There is, indeed, a place for it. Especially when it’s as funny as “this.”:http://tbogg.blogspot.com/2007/10/pantloading-of-america.html

The “entire _NYT_ profile”:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/world/middleeast/17elbaradei.html?ref=todayspaper of ElBaradei is pretty good, but one part is just outstanding.

The article talks about US efforts to keep ElBaradei from obtaining another term as IAEA DG. Apparently, he didn’t want the job until he heard that J Bolton was trying to oust him:

He said *he had been “99 percent decided” against running until he learned that John R. Bolton,* then Washington’s United Nations ambassador, *was determined to block him.*

Dr. ElBaradei recalled “a sense of revulsion” that such a personal decision should be made “by anybody else.”

*His wife said she had told him, “Mohamed, you run — tomorrow!”*

Strong work.

Excerpts from two _NYT_ interviews with ElBaradei can be found “here”:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/world/middleeast/elbaradei-aug.html?ref=middleeast and “here.”:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/world/middleeast/elbaradei-sep.html?ref=middleeast

Atrios has a “post”:http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_22_archive.html#76616096082440105 up which reminds me of a recent conversation I had with a colleague.

As someone who concentrated in IR theory in grad school, I retain an interest in Big Questions and appreciate efforts to come up with new Big Ideas on foreign policy/international relations.

That said, I wholeheartedly agree with Atrios’ sentiment:

Having spent the last few years reading all of the elaborate and wonderful grand theories and strategies by the “liberal hawks” used to justify their own thinking [about Iraq] and still suggest the dirty hippies were wrong even though they were right, I think I’ve finally come up with the *Dirty Fucking Hippie Unified Theory of Foreign Policy.*

*Don’t be so fucking stupid.*

Not long ago, Andreas Persbo “blogged about”:http://verificationthoughts.blogspot.com/2007/05/myanmar-has-nothing-or.html the recent “nuclear deal”:http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070515/wl_nm/russia_myanmar_nuclear_dc_1;_ylt=AlyWkcyvokLr4jm5Sze5P4atubgA concluded between Russia and Myanmar.

Rosatom “supplied details:”:http://www.rosatom.ru/en/news/4674_15.05.2007

The sides have agreed to cooperate on the establishment of a center for nuclear studies in the territory of Myanmar (the general contractor will be Atomstroyexport). *The center will comprise a 10MW light water reactor working on 20%-enriched uranium-235, an activation analysis laboratory, a medical isotope production laboratory, silicon doping system, nuclear waste treatment and burial facilities.*

[snip]

Russian universities are supposed to train 300–350 specialists for the center.

Andreas took issue with the “State Department’s claim”:http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2007/may/84950.htm that Myanmar lacks the necessary regulatory apparatus for the project. But what I found interesting about the DOS argument is that it seemed to express concern about Myanmar pursuing a nuclear power program – something that’s not involved in the deal with Russia.

Here’s what DOS spokesperson Tom Casey “said”:http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2007/may/84950.htm:

QUESTION: And you — you said that Myanmar, or rather, Burma has neither the regulatory framework nor the legal framework of the kind that you would like to see in such cases.

MR. CASEY: Yeah.

QUESTION: Could you put that in laymen’s terms?

MR. CASEY: Could I put it in laymen’s terms? Well, *they don’t have anything like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. They don’t have any standards for safety. They don’t have any oversight or management system for nuclear power. In short, we would be concerned about the possibility for accidents, for environmental damage or for proliferation simply by the possibility of fuel being diverted, stolen or otherwise removed simply because there are no accounting mechanisms or other kinds of security procedures. So this is something that Burma does not have any systems in place to be able to handle, and that certainly is cause for concern.*

QUESTION: So it’s not a good idea for the —

MR. CASEY: That would be the short answer, Sylvie. Yeah, it’s not a good idea.

QUESTION: So the Russians didn’t have a good idea by putting this agreement —

MR. CASEY: Again, I’m not familiar. I know they signed a memorandum of understanding. I’m not sure what the contents are of that or whether — how preliminary this is, but again, we have concerns about this. We wouldn’t want to see a project like this move forward until some of those concerns are addressed.

