A flurry of media reports in the past week have sounded the alarm over purported advancements in Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons programme and Israel’s willingness to launch a first strike to prevent Iran obtaining a bomb. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak have raised the stakes in the full knowledge that the U.S. is less than three months from a presidential election.
Book review of “The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir”
In The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir, Seyed Hossein Mousavian gives us a rich history of Iran’s nuclear programme and describes his own attempts to achieve a “grand bargain” with the West. He offers a combination of text book and personal accounts but, more importantly, a political analysis of the behavior of all actors involved both past and present.
Backgrounder on P5 conference: Washington and the future
Arms control officials from the P5 (U.S., UK, Britain, China and France) meet in Washington from June 27-29, 2012 for a third round of discussions on meeting their commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In this background paper, Cormac Mc Garry examines progress at earlier conferences and makes recommendations for the future.