Archive for the 'Nuclear' Category

Via Instapundit:

Despite criticism from the U.S. and an appeal on Friday by Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s lawyers, it appears the former head of the Yukos Oil Company will spend as much time in the Gulag as many Stalin-era political prisoners. His sentence of 13.5 years for fraud means that he will not be a free man until 2017, if then. The presiding judge in the case said that correcting Khodorkovsky would only be possible if he was isolated from society.

In fact, however, the Putin regime is not concerned about correcting Khodorkovsky. The arrest and sentencing of Khodorkovsky made it possible to complete the transformation of Russia into a controlled society with a permanent political leadership and a president for life (Putin). It is for this reason that Putin not only hates Khodorkovsky but, to a degree, fears him. Putin cannot abide the implicit challenge that Khodorkovsky at liberty would represent.

When the Soviet Union fell, almost all property in Russia was in the hands of the state. This meant that it was controlled by government bureaucrats. At the same time, only criminal elements and those who had benefited from the connections to the authorities during the perestroika period and were able to start their own businesses had money to buy it. Khodorkovsky, a young communist league (komsomol) activist, was in the latter category. Like other nascent “capitalists,” Khodorkovsky benefited from corrupt ties to government officials to amass phenomenal wealth. Khodorkovsky acquired the Yukos Oil Company under the “loans for shares” program in which the government mortgaged the crown jewels of Russian industry in return for loans that it was clear would not be repaid. Khodorkovsky’s bank, Menatep, was put in charge of the auction of Yukos which controlled 2 per cent of the world’s oil reserves. It acted to eliminate all competitive bidding and Khodorkovsky purchased the company for $159 million, $9 million above the starting price. In 2003, the value of Yukos was estimated at $15 billion.

Unlike the other Russian oligarchs, who amassed wealth in similar ways, however, Khodorkovsky realized that the Russian rules of gangster capitalism had to change if Russia was ever to be a civilized country and he took steps to transform Yukos into a modern Western company. He declared his income and introduced Western standards of accounting and governance. He also began to exercise the rights of a Western businessman, including the right to finance opposition political parties. It was this that set him on a collision course with Putin.

When Putin took power as Yeltsin’s hand picked successor, his first priority was to protect the lives and property of the members of the corrupt Yeltsin oligarchy. Putin, however, changed the rules of the game in one important respect. He was ready to allow the oligarchs to enjoy the fruits of their misdeeds as long as they did not intervene in politics. Putin was to rule alone, without opposition, and the wealth acquired through dishonest means during the Yeltsin era was to be placed exclusively at the disposal of the Putin regime.

From Putin’s perspective, there was never to be any such thing as Russian democracy.  It isn’t just that it’s now dead.  It was stillborn from the beginning.  Our ratification of the New START treaty reflects a stolid and dense understanding of world affairs.

It bought us nothing.  Russia hasn’t exactly cooperated with respect to inspections anyway, so that argument fails.  It restricts the number of nuclear weapons for both Russia and the U.S., but Russia is bankrupt and wouldn’t pursue such an expansionist program anyway.  On the other hand, it does indeed restrict our ability and freedom to develop defensive weapons, and it makes irrelevant the DoD recommendations to pursue the reliable replacement warhead program (and even continue to develop nuclear weapons technology).  Thus is takes a situation of superiority for the U.S. and makes it parity.

Russia fought our attempts to secure the Manas air base for logistics to Afghanistan, and they are even now attempting to reduce our influence in Tajikistan.  They want the U.S. to sell them weapons, but demand that we refrain from aiding Georgia in her fight against Russian hegemony while they also sell weapons to Syria, that apparatchik of Iran.

Returning to New START, Russia is no friend or ally of the U.S.  Mr. Obama read a biography of Ronald Reagan while vacationing in Hawaii.  Under START when Reagan negotiated the treaty, even Time noted that:

Under Reagan’s ceilings, the U.S. would have to make considerably less of an adjustment in its strategic forces than would the Soviet Union. That feature of the proposal will almost certainly prompt the Soviets to charge that it is unfair and one-sided. No doubt some American arms-control advocates will agree, accusing the Administration of making the Kremlin an offer it cannot possibly accept—a deceptively equal-looking, deliberately nonnegotiable proposal that is part of what some suspect is the hardliners’ secret agenda of sabotaging disarmament so that the U.S. can get on with the business of rearmament.

But accept it they did because of SDI.  And thus Reagan negotiated the treaty from a position of strength to preserve superiority, not ensure parity.  We all knew Ronald Reagan.  He was our beloved President, and under his watch I didn’t have to worry with such pedestrian issues as what the New START contains and why a lame duck Congress would ratify such a thing.

Yes, we all knew Ronald Reagan, and Mr. Obama, you sir are no Ronald Reagan.