Presumably, these concerns would all apply to a research reactor, but I wonder if some talking points need updating.

Incidentally, Burma _has_ looked into nuclear power in the recent past. For example, I “wrote a few years ago”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_05/Burma.asp that

bq. a Burmese Atomic Energy Department employee’s presentation to a 2003 conference in Japan states that *“nuclear power introduction [is] desirable for [the] long term” and Rangoon [Yangon] “should consider small” 100-400 megawatt reactors, perhaps to be introduced around 2025.*

Go outside and play now.

ISIS has the “full text.”:http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iran/IAEAreport23May2007.pdf.

I’m not in much of a blogging mood, so check out my “favorite music review”:http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/15036-are-weapons of all time.

I can’t speak to its accuracy, but this is hilarious:

bq. …the hobnobbing and scenester privilege could be forgiven if A.R.E. Weapons had a shred of talent or originality, but at best, this record is Suicide resurrected as a novelty act; at worst it could pass for an extreme deodorant commercial with swearing.

“Disarmament Insight,”:http://www.disarmamentinsight.blogspot.com/ an outstanding new blog from UNIDIR and the Geneva Forum, has a “great post”:http://disarmamentinsight.blogspot.com/2007/05/cluster-munitions-do-not-adjust-your.html up which contains a pretty disturbing “video”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_jsyObTG8k about the impact of unexploded cluster munitions in southern Lebanon.

According to author John Borrie, the video, which was shown at the “February Oslo Conference,”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2007_04/ClusterTreaty.asp

bq. cut through acres of the usual conference room baloney of diplomats and politicians who have in many cases never even seen an unexploded submunition with their own eyes. It helped to give those present some clarity of purpose, which other multilateral meetings closed to the real world sometimes can lack.

Just FYI, Stephen Goose of HRW and Norwegian Ambassador Roald Naess discussed the cluster munitions issue during “an ACA event this past February.”:http://www.armscontrol.org/events/20070209_transcript_cluster.asp

Also check out “this piece”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2006_10/Cluster.asp from Wade about Israel’s use of cluster munitions in Lebanon.

Not sure what this means, but _AP_ is “reporting”:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070503/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_nuclear_arrest_10;_ylt=AgiWWVMbxAd1OYUUOTaQu29Sw60A that Hossein Mousavian, formerly the head of Iran’s delegation to the IAEA, was arrested.

Iran did not officially release any details about the specific charges against him. But the semiofficial Fars news agency — which is deemed close to the elite Revolutionary Guards — said Mousavian could face espionage charges.

“The probable charge of espionage activities may be raised against him,” the agency quoted an unidentified official as saying. “*Mousavian was arrested because of connections and exchange of information with foreign elements.”*

Incidentally, the Fars News Agency quoted Mousavian “earlier this year”:http://english.farsnews.com/printable.php?nn=8510160452 as warning against overly-belligerent negotiating tactics on the part of Tehran. According to FNA, he said

…both Iran and the 5+1 group should take proper care not to drive the situation too critical as it may result in an uncontrollable condition.

“Dispute, difference of views, debate and compromise are all typical of negotiations, but *both parties should make sure that the situation is still under control and that it is not growing uncontrollable.* This serves to be the Achilles’ heel for both Iran and the 5+1,” he underlined.

Stressing that the issue can be solved through negotiations, he reminded that both the former and the present teams of negotiators from the Islamic Republic pursued an identical goal but through different tactics.*

Maybe this sort of criticism helped to get him in trouble. I have no idea, though.

*Update:*

_AFP_ has “more.”:http://www.spacewar.com/2006/070502173959.2w8y6yg6.html

I haven’t found either the IRNA or FNA stories being quoted in the wire reports. But according to _AFP_, an “unnamed source” quoted by FNA said that

bq. “Moussavian had probably exchanged information with foreigners over nuclear issues and he could face espionage charges.”

