Academy award-winning “best picture,” Argo, has resurrected American interest in this dark diplomatic episode. Two hostages from the crisis, retired Ambassadors Bruce Laingen and John Limbert, called on the United States and Iran to learn from the lessons of the 1979 crisis rather than be held hostage to the ever-escalating cycle of confrontation that has defined U.S.-Iranian relations for decades. On the eve of the P5+1 talks in which diplomats from the United States and Iran will meet in Almaty, Kazakhstan, the Ambassadors call for broadening the scope of negotiations with Iran beyond the nuclear issue to advance a diplomatic solution.
IAEA Report Sheds Light on Iran’s Nuclear Progress, The Need for a Deal
Ahead of talks set to take place in Kazakhstan next week, the IAEA has released its quarterly safeguards report providing the most recent data on Iran’s nuclear progress. While the report does not suggest that a nuclear-armed Iran is either imminent or inevitable, it illustrates Iran’s steady progress and highlights the dangerous game of chicken the US and Iran are currently playing. The time for a diplomatic resolution has not yet expired, but the window of opportunity is getting smaller. The goal of the upcoming talks in Kazakhstan should be to put time back on the clock.
Facts and Fictions about the Nuclear Triad
by Usha Sahay On February 6, I attended a breakfast with North Dakota Senator John Hoeven, who delivered an address on the importance of nuclear deterrence and the U.S. nuclear triad. Sen. Hoeven, whose state houses one of the nation’s 3 ICBM bases, spoke at length about the benefits of a large nuclear arsenal in […]
LTE: Fewer nukes make financial, strategic sense
On February 21 Kingston Reif published the following letter to the editor in The Baltimore Sun on the merits of further nuclear weapons reductions. The recent editorial on arms control (“Avoiding Armageddon,” Feb. 18) was exactly on point. More than two decades have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and U.S. national security […]
North Korea’s Third Nuclear Test: What Now?
Late on the night of Monday, February 11th, seismic detectors picked up signals of seismic activity in North Korea, measuring a 4.9 on the Richter scale. As Reuters pointed out, “North Korea is not prone to seismic activity.” Indeed, the tremors were an indication that North Korea had conducted the nuclear test it had been threatening for some time, in retaliation for sanctions placed against it after last December’s rocket launch.