In case you weren’t watching, there has been a covert cyberwar going on against Iran’s nuclear program.

The mission: Infiltrate the highly advanced, securely guarded enemy headquarters where scientists in the clutches of an evil master are secretly building a weapon that can destroy the world. Then render that weapon harmless and escape undetected.

But in the 21st century, Bond doesn’t get the call. Instead, the job is handled by a suave and very sophisticated secret computer worm, a jumble of code called Stuxnet, which in the last year has not only crippled Iran’s nuclear program but has caused a major rethinking of computer security around the globe.

Intelligence agencies, computer security companies and the nuclear industry have been trying to analyze the worm since it was discovered in June by a Belarus-based company that was doing business in Iran. And what they’ve all found, says Sean McGurk, the Homeland Security Department’s acting director of national cyber security and communications integration, is a “game changer.”

The construction of the worm was so advanced, it was “like the arrival of an F-35 into a World War I battlefield,” says Ralph Langner, the computer expert who was the first to sound the alarm about Stuxnet. Others have called it the first “weaponized” computer virus.

Simply put, Stuxnet is an incredibly advanced, undetectable computer worm that took years to construct and was designed to jump from computer to computer until it found the specific, protected control system that it aimed to destroy: Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.

The target was seemingly impenetrable; for security reasons, it lay several stories underground and was not connected to the World Wide Web. And that meant Stuxnet had to act as sort of a computer cruise missile: As it made its passage through a set of unconnected computers, it had to grow and adapt to security measures and other changes until it reached one that could bring it into the nuclear facility.

When it ultimately found its target, it would have to secretly manipulate it until it was so compromised it ceased normal functions.

And finally, after the job was done, the worm would have to destroy itself without leaving a trace.

That is what we are learning happened at Iran’s nuclear facilities — both at Natanz, which houses the centrifuge arrays used for processing uranium into nuclear fuel, and, to a lesser extent, at Bushehr, Iran’s nuclear power plant.

At Natanz, for almost 17 months, Stuxnet quietly worked its way into the system and targeted a specific component — the frequency converters made by the German equipment manufacturer Siemens that regulated the speed of the spinning centrifuges used to create nuclear fuel. The worm then took control of the speed at which the centrifuges spun, making them turn so fast in a quick burst that they would be damaged but not destroyed. And at the same time, the worm masked that change in speed from being discovered at the centrifuges’ control panel.

Read the entire report for a very interesting analysis of what apparently is the first real instance of effective cyberwar.  It occurred probably due to cooperation between intelligence agencies, lead more than likely by the Mossad.  This set the program back months or even years.

There is more.  Iranian nuclear physicists and engineers are dying at an alarming rate.

Earlier today, Majid Shahriari, a professor in nuclear physics at Martyr Beheshti University, was assassinated in Tehran. Fereydoun Abbasi Davani, professor in nuclear physics at Iran’s National Defense University, was severely wounded in a separate attack. Motorcyclists either stuck explosives to the physicists’ cars as they headed to work, or threw explosives into the cars. These were just the latest attacks — on January 10, 2010, Masoud Ali-Mohammadi, another Iranian physicist, was killed by a remote-controlled bomb as he left his home.

Iran has accused the CIA and Mossad of masterminding the attacks.  Ryan, from Dallas, TX, dispatches that concern. “I’m not worried about the CIA being to blame, the US government is not competent enough to pull an operation this clean off. A US attempt would have resulted in a lunch worth of mashed potatoes being placed on the wrong cars windshield and the subsequent explosion of a bicyclist.”

Unfortunately, Ryan is probably right.  Again, it is likely the Mossad that is responsible.  But these small efforts must end at some point (or be greatly expanded), since all they do will is temporarily cause the Iranian program to cease and desist.  These efforts won’t end the program.

Switching subjects just for a moment, I had originally judged the most recent Wikileaks data dump to be irrelevant.  The original two were, and told us things that we (I) already knew.  Most Milbloggers knew 95% of at least the broad strokes of the information contained in the data dump on Iraq and Afghanistan.  But this most recent data dump is essentially different.  It pertains to documents that embarrass the administration’s diplomatic efforts and show them to be fundamentally unsound and ineffective.

I predicted this two years ago.

… the State Department will begin the administration will high hopes, excitement and grand ambitions for the role of diplomacy, negotiations and multi-lateral talks. By the end of the administration, a general malaise and confusion will have descended upon the entire State Department, and yet there will still be sparse and shallow understanding of why negotiations have so miserably failed to prevent or ameliorate the various calamities for which they were targeted.

