The other day, Treasury and State announced that the U.S. has designated two Iranian entities affiliated with what the USG characterizes as a suspected chemical weapons program,

According to Treasury,

Shahid Meisami Group is an organization subordinate to SPND and has been responsible for numerous SPND projects, the cost of which totaled in the millions of U.S. dollars. These projects include testing and producing chemical agents and optimizing them for effectiveness