*Later Update:*

The “_FT_”:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/b2992d6e-f8a1-11db-a940-000b5df10621,dwp_uuid=fc3334c0-2f7a-11da-8b51-00000e2511c8.html got a quote from Mohammad Atrianfar, “a prominent journalist close to Mr Mousavian,” who shed a bit more light on the charges against him:

“The unconfirmed charge is financial scandal, but there is strong speculation in political circles that it was somehow related to the nuclear issue,” Mr Atrianfar told the FT.

[snip]

Mr Mousavian has travelled regularly since losing in 2005 his post as chair of the foreign policy committee of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC).

“The move exerts pressure because [Mr] Mousavian was a link with some lobbies outside Iran,” Mr Atrianfar said. “This is to create a police atmosphere which is worrying.”

A Loyal Reader sent the following comment in response to “this post”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1409/nuclear-terrrorism about nuclear terrorism. I thought it worth highlighting, so here it is in full:

I’d say that if the potential for nuclear terrorism is to be taken seriously, then yes, it mainly adds urgency to a number of things we should already be doing urgently. At least in a rational world — I seem to recall that Rumsfeld and Rice both made very dismissive comments about the need to resource Nunn-Lugar programs early in the administration. Ghastly.

If there is an exception to the “merely adds urgency” rule of thumb, it probably isn’t detection, though. Anyone capable of building a nuclear device, or who knows what they are doing, is going to shield their material and/or device adequately, assuming it needs shielding in the first place to evade detection. Radiation detection could help with RDDs and the radionuclides that go into them, but the only thing that’s really going to help with a nuke is an x-ray, to spot the lead, tungsten, or DU box around the bomb, or perhaps the unshielded HEU. And you can’t have an x-ray machine going in the Holland Tunnel, I don’t think… Plus which, it’s a little late to catch the nuke at that point.

My own preferred candidate for a nuclear-terrorism inspired policy
decision is attribution R&D.

The last two paragraphs are in response to my claim that:

bq. I’ve always thought that, from a policy perspective, the risk of nuclear terrorism does not make much difference – we should do things like fissile material control, threat reduction, and counter-terrorism anyway. The exception may be for things like nuclear detection programs.

Happy effing Monday.

I plan to write more about this at some point, but I thought I would point out a statement that Ahmadinejad made about nuclear weapons during a 23 April interview on Spanish TV:

bq. In the political sense, too, those who look at the world logically can understand that the use of nuclear weapons is already a thing of the past. Today, in political relations, *nuclear weapons are not considered to be a privilege for those who have them. If nuclear weapons had any effects, any influence, they could save the Americans in Iraq or could have saved the former Soviet Union from disappearing.*

To be fair, what he had to say about terrorism struck me as pretty disingenuous:

[Correspondent] The last question Mr President. I come from a country wherein an international act of terrorism took place three years ago, under the name of Islam. I would like to know what you think about this kind of terrorism. Can you elaborate on Iran’s pledge to fight this type of international terrorism?

[Ahmadinezhad] Iran is a victim of terrorism. Terrorism has dealt us the heaviest blow. At this same building behind me, terrorists killed the prime minister and the elected president one day. They killed more than 70 officials of our country who were appointed by the people. Hundreds of our people have been killed in bombings in the streets. They set school busses on fire. We are a victim of terrorism.

We strongly reject terrorism from a religious point of view. Anyone who kills people is hated and isolated. Our religion is humane and respects all human beings, regardless of their belief, their nationality and the continent they come from. In our religion, people are respected. We are all obliged to preserve mankind’s dignity and honour. Therefore *we strongly condemn the [terrorist] actions of certain people. Of course you know that there are big powers behind such moves. You must know about the relationship between big powers and terrorist currents. Independent nations are victims of terrorism.*

Safe bet to say that this answer likely includes a different definition of terrorism than Iran’s critics use.

Needless to say, Ahmadinejad’s words about nukes might be taken a bit more seriously were it not for all his nonsense about Israel and bullshit about the Holocaust. But I have never understood why “one (ambiguous at best) quote”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1401/rafsanjani-and-nukes from Rafsanjani from 15+ years ago is taken as evidence that Iran is bent on pursuing nuclear weapons when Iranian officials have said numerous times that Tehran rejects nuclear arms.

Just a thought. Go outside and play.