News of the release of AQ Khan from house arrest may have been premature.
Days after the Foreign Ministry “called”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/world/asia/07khan.html the Khan saga a “closed chapter,” _Dawn_ (of Karachi) “reports”:http://www.dawn.com/2009/02/09/top2.htm that the Pakistani government is weighing an appeal of his release.
The government appears to be backing out of an ill-considered deal with Khan, whose “terms”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/08/AR2009020801964.html have now reached the papers:
Under an agreement reached among Khan’s lawyers, the judge who ordered him released and the government, officials said, the Pakistani Interior Ministry will limit and monitor Khan’s telephone calls, visitors and activities. The ministry will also prohibit his travel outside the country.
Until now, these terms were a “secret”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/world/asia/07khan.html, which allowed Khan to step before the news cameras to claim total vindication.
It’s hard to know what the good folks in Islamabad were thinking. Just the other week, President Zardari was “openly hitting up the U.S. for a new aid package”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/27/AR2009012702675.html. Fine timing…
Perhaps a reason to be a little more hopeful…”according to AFP,”:http://www.spacewar.com/2006/090207204944.k14vpd5z.html Bruce Bueno de Mesquita has a “gaming and computer model” which predicts that
bq. By the start of next year, Iran will stabilize its nuclear program at a point where it makes enough weapons-grade fuel to build national pride by showing it can, but not enough to actually produce a bomb…
It also predicts that “the power of [Iranian] president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will quickly fade.”
I remember reading some of Bueno de Mesquita’s stuff when I was in grad school. All I recall is that it was interesting, but dense.
From the Vice President’s “speech at the annual Munich Security Conference”:http://www.securityconference.de/konferenzen/rede.php?menu_2009=&menu_konferenzen=&sprache=en&id=238:
We will continue to develop missile defenses to counter a growing Iranian capability, provided the technology is proven to work and cost effective.
We will do so in consultation with our NATO allies and Russia.
Nothing really new here, except possibly one thing. I’m probably reading too much into this: it appeared in a speech given in Munich, in a section of the speech concerning NATO. But still, did you notice? Joe Biden’s brief discussion of missile defense made no mention whatsoever of North Korea.
The “plot”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1837/psi-part-deux-red-sea-regatta thickens. According to “various”:http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/cyprus-ship-violates-un-sanctions-on-iran-cypriot-official/2009/02/08/1233423572271.html “reports”:http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gh2n81Y5aFLUr13PtHzTeJK71luA, the _Monchegorsk,_ the vessel carrying unspecified weapons from Iran, now sitting in the Cypriot port of Limassol, is–as its name suggests–Russian-owned.
This is surely old news to readers more attentive than Yours Truly, but of interest because it raises the (usual) questions about the interest and ability of national authorities to enforce UNSC sanctions resolutions against Iran. According to the “Cyprus Mirror”:http://www.financialmirror.com/News/Cyprus_and_World_News/13865,
According to diplomatic sources, Cyprus requests from the UN Sanctions Committee to assess whether the findings of the inspections lie within the provisions of the Security Council Resolutions on Iran (1696/2006, 1737/2006,1747/2007 and 1803/2008), and seeks its recommendations on how to proceed with the issue.
Without taking the trouble to re-read all of these, I’m pretty sure we can narrow it down to “1747”:http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Focus/IaeaIran/unsc_res1747-2007.pdf, which
5. Decides that Iran shall not supply, sell or transfer directly or indirectly from its territory or by its nationals or using its flag vessels or aircraft any arms or related materiel, and that all States shall prohibit the procurement of such items from Iran by their nationals, or using their flag vessels or aircraft, and whether or not originating in the territory of Iran;
I haven’t seen any mention of the nationality of the crew. But you get the point. Hey, have you heard the one about a Russian merchant vessel carrying arms from Iran to Gaza in the middle of a war with Israel?
Hmm… maybe not so funny.
Clif Burns calls it the “hot boat-ato”:http://www.exportlawblog.com/archives/457. That _is_ funny, unless you happen to be the Cypriot authorities.
On an unrelated note, the arms-laden Ukrainian vessel “MV Faina”:http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/1010/42/374314.htm has been ransomed from Somali pirates. Finally.
Here’s your “musical bonus”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KdHuZXWxGo&feature=related. Enjoy.
