NewsTrust - Iran Nuclear Program - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

For the Record, I Completely Disagree With Our Latest 'Bomb Iran' Post - The Atlantic

Wed, 29 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Atlantic Monthly - By James Fallows - May. 29 (Opinion) - I've just seen a post on our Global channel by two retired generals, one American and one Israeli, that purports to ask and answer important questions about a preemptive strike by either the U.S. or Israel on Iranian nuclear facilities. Here's how it ...

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Thank God It's Over: The Top 25 Moments of 2010

Tue, 28 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Foreign Policy - Dec. 28 (Editorial) - With earthquakes in Haiti and western China, floods in Pakistan, a volcanic eruption in Iceland, and wildfires in Russia, the Earth was intent on releasing a lot of pent-up anger in 2010. Tremors and eruptions -- along with the more basic elements of fire and water -- seemed to shape the past year's events even more than traditional foreign policy actors. Meanwhile, Europe struggled to regain its economic footing, China continued to rapidly grow its GDP, Middle East peace talks crumbled, and world leaders misbehaved (we're looking at you, Vladmir Putin and Silvio Berlusconi). But there were bright spots, too: A group of Chilean miners escaped after enduring two months trapped underground and long-suffering Burmese democratic activist Aung San Suu Kyi was released after spending nearly two decades in detention and under house arrest. Here are a few glimpses of 2010's international high- and lowlights.

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The war recovery?

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By David S. Broder - Oct. 31 (Opinion) - When the midterm election cycle began, the prevailing opinion was that Barack Obama was cleverer and more inspirational than anyone else on the scene. As it ends, nothing appears to have changed.

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Iran's nuclear programme: Deadline missed

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Oct. 24 (Editorial) - Iran has again failed to do deadlines. It has been evading them in the seven years since an opposition group first outed its extensive covert nuclear programme, despite five UN Security Council resolutions that have told it to halt its suspect nuclear work. After talks that ended in Vienna on October 21st, Iran and the three countries trying to strike a side-deal over new fuel for a Tehran-based nuclear reactor were told by Mohamed ElBaradei, outgoing chief of the UN’s nuclear guardian, that they had just two days to take his draft agreement or leave it.

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A World Without Nuclear Weapons: Six Wrong-Headed Cliches about Disarmament

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Der Spiegel - By Oliver Thränert - Oct. 21 (Opinion) - A world without nuclear weapons presupposes a new world order. It is a goal that will not be achieved overnight. However, we should begin. Sooner or later, the assumption that humanity can continue to live with nuclear weapons without deploying them will prove to be a misapprehension.

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Containing a Nuclear Iran

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Newsweek - By Fareed Zakaria - Oct. 05 (Opinion) - It is time to clarify the debate over Iran and its nuclear program. It's easy to criticize the current course adopted by the United States and its allies, to huff and puff about Iranian mendacity, to point out that Russia and China won't agree to tougher measures against Tehran, and to detail the leaks in the sanctions already in place. But what, then, should the United States do? The critics are eager to denounce the administration from the sidelines for being weak but rarely detail what they would do to be "tough." Would they attack Iran today? If not, then what should we do? It is time to put up or shut up on Iran.

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Iran: Talking is the only option

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - Oct. 02 (Editorial) - No sane person should wish for the talks that started yesterday at a villa on the shores of Lake Geneva to fail. The half-hour meeting between William Burns, the US delegate, and his Iranian counterpart, Saeed Jalili, was the first official encounter the two nations have had in over 30 years. If this meeting marks the start of a substantive dialogue which has been so woefully lacking for three decades then that is, by a long measure, the most desirable outcome. The alternatives to engagement are appalling. Bombing Iran?s nuclear facilities – the option that Israel has been lobbying and training its pilots for – would, at the very best, only delay a nuclear bomb by a few years. It would turn the probability that Iran is making the bomb into a ...

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Geneva Talks Help Iran

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - Oct. 02 (Editorial) - From Geneva yesterday come all kinds of good diplomatic vibrations. Iran may allow U.N. inspectors into a recently unveiled uranium-enrichment plant "within two weeks." Another meeting will be held before month's end. A "freeze" on sanctions was bruited about. In an appearance at the White House, President Obama sounded sober but hopeful, calling the direct American talks with the Islamic Republic "a constructive beginning" toward "serious and meaningful engagement."

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What are the odds that Obama's Iran talks will succeed?

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Foreign Policy - By Peter Feaver - Oct. 01 (Opinion) - How should we measure success in the talks with Iran that begin today? I propose the following sliding scale.

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Keeping Iran honest

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Scott Ritter - Sep. 29 (Opinion) - Rather than representing the tip of the iceberg in terms of uncovering a covert nuclear weapons capability, the emergence of the existence of the Qom enrichment facility could very well mark the initiation of a period of even greater transparency on the part of Iran, leading to its full adoption and implementation of the IAEA additional protocol. This, more than anything, should be the desired outcome of the "Qom declaration".

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How to Press the Advantage With Iran

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Flynt Leverett, Hillary Mann Leverett - Sep. 29 (Opinion) - Instead of relying on sanctions, the Obama administration should seek a strategic realignment with Iran, as President Nixon did with China.

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Tehran's worst fear is a sustained and well-funded human rights campaign.

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Anne Applebaum - Sep. 29 (Opinion) - Very few security experts point out that there is another option. What do Iran's rulers truly fear, after all? I'll wager it's not sanctions, and it might not be a bombing raid. An economic boycott can be circumvented, after all, with the help of Venezuela or maybe the Russian mafia, and an attack on Iranian soil might help the regime once again consolidate power. By contrast, a sustained and well-funded human rights campaign must be a truly terrifying prospect. What if we therefore told the Iranian regime that its insistence on pursuing nuclear weapons leaves us with no choice other than to increase funding for dissident exile groups, to smuggle money into the country, to bombard the airwaves with anti-regime television programming, and above all to publicize widely the myriad crimes of the Islamic Republic of Iran?

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Iran tests the world’s collective will

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Gideon Rachman - Sep. 29 (Opinion) - Barack Obama normally likes to talk about hope. Last week at the United Nations he had the audacity to fear. The US president conjured up a vision of a dystopian world: “Extremists sowing terror ... Protracted conflicts that grind on and on. Genocide and mass atrocities. More and more nations with nuclear weapons. Melting ice caps and ravaged populations.” That is our collective future, according to Mr Obama, unless the world’s leaders co-operate to find “global solutions to global problems”.

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Does Tehran have a Plan C?

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Richard Dalton - Sep. 28 (Opinion) - In diplomatic negotiations, as in other contests, knowing more of your opponent's plans will help, but you still have to conduct the campaign. The revelation of a second enrichment plant in Iran will change some of the tactics of the six-nation group – the US, Russia, Germany, France, China and Britain – but their strategic goals remain difficult to achieve

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Iran’s intentions

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Dawn - Sep. 28 (Editorial) - IRAN’S disclosure about its upcoming uranium enrichment facility has expectedly upset the US and its western allies. As it is the two sides have been trading charges and counter-charges since 2003 when Iran’s nuclear programme came to light.

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YouTube - Iran Tests Long-Range Missiles

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

CBS News - By Elizabeth Palmer - Sep. 28 (Interview) - In an act of defiance, Iran tested long and short-range missiles, ignoring pressure from the U.S., Elizabeth Palmer reports. Former State Dept. Spokesperson James P. Rubin discussed Iran's stance.

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Israel has Iran in its sights

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Micah Zenko - Aug. 30 (Opinion) - Iran has until late September to respond to the latest international proposal aimed at stopping the Islamic Republic from developing a nuclear weapon. Under the proposal, Iran would suspend its uranium enrichment program in exchange for a U.N. Security Council commitment to forgo a fourth round of economic and diplomatic sanctions.

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Tumult in Iran Raises Questions About Negotiating Over Nuclear Efforts

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - Aug. 27 (Editorial) - THE PROTESTERS have been routed from the streets of Tehran, but the political turmoil in Iran continues unabated behind the scenes. The authority of both the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is being overtly challenged by religious and secular elites. Given the internal tumult and uncertainty, it looks increasingly doubtful that the regime will respond meaningfully to the Obama administration's deadline of late September to discuss curtailing its nuclear program or risk what Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has called "crippling sanctions."

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Iran elections: Mousavi speaks to Al Jazeera

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Aljazeera - By Teymoor Nabili - Jun. 12 (Interview) - Mir Hossein Mousavi, the leading reformist candidate in Iran's presidential election, speaks to Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview.

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Netanyahu to Obama: Stop Iran—Or I Will

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Atlantic Monthly - By Jeffrey Goldberg - Apr. 01 (Interview) - In an interview conducted shortly before he was sworn in today as prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu laid down a challenge for Barack Obama. The American president, he said, must stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons—and quickly—or an imperiled Israel may be forced to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities itself.

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Don't Let the Mullahs Run Out the Clock

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Slate - By Christopher Hitchens - Feb. 17 (Opinion) - The idea of direct and transparent negotiations with the Iranians is not wrong in principle, but it depends on which Iranians are the actual or potential partners. The president can address the Iranian people directly if he chooses, from the podium of the United Nations (as I urged Bush to do). He can tell them that just as the United States can and will help them to build civilian nuclear reactors, so it will not stand still and watch all Iran's agreements with international bodies be flagrantly broken.

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Mohamed ElBaradei: Obama Right on Iran

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Lally Weymouth - Feb. 01 (Interview) - As director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), did Mohamed ElBaradei soft-pedal Iran's nuclear ambitions to ensure that the Bush administration wouldn't attack that country? That's what many in the former administration, as well as nonproliferation experts of various political backgrounds, assert. Last week, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, ElBaradei sat down with Newsweek-Washington Post's Lally Weymouth to defend his record. Excerpts:

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