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.
Programmes
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.
Iran Update: Number 161
- Nations cling to talks
- Additional sanctions bear down on Iran
- Military tensions intensify
- U.S. leaders pay multiple visits to Israel to offer reassurance
BASIC Trident Commission Reports
The Commission published its final report on 1 July 2014. The report was also accompanied by a series of background briefings that were released on the same day.
Iran sanctions bill
The U.S. Congress is poised to consider an Iran sanctions bill this week that may shut down any transactions with the Iranian oil industry and tighten financial loopholes as part of tough international moves aimed at pressuring Tehran to curb its nuclear program.
Obama and Romney on U.S. Foreign Policy
Today, Barack Obama will speak about foreign policy at the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention, followed by Mitt Romney who will speak at the same convention tomorrow. Romney, who has been criticized in the press for his lack of foreign policy and national security experience, is then scheduled to travel abroad, in an attempt to strengthen his reputation on foreign issues. He will go to London to speak at the start of the Olympics—an opportunity to build on the transatlantic relationship—and then to Israel and Palestine to speak with representatives of both nations.
Trinity nuclear test anniversary – U.S. first to test, but will it be the last to fully support a ban?
Today is the 67th anniversary of the world’s first nuclear explosion test, known as “Trinity”, which used a plutonium core. It was unnecessary for the first use of a nuclear warhead, on Hiroshima three weeks later, as designers were so confident about that form of HEU ‘gun-type’ warhead.