The AP reports that representatives of ten Western countries have just spent “two days in Copenhagen”:http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/02/05/europe/EU-Mideast-Arms-Smuggling.php to discuss “an international naval force to stem the flow of smuggled arms to Gaza.”
Experts from the U.S., Canada and eight European countries met in Copenhagen to discuss ways to stop arms smuggling to the Hamas-controlled territory. No decision was taken but an international naval force was one of the options on the table, said Michael Zilmer-Johns, a senior diplomat at the Danish Foreign Ministry.
“This is one of the tools that might be considered,” he told reporters after the meeting ended. “There’s a problem and there’s a need to solve it.”
Israel and the European Union sent observers to the workshop, while Egypt declined an invitation. Organizers gave no reason.
This comes on the heels of an attempt by the U.S. Navy to detain a Cypriot-flagged ship sailing from Iran in the Red Sea. “Per Reuters”:http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL4307569:
The Cyprus-flagged Monchegorsk has been docked off the Mediterranean island for almost a week as authorities check its cargo. The United States, which earlier boarded the ship in the Red Sea, said its navy found weapons on board which it could not confiscate for legal reasons.
Without the happenstance of the vessel steaming past the shores of Cyprus while flying its flag, it seems there would have been little ground for further action. According to “David Eshel at AvWeek’s Ares blog”:http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&newspaperUserId=27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckPostId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3a768e59ff-db7f-4090-9e55-d59deae27195&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest, the ship had set out under other colors entirely:
According to unofficial intelligence reports, the _Iran Shahed_ set out from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas Dec. 29, the second day of the Gaza conflict, changing its identity several times until hoisting a Cypriot flag.
[snip]
On Thursday afternoon, though, as the ship passed 100 km. off the coast of the Cyprus port of Limassol, it was stopped by the Cypriot Navy, which was legally allowed to intercept it since it was flying a Cypriot flag. Cyprus’s decision to intercept the ship, officials said, was made after the United States and several European countries applied pressure on the government in Nicosia. The officials said that the ship was believed to be carrying a number of shipping containers packed with weaponry.
It sounds like dumb luck and fast thinking won the day. Is that the plan for the future?
The Copenhagen meeting seems to represent partial fulfillment of the mid-January “U.S.-Israel MOU whose text popped up in _Ha’aretz_”:http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1056175.html. The bit in question:
2. The United States will work with regional and NATO partners to address the problem of the supply of arms and related materiel and weapons transfers and shipments to Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza, including through the Mediterranean, Gulf of Aden, Red Sea and eastern Africa, through improvements in existing arrangements or the launching of new initiatives to increase the effectiveness of those arrangements as they relate to the prevention of weapons smuggling to Gaza. Among the tools that will be pursued are:
* Enhanced U.S. security and intelligence cooperation with regional governments on actions to prevent weapons and explosives flows to Gaza that originate in or transit their territories; including through the involvement of relevant components of the U.S. Government, such as U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command, U.S. Africa Command, and U.S. Special Operations Command.
* Enhanced intelligence fusion with key international and coalition naval forces and other appropriate entities to address weapons supply to Gaza;
* Enhancement of the existing international sanctions and enforcement mechanisms against provision of material support to Hamas and other terrorist organizations, including through an international response to those states, such as Iran, who are determined to be sources of weapons and explosives supply to Gaza.
Now, you might be asking, why does all this sound so familiar? Because it’s “PSI, Part Deux”:http://www.state.gov/t/isn/c10390.htm.
That endeavor, you might recall, also came on the heels of the catch-and-release of a maritime arms shipment, in this case “North Korea’s _So San_”:http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/scudraid/.
A couple of semi-deep thoughts present themselves:
First, in the right (wrong?) geographic and political setting, mundane artillery rockets turn out to be true strategic weapons, the stuff of serious international concern even if they don’t quality as “WMD.”
Second, the failure to create a strong legal architecture for interdiction is still being felt. The entire idea of PSI was to get something (by way of cooperation) for nothing (by way of binding commitments). This false start may explain, in part, why UNSCR 1540 hasn’t really gotten off the ground, as “Aaron Arnold”:http://www.wmdinsights.com/I26/I26_G4_UNSCR1540_1.htm and “Elizabeth Turpen”:http://www.wmdinsights.com/I26/I26_G5_UNSCR1540_2.htm discussed back in August.
It’s early yet, but let’s hope it works out better this time around.
_(Bonus points if you recognized the origins of the phrase “Red Sea Regatta”:http://books.google.com/books?id=mA6R4gJ9YUUC&pg=PA139&lpg=PA139&dq=red+sea+regatta&source=bl&ots=VjwyAfObr4&sig=04mYHqqoP7St5vLBr-D_u92agYI&hl=en&ei=7r-LSbijJtW5twehnNWcCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA139,M1.)_
Update: Here’s a “musical bonus that seems fitting”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFkUS1sSoPA.
Generally, I’m not much for metaphors. But “this CSIS report”:http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/080305-murdock-nuclearmission.pdf reminded me of the saying contained in the title of this post, though perhaps “writing checks one’s ass _won’t_ cash” would be a bit more on the mark.
Specifically, I’m talking about the argument that Bush I officials should never have acknowledged the hollowness of veiled U.S. threats before the 1991 Persian Gulf War to use nuclear weapons in response to Iraqi chemical weapons use. The report states:
bq. Whatever the utility of this U.S. nuclear threat…, it was undermined by the memoirs of the senior policymakers involved. President George H.W. Bush and General Brent Scowcroft wrote in their memoirs that they had no intention of using nuclear weapons during that operation. JCS chairman Colin Powell, when asked by Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney about nuclear options, stated: “Let’s not even think about nukes. You know we’re not going to let the genie lose.” It’s hard to make credible threats when you tell the world (including future adversaries) that you were bluffing the last time you made one.
I think the real problem is that the threats weren’t credible, not that people later acknowledged this lack of credibility.
This same attitude toward the truth also reminded me of one of the best exchanges from “Jackie Brown”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119396/:
Ordell Robbie: Goddamn…You told them all that?
Jackie Brown: Its true, ain’t it?
Ordell Robbie: What the fuck that got to do with anything?
Rosatom’s Sergei Kiriyenko has “told the Russian media”:http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-02-05-voa37.cfm that the Bushehr reactor will start up in 2009.
This echoes a “statement made a few weeks ago”:http://english.rednet.cn/c/2009/01/15/1690587.htm by Iran’s ambassador to Russia.
Kiriyenko adds that he’ll visit Bushehr at some point this month.
As you can see in “this post,”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1833/clocking-in Joshua Pollack has made his debut. His first substantive post is “here”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1834/caveat-linker, so take a look. I hope he will be blogging here for the foreseeable future, though Anya left some big shoes to fill.
I will just have Josh know that I had at least one post that was not about Iran or music. Maybe even two.
The “PONI blog”:http://forums.csis.org/poni/ “points out”:http://forums.csis.org/poni/?p=51 a “story by Tim Reid in the Times of London”:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5654836.ece alleging that the Obama administration is seeking a bilateral treaty with Russia to cut nuclear arsenals to 1,000 warheads per side.
Whoa up there.
British journalism is sort of like British dentistry; the standards aren’t exactly the same as in America, where things aren’t necessarily ideal to start with.
Reid’s entire story hangs on the following anonymous quote:
“We are going to re-engage Russia in a more traditional, legally binding arms reduction process,” an official from the Administration said. “We are prepared to engage in a broader dialogue with the Russians over issues of concern to them. Nobody would be surprised if the number reduced to the 1,000 mark for the post-Start treaty.”
(He couldn’t even find a _senior_ administration official?)
In America, we usually like our anonymous sources in pairs. And we often like to see them called “senior administration officials,” or to come with some other assurance from the reporter that they possibly might know whereof they speak.
So what have we really got? A single, unnamed person who says that “no one would be surprised” if future talks with the Russians — long rumored to have minds of their own, but that’s mere speculation — were someday to reach a particular result. Which is not even stated to be the Administration’s actual objective. After all, it takes time to figure these things out. Key personnel have to be in place, and so forth. And the Administration is all of two weeks old.
OK, this is a lot of keystrokes to waste on a question that’s probably far less weighty than it’s made out to be. Long story short, don’t believe everything you see on the Internets.
It must be getting a little lonely here since “Anya checked out”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1811/do-svidaniya. It’s just Paul, alone with his “deep”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1813/deep-iran-thought Iran “thoughts”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1815/deeper-iran-thought and his taste in music.
Well, no longer. Paul has scratched up some more company. For those of you who don’t know me, I “guest-blogged at ArmsControlWonk.com”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2010/welcome-josh-pollack for “about a week back in August”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/author/joshua_pollack/.
There’s no particular time limit here. (Right, Paul?) We’ll just see how it goes.