And concerning the failure of diplomatic efforts, we see now that Saudi Arabia has been begging the U.S. for military action against Iran.  It looks as it the folks who would be in a better position that us to understand the Persian mind don’t place much reliance on our “negotiating” and diplomatic efforts to dissuade Iran from their pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Total war with Iran?  No.  That’s what I have wanted to avoid.  Too messy, and unnecessary when it can be done differently.  Covert war with Iran?  Yes, and I have been begging for this for some four years now.  What the Mossad is doing is good, but we need more, and we need the active participation of the CIA.  We need an insurgency within Iran, support for the protesting students, assassination of military commanders within the Quds force, disruption of their infrastructure, cyber attacks, more killing of Iranians inside of Iraq, obvious threats against the Iranian regime by the U.S., and an end to support for Iranian-backed politicians within Iraq.  This is only a start.

In short, we need comprehensive covert war.  I will not rest until I have my war.

Mr. Obama has stated that we wants the lame duck Congress to ratify the START treaty.  A commenter at NRO’s Corner observes:

The Russian Duma’s Foreign Affairs Committee just today revoked its previous ratification of START, citing amendments made by our Senate stipulating that the treaty does not cover missile defense systems or ballistic missiles with conventional warheads.

Hopefully this will increase the likelihood that the treaty is not ratified, but regardless, it shows how unacceptably sweeping, burdensome, and one-sided the Russians intend and expect it to be on our systems.

Then again, given the horrible panic that besets this administration, it’s entirely possible that this lame duck Congress will undo the stipulations they have placed on the treaty.  Frank Gaffney weighs in with his own views of START.  John Bolton also has salient points.  Suffice it to say that the case is clear and simple.  Nuclear weapons have contributed more to the safety and health of the public and general peace among nations than anything in the second half of the twentieth century.  Without them, hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of people would have died in wars of all types.

But now Secretary Gates has hopped on the band wagon.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters Gates joined Obama and Clinton in urging the Senate to approve the treaty during the lame-duck session, but denied that the appeal was being made “because of some political calculus that it may stand a better chance of passage during that time.”

“I think we’re advancing it at this time and pushing for ratification because we need this and we need it sooner than later,” he added.

No political calculus.  Right.  The most damning part of Gates’ participation in this defense debacle is that his counsel directly and profoundly contradicts the counsel of his own Department of Defense when applying the best military analysis to the circumstances.

This is a sad sellout.  I am very disappointed in Secretary Gates, and I simply cannot understand why he would be taking such a dangerous position.  I would resign before jumping in bed with START.  But I am not Secretary of Defense, and Mr. Gates will answer for his own actions.  To whom much is given, much is required (Luke 12:48).

Prior:

An Aging Nuclear Weapons Stockpile

Sounding the Nuclear Alarm

Obama Reverses Nuclear Weapons Rhetoric

We previously noted that Obama campaign rhetoric on nuclear weapons relied on ending the global threat via negotiations rather than refurbishment and development.  In a reversal of that rhetoric, the administration is targeting nuclear refurbishment with new dollars.

President Obama is planning to increase spending on America’s nuclear weapons stockpile just days after pledging to try to rid the world of them.

In his budget to be announced on Monday, Mr Obama has allocated £4.3billion to  maintain the U.S. arsenal – £370million more than George Bush spent on nuclear weapons in his final year.

The Obama administration also plans to spend a further £3.1billion over the next five years on nuclear security.

The announcement comes despite the American President declaring nuclear weapons were the ‘greatest danger’ to U.S. people during in his State of the Union address on Wednesday.

And it flies in the face of Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to him in October for ‘his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples’.

The Nobel committee was attacked at the time for bestowing the accolade on a new president whose initiatives are yet to bear fruit – which included reducing the world stock of nuclear arms.

The budget is higher than that allocated by George Bush – who was seen by many as a warmongering president in the wake of the Iraq invasion in 2003 – during his premiership.

During his 70-minute State of the UNion speech on Wednesday, which marked his first year in office, Obama said: ‘I have embraced the vision of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan through a strategy that reverses the spread of these weapons, and seeks a world without them.’

This represents an important reversal of position regarding the nuclear weapons stockpile.  His supporters (who don’t realize – or admit – the half century of deterrence and peace that nuclear weapons have afforded) must surely feel betrayed, but before heaping scorn on him from the left or accolades from the right, it’s best to recall the state of nuclear weapons in the U.S.

As noted in National Security and Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century (DoD and DoE):

… quite unlike the United States, Russia maintains a fully functional nuclear weapons design, development, test and manufacturing infrastructure capable of producing significant quantities of nuclear warheads per year.  For a variety of reasons, Russia has explicitly placed increased emphasis on nuclear weapons in its national security policy and military doctrine, and has re-incorporated theater nuclear options into its military planning …

… the current path for sustaining the warhead stockpile—successive refurbishments of existing Cold War warheads designed with small margins of error—may be unsustainable in the future. Specifically, the directors of the nation’s nuclear weapons laboratories have expressed concern about the ability to ensure confidence in the reliability of the legacy stockpile over the long term, without nuclear testing.

