medical purposes. Russia’s role in helping secure these developments remains unclear. Russian leaders […]

The outcome of talks to discuss the Iranian nuclear crisis on Oct. 1 between representative of the P5+1 and Iran appears to be more positive than had been anticipated. However, the reality is that the basic positions of all sides remain unchanged. In its previous attempts to solve this slow-burning crisis, the West has repeatedly failed to understand the intentions and strategies of the Iranian government. This has allowed Tehran to buy time for its uranium enrichment program and for the ongoing construction of a heavy-water reactor at Arak. The West’s focus on the enrichment issue has obscured the ways […]

Worldfocus interviews the Middle East Institute’s Marvin Weinbaum onwhat the Taliban’s Monday attack on a World Food Program office inIslamabad means for U.S. policy in Afghanistan, and for U.S. andPakistani strategy against the Taliban.

NEW DELHI — The recent U.S.-sponsored United Nations Security Council resolution calling on all nations to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) has not been well-received in India. The resolution, adopted last week at a Security Council session led by U.S. President Barack Obama, will ratchet up the pressure on India to sign a document that it considers grossly unfair. In fact India’s Special Envoy on Climate Change Shyam Saran conveyed as much to Obama, stating that because the NPT’s norms are “discriminatory” and “conflict with India’s sovereignty,” the treaty is unacceptable […]

Not long after the so-called “civilian surge” was announced as part of the troop buildup in Afghanistan, a veteran State Department foreign service officer I spoke with posed a simple question: “Where are they going to come from?” He had recently returned from a year serving on a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan and was grappling with the lack of civilian expertise that he said was so desperately needed for the state-building tasks there. “Is the new Secretary of Agriculture going to volunteer staff? The Secretary of the Treasury?” He suspected not. The diplomat’s insights get at a central challenge […]

Despite the encouraging outcome of yesterday’s talks in Geneva, the nuclear standoff with Iran is far from over. It will not end for the U.S. until there is full, ongoing compliance with all protocols of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) inspection regime. And so long as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is Iran’s president, it very likely will not end for Iran until breakout capability has been achieved. It should not be surprising that yesterday in Geneva, Ahmadinejad’s recalcitrant regime appeared to make major concessions to the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany […]

U.S. President Barack Obama spoke from the White House at theconclusion of talks in Geneva between diplomats from the United States,the United Kingdom, France Russia, China, Germany and Iran. “TheIranian government heard a clear and unified message from theinternational community in Geneva: Iran must generate through concretesteps that it will live up to its responsibilities with regard to itsnuclear program. In pursuit of that goal, today’s meeting was aconstructive beginning, but it must be followed with constructiveaction by the Iranian government,” Obama said.

On the morning of June 9, 2008, U.S. drug enforcement agents alongside NATO military personnel and Afghan commandos raided a suspected drug weigh-station in southern Afghanistan’s Kandahar province near the border with Pakistan. Code-named Operation Albatross, the counternarcotics mission was the result of a tip from a government official in Kandahar and led to a seizure of mind-blowing proportions: 262 metric tons of dried hashish, equivalent in size to 30 London-style double-decker buses. The raid was the world’s largest drug seizure ever conducted by law enforcement authorities. But there is little reason to celebrate. Afghanistan’s narcotics industry has become a […]

JERUSALEM — The latest developments surrounding Iran and its nuclear program would seem, on the surface, to provide Israel with reasons for even deeper worries about the threat from the Islamic Republic. After all, the revelation that Iran secretly built a second uranium enrichment plant in the mountains near the holy city of Qom offers more evidence supporting the Israelis’ belief that Tehran aims to build nuclear weapons. The subsequent launches of Iranian missiles capable of striking Israel also highlighted the Jewish state’s potential vulnerability to an Iranian attack. And yet, the feverish pace of events and the international reaction […]