Successive efforts at extending the service life of the current inventory of warheads will drive the warhead configurations further away from the original design baseline that was validated using underground nuclear test data. Repeated refurbishments will accrue technical changes that, over time, might inadvertently undermine reliability and performance. The skills, materials, processes, and technologies needed to refurbish and maintain these older warhead designs are also increasingly difficult to sustain or acquire.  Some of the materials employed in these older warheads are extremely hazardous.  Moreover, it is difficult to incorporate modern safety and security features into Cold War era weapon designs.

As a consequence, the stockpile stewardship program is expanding its range of component and material testing and analysis, and is likely to identify more areas of concern. However, without nuclear testing, at some time in the future the United States may be unable to confirm the effect of the accumulation of changes to tested warhead configurations. As the United States continues to observe a moratorium on underground nuclear testing, certification of the safety, surety, and reliability of the existing stockpile of weapons (with their narrow performance margins) will become increasingly difficult.  In the near-term, the United States has no choice but to continue to extend the life of these legacy warheads.

However, the Departments of Defense and Energy are pursuing an alternative to this strategy of indefinite life extension; namely, the gradual replacement of existing warheads with warheads of comparable capability that are less sensitive to manufacturing tolerances or to aging of materials. The generic concept is often referred to as the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW). The RRW concept promises other attractive benefits such as improved safety and security, production processes that are less complex, elimination of many hazardous materials in existing warheads, and production of less hazardous waste.  The directors of the nuclear weapons laboratories believe that modern scientific tools developed for the stockpile stewardship program, including advanced computer modeling and experimental facilities, will enable design and certification of the RRW without nuclear testing.

In addition to the technological problems associated with maintenance of older nuclear weapons, the Air Force and Navy have both treated nuclear weapons billets as second class occupations, and have allowed the doctrinal understanding (and availability of the fraction of nuclear weapons that are deployable) to atrophy over the last couple of decades.

Obama has spent approximately what Bush did on nuclear weapons refurbishment.  In order to ensure a viable nuclear deterrent into the 21st century, much more needs to be done.  The U.S. must restart the manufacture and design of a new generation of nuclear weapons.  Without this, the RRW program cannot go forward.  That will be the test of Obama’s vision and fortitude.  This allocation of money is just kicking the can down the road.  The left will want to heap scorn upon him, the right will want to praise him for his wise decision.  He deserves neither.

Russia gets to count U.S. missiles and warheads according to a recent agreement sponsored by the Obama administration.

Russia and the United States have tentatively agreed to a weapons inspection program that would allow Russians to visit nuclear sites in America to count missiles and warheads.

The plan, which Fox News has learned was agreed to in principle during negotiations, would constitute the most intrusive weapons inspection program the U.S. has ever accepted.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said publicly Tuesday that the two nations have made “considerable” progress toward reaching agreement on a new strategic arms treaty.

The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires in December and negotiators have been racing to reach agreement on a successor.

Clinton said the U.S. would be as transparent as possible.

“We want to ensure that every question that the Russian military or Russian government asks is answered,” she said, calling missile defense “another area for deep cooperation between our countries.”

While we’re at it, let’s go ahead and give them our miniaturized nuclear weapons technology from Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratories.  Let’s allow them access to Oak Ridge National Laboratory so that they can see how we cascade our enrichment of weapons grade material.  In fact, let’s just give them some of our weapons so that Russian scientists and engineers can study our material purity and weapons designs.

Talk about OPSEC (operational security) violations, this must be the mother of all offenses.  The Marines ban twitter, Facebook and MySpace because of just such issues, but Obama lets the Russians investigate and inspect the most significant deterrence to all out conventional war in the last half century.  Is there a problem with this picture?

Well, by now it’s old news that the first botched attempt at a North Korean nuclear weapon has retreated in our consciousness in the face of a new threat.  They have succeeded in developing a real weapon.  There has already been and will continue to be worldwide denunciations, but in the end, nothing will be done about it, at least, nothing that has any affect on the North Korean regime.

Now consider the Iranian regime and its recent claims in light of this example.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday rejected a Western proposal for it to “freeze” its nuclear work in return for no new sanctions and ruled out any talks with major powers on the issue.

The comments by the conservative president, who is seeking a second term in a June 12 election, are likely to further disappoint the U.S. administration of President Barack Obama, which is seeking to engage Iran diplomatically.

The United States, Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain said in April they would invite Iran to a meeting to try and find a diplomatic solution to the nuclear row …

“Our talks (with major powers) will only be in the framework of cooperation for managing global issues and nothing else. We have clearly announced this,” Ahmadinejad said.

“The nuclear issue is a finished issue for us,” he told a news conference.

One is tempted to ask South Korea how that sunshine diplomacy thing has worked out, but sniping and sarcasm aside, the example is valuable.  From the perspective of Benjamin Netanyahu, after having watched negotiations fail in bringing North Korea to its ideological knees for so long, and after having watch a botched attempt become the forerunner of a successful nuclear test, what option does Israel have except to prepare to defend itself with the governments of the world continuing to advocate the same approach that failed in the Far East?  Nothing will be done to turn Iran away from its pursuit of nuclear weapons, and so the clock is ticking for Israel.  We’ve heard this song before.

Rahm Emanuel’s ego is writing checks that our bank account can’t cash.

Thwarting Iran’s nuclear program is conditional on progress in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, according to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Israeli TV reports said Monday that Emanuel made the comments in a closed-door meeting the previous day with 300 major AIPAC donors.

Last month, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Israel that it risks losing Arab support for combating threats from Iran if it rejects peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

Clinton said Arab nations had conditioned helping Israel counter Iran on Jerusalem’s commitment to the peace process.

We’ve been through this before.  The Palestinians don’t want a state.  When they discuss “the occupation,” they mean the very existence of Israel.  Progress on “peace negotiations” is an impossible goal with one party seeking the destruction of the other.

So Israel is supposed to show progress, the Arab nations are supposed to pressure Iran, and Iran suddenly decides to relinquish its nuclear program?  This is their plan?  That’s it?  This, after recent news of the continuing obfuscation of issues surrounding the nuclear program?  This plan has no chance of succeeding.  Amir Taheri has outlined the most recent instances of Iranian hegemony, weaving together a tapestry of an ideology bent on domination.

For all who believe that the existence of Israeli nuclear weapons and the prospect of mutually assured destruction is a deterrent to Iranian nuclear ambitions, Norman Podhoretz slammed the door on that by explaining why, from a geographical standpoint, the situation in Israel has no analogue to any other region of the world.

… even Ahmadinejad’s predecessor as president and the current Speaker of the Assembly of Experts, the Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, known far and wide as a “moderate,” has declared that his country would not be deterred by the fear of retaliation: “If the day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in its possession . . . application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel, but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world.”

Quite literally, a first strike in Israel in or around Tel Aviv and several other major population centers would end Israel as we know it.  The Muslim world can withstand a strike from Israel if there is anything left with which to strike, because there are more Muslims and they live in a larger surface area – so we are told by the Iranian authorities.

Rahm Emanuel has no business claiming that he or the Arab states can accomplish anything with Iran, and the Israelis have no business listening to him.  There are other options such as pressing for regime change from within, but even the democracy programs within the State Department have fallen victim to disinterest.  Most Israelis support direct military action with or without the endorsement of the U.S.  This is good, because they are likely to go it alone, sooner or later.

Ms. Clinton recently weighed in on the awful prospects of a nuclear Taliban.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the U.S. is worried about the “unthinkable” in Pakistan – – that the Taliban and al-Qaeda could topple the government, giving them “the keys to the nuclear arsenal.”

Clinton told Fox that “we can’t even contemplate” the consequences if the Taliban were permitted to overrun nuclear- armed Pakistan because of the failure of the government “to beat them back.”

This thinking is directly contrary to that recommended by The Captain’s Journal in Is Pakistan the Next Failed State?

Somewhere in the recesses of the Pentagon, gaming should be occurring concerning use of U.S. military assets to ensure the security of the Pakistani nuclear ordnance, because if it becomes necessary to implement these plans, it will be no game.  But the continual degradation of logistics through Pakistan has led us to strongly recommend another route, free from influence by Russia.

From nuclear assets to logistics, to potential Taliban operations in Kashmir and certainly the affects to the campaign in Afghanistan, the failure of Pakistan will indeed dwarf the previous problems that we have seen in that region of the world.  Comprehensive planning should be underway to address the exigency of Pakistan as the next failed state.

Unthinkable?  We had better be thinking about it, and very extensively at that.  So in the face of the Taliban expansion towards the centers of power (e.g., Peshawar, Islamabad, Karachi), where is the Pakistan Army?

Five thousand square kilometres of Swat are now under Taliban control — de jure. Chitral (14,850 sq km), Dir (5,280 sq km), Shangla (1,586 sq km), Hangu (1,097 sq km), Lakki Marwat (3,164 sq km), Bannu (1,227 sq km), Tank (1,679 sq km), Khyber, Kurram, Bajaur, Mohmand, Orkzai, North Waziristan and South Waziristan are all under Taliban control — de facto. That’s a total of 56,103 square kilometres of Pakistan under Taliban control — de facto.

Six thousand square kilometres of Dera Ismail Khan are being contested. Also under ‘contested control’ are Karak (3,372 sq km), Kohat (2,545 sq km), Peshawar (2,257 sq km), Charsada (996 sq km) and Mardan (1,632 sq km). That’s a total of 16,802 square kilometres of Pakistan under ‘contested control’ — de facto. Seven thousand five hundred square kilometres of Kohistan are under ‘Taliban influence’. Additionally, Mansehra (4,579 sq km), Battagram (1,301 sq km), Swabi (1,543 sq km) and Nowshera (1,748 sq km) are all under ‘Taliban influence’. That’s a total of 16,663 square kilometres of Pakistan under ‘Taliban influence’ — de facto. All put together, 89,568 square kilometres of Pakistani territory is either under complete ‘Taliban control’, ‘contested control’ or ‘Taliban influenced’; that’s 11 per cent of Pakistan’s landmass.

Where is Pakistan army? To be fair, under our constitution law enforcement — and establishing the writ of the state — is the responsibility of our civil administration. Yes, under Article 245, the federal government can call in the army “in aid of civil power” but the overall strategy has to be devised by our politicians. Counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency are very specialised operations. Textbook counter-insurgency has three elements: Clear-Hold-Build (C-H-B). The army may be required to ‘clear’ insurgents from a particular area but every army operation creates a vacuum that has to be filled by a civil-political administration. After the ‘clearing’ of insurgents it has to be the politicians to ‘hold’ that area and then fulfil the social contract — dispensation of justice, municipal services etc — between the ruled and the rulers (classic counter-insurgency is DDD, disrupt, dismantle and defeat).

At least 11 per cent of Pakistan’s landmass has been ceded to the Taliban. Where is the Pakistan army? I Corps is in Mangla, II Corps is in Multan, IV Corps in Lahore, V Corps in Karachi, X Corps in Rawalpindi, XI Corps in Peshawar, XII Corps in Quetta, XXX Corps in Gujranwala and XXXI is in Bahawalpur, In effect, some 80 to 90 per cent of our military assets are deployed to counter the threat from India. The Pakistan army looks at the Indian army and sees its inventory of 6,384 tanks as a threat. The Pakistan army looks at the Indian air force and sees its inventory of 672 combat aircraft as a threat. The Pakistan army looks at the Indian army and notices that six out of 13 Indian corps are strike corps. The Pakistan army looks at the Indian army and finds that 15, 9, 16, 14, 11, 10 and 2 Corps are all pointing their guns at Pakistan. The Pakistan army looks at the Indian army and discovers that the 3rd Armoured Division, 4 RAPID Division and 2nd Armoured Brigade have been deployed to cut Pakistan into two halves. The Pakistan army looks at the Taliban and sees no Arjun Main Battle Tanks (MBT), no armoured fighting vehicles, no 155 mm Bofors howitzers, no Akash surface-to-air missiles, no BrahMos land attack cruise missiles, no Agni Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles, no Sukhoi Su-30 MKI air superiority strike fighters, no Jaguar attack aircraft, no MiG-27 ground-attack aircraft, no Shakti thermonuclear devices, no Shakti-II 12 kiloton fission devices and no heavy artillery.

Pakistan is on fire and our fire-fighters are on the Pakistan-India border …

That the Indian troops are on the Pakistan border because the Pakistan troops are on the Indian border doesn’t occur to the Pakistan Army.  But with this sad and dangerous Pakistani obsession with India, the U.S. must not rely on Pakistan for either logistical routes for Afghanistan or protection of its nuclear assets.

So in spite of Ms. Clinton saying that we can’t even contemplate the consequences of the Taliban taking control of Pakistani nuclear assets, somewhere in the bowels of the Pentagon, we had better be contemplating exactly this exigency.

Whether an expeditionary unit of Marines, Rangers, some combination, or whatever, insertion by air, Osprey V-22, Helicopters and fast-roping, the short term and long term security of the weapons grade fissile material in Pakistan warheads had better be front and center of some tactician’s planning.  We had better know where all of the nuclear assets are and have a plan to confiscate them.  As for this tactician or group of them, it had better dominate their day and night, control their thought processes, and govern their priorities.  We’d better have a plan.

The Obama administration is advancing a strategy of assurances of regime stability (versus regime change) and security guarantees as an incentive for jettisoning its steady but deliberate advances towards becoming a nuclear state.  Such an approach is founded upon the axiom that the Iranian Mullahs are seeking security and stability rather than regional or world hegemony.  But this is contrary to their stated views.

“We do not worship Iran.  We worship Allah.  For patriotism is another name for paganism.  I say let this land [Iran] burn.  I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world” (Khomeini, pg. 16, The Iranian Time Bomb).

So unhindered in their pursuit of nuclear weapons by either the past or the current administrations (since they both have bought into the “grand bargain” approach to Iran), the Iranian scientists and engineers under the thumb of the Mullahs have advanced their plans for nuclear weapons to the point that even the U.N. (IAEA) is now a bit surprised at their progress.

Iran has built up a stockpile of enough enriched uranium for one nuclear bomb, United Nations officials acknowledged on Thursday.

In a development that comes as the Obama administration is drawing up its policy on negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear programme, UN officials said Iran had produced more nuclear material than previously thought.

They said Iran had accumulated more than one tonne of low enriched uranium hexafluoride at a facility in Natanz.

If such a quantity were further enriched it could produce more than 20kg of fissile material – enough for a bomb.

“It appears that Iran has walked right up to the threshold of having enough low enriched uranium to provide enough raw material for a single bomb,” said Peter Zimmerman, a former chief scientist of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency

The new figures come in a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, released on Thursday. This revealed that Iran’s production of low enriched uranium had previously been underestimated.

When the agency carried out an annual stocktaking of Natanz in mid-November Iran had produced 839kg of low enriched uranium hexafluoride – more than 200kg more than previously thought. Tehran produced an additional 171kg by the end of January.

“It’s sure certain that if they didn’t have it [enough] when the IAEA took these measurements, they will have it in a matter of weeks,” Mr Zimmerman said.

Iran’s success in reaching such a “breakout capacity” – a stage that would allow it to produce enough fissile material for a bomb in a matter of months – crosses a “red line” that for years Israel has said it would not accept.

While the prose is more discriminating, the headline is completely, factually incorrect.  The Financial Times article is headlined “Iran Holds Enough Uranium for Bomb.”  The Telegraph headline reads about the same.  It’s important to understand what this does – and doesn’t – mean.

The process begins with Uranium ore, which is then milled into a concentrate called “yellowcake” (U3O8).  This is then converted to Uranium Hexafluoride gas (UF6) before enrichment.  Further chemical processing converts this to UO2, and this is apparently where the Iranians are in the process.  “Low enriched Uranium.”  This means on the order of 4-5% U-235, not the 90% or greater U-235 enrichment needed for nuclear weapons.  They still have work to do.

This realistic assessment doesn’t ameliorate the threat that Iran poses, but it does mean that there is still time to prevent a nuclear Iran.  Iran needs to enrich the Uranium to weapons grade, and to date there is no indication that they have done so.

But there is every indication that they intend to do so.  The question is whether the will exists to prevent the existence of a nuclear Iran.  A survey of the scene shows that Iran can now deploy UAVs (or drones), is still assisting the Taliban, and doesn’t want any part of the grand bargain.

The Obama administration is moving full-speed ahead to prepare for U.S.-Iran talks. The reaction from Iran, though, has not been so fawning.  In the wake of President Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric holding open the possibility of talks with the United States should Obama acquiesce to Tehran’s demands on its nuclear program, apologies, and abandonment of Israel, Jomhouri-ye Eslami editorialized that, with regard to such fundamental issues as talks with Washington, it was not Ahmadinejad’s decision to make. After all, in Iran, the president is about style and the Supreme Leader about substance. The newspaper, close to the intelligence ministry and security agencies, quoted the Supreme Leader’s speech at Yazd: “Relations with the U.S. have for the time being no benefit to the Iranian nation and most certainly on the day that relations with America are beneficial for the nation, I’ll be the first person to recognize it.”

It’s important to clarify what the most recent revelations from the IAEA mean.  It’s also important to clarify where the U.S. stands with respect to a nuclear Iran.  While the U.S. investigates its policy,  the advancement of Iran proceeds apace to become nuclear.

The New York Times has an analysis of U.S. rejection of aid and Iraq-flyover permission for Israel in a possible air raid against Iranian nuclear installations.  Most of this was previously known, but the real revelation concerns other U.S. attempts to undermine the Iranian nuclear program in lieu of a sign-off for Israeli operations.

The interviews also indicate that Mr. Bush was convinced by top administration officials, led by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, that any overt attack on Iran would probably prove ineffective, lead to the expulsion of international inspectors and drive Iran’s nuclear effort further out of view. Mr. Bush and his aides also discussed the possibility that an airstrike could ignite a broad Middle East war in which America’s 140,000 troops in Iraq would inevitably become involved.

Instead, Mr. Bush embraced more intensive covert operations actions aimed at Iran, the interviews show, having concluded that the sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies were failing to slow the uranium enrichment efforts …

The covert American program, started in early 2008, includes renewed American efforts to penetrate Iran’s nuclear supply chain abroad, along with new efforts, some of them experimental, to undermine electrical systems, computer systems and other networks on which Iran relies. It is aimed at delaying the day that Iran can produce the weapons-grade fuel and designs it needs to produce a workable nuclear weapon …

Late last year, international inspectors estimated that Iran had 3,800 centrifuges spinning, but American intelligence officials now estimate that the figure is 4,000 to 5,000, enough to produce about one weapon’s worth of uranium every eight months or so.

While declining to be specific, one American official dismissed the latest covert operations against Iran as “science experiments.” One senior intelligence official argued that as Mr. Bush prepared to leave office, the Iranians were already so close to achieving a weapons capacity that they were unlikely to be stopped …

There were two specific objectives: to slow progress at Natanz and other known and suspected nuclear facilities, and keep the pressure on a little-known Iranian professor named Mohsen Fakrizadeh, a scientist described in classified portions of American intelligence reports as deeply involved in an effort to design a nuclear warhead for Iran.

Past American-led efforts aimed at Natanz had yielded little result. Several years ago, foreign intelligence services tinkered with individual power units that Iran bought in Turkey to drive its centrifuges, the floor-to-ceiling silvery tubes that spin at the speed of sound, enriching uranium for use in power stations or, with additional enrichment, nuclear weapons.

A number of centrifuges blew up, prompting public declarations of sabotage by Iranian officials. An engineer in Switzerland, who worked with the Pakistani nuclear black-marketeer Abdul Qadeer Khan, had been “turned” by American intelligence officials and helped them slip faulty technology into parts bought by the Iranians.

What Mr. Bush authorized, and informed a narrow group of Congressional leaders about, was a far broader effort, aimed at the entire industrial infrastructure that supports the Iranian nuclear program. Some of the efforts focused on ways to destabilize the centrifuges. The details are closely held, for obvious reasons, by American officials. One official, however, said, “It was not until the last year that they got really imaginative about what one could do to screw up the system.”

Analysis & Commentary

We understand Gates’ concern over the fanning of existing fires in the Middle East by launching air operations against Iranian nuclear facilities.  However, expulsion of IAEA inspectors would be a meaningless loss, since they provide almost no useful or actionable information as it is.  Further, the presence of “inspectors” has no deleterious affect at all on the Iranian nuclear program.  Gates, for one who believes that Iran is hell bent on obtaining nuclear weapons, gives us no viable options to prevent such an outcome if inspectors are his main deterrence.

As for the attempts to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program, we agree with the assessment by one intelligence officer: these are just science experiments.  They aren’t serious implements of strategy.  Rather, they are a testimony to the juvenile belief that the current regime can be tricked, dealt with, bargained with, negotiated with, nuanced, lawyered and inspected out of being a danger to the balance of the world.  These technological tricks are temporary at the very best, and at the worst they may be a complete waste of time and effort.

There are those who believe we can live with a nuclear Iran.

ABC News’ Jonathan Karl Reports: In contrast to U.S. officials who have consistently called a nuclear Iran unthinkable, former CENTCOM commander John Abizaid told reporters Monday that he believes the United States could live with a nuclear Iran.

“There are ways to live with a nuclear Iran,” Abizaid said.  “I believe we have the power to deter Iran if they go nuclear” he said, just as we deterred the Soviet Union and China.  “Iran is not a suicidal nation.  Nuclear deterrence would work with Iran.”

We believe that Abizaid fundamentally misjudges the nature of the radical Mullahs who rule Iran.  But the regional rulers weren’t so naive as Abizaid (even in 2007).

Two years ago, the leaders of Saudi Arabia told international atomic regulators that they could foresee no need for the kingdom to develop nuclear power. Today, they are scrambling to hire atomic contractors, buy nuclear hardware and build support for a regional system of reactors.

So, too, Turkey is preparing for its first atomic plant. And Egypt has announced plans to build one on its Mediterranean coast. In all, roughly a dozen states in the region have recently turned to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna for help in starting their own nuclear programs. While interest in nuclear energy is rising globally, it is unusually strong in the Middle East.

“The rules have changed,” King Abdullah II of Jordan recently told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “Everybody’s going for nuclear programs.”

The Middle East states say they only want atomic power. Some probably do. But United States government and private analysts say they believe that the rush of activity is also intended to counter the threat of a nuclear Iran.

By nature, the underlying technologies of nuclear power can make electricity or, with more effort, warheads, as nations have demonstrated over the decades by turning ostensibly civilian programs into sources of bomb fuel. Iran’s uneasy neighbors, analysts say, may be positioning themselves to do the same.

“One danger of Iran going nuclear has always been that it might provoke others,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, an arms analysis group in London. “So when you see the development of nuclear power elsewhere in the region, it’s a cause for some concern.”

The people who are most intimate with the Persian threat are the very ones who want a deterrent.  In addition to the potential that Iran would use the weapon against its enemies, there is the corollary threat of the entire Middle East engulfed in a race for nuclear weapons.

The possibility of air assaults against Iranian nuclear facilities must be a viable and considered option.  But if the U.S. wishes to avoid this last resort, regime change in Iran is the penultimate target.  We have already discussed the budding insurgency in Western Iran, as well as the strong student rejection of the schemes of the radical Mullahs.  With the U.S. reluctant even to speak with authority to support democracy efforts within Iran, it’s as if official policy is forcing us towards military confrontation – or a nuclear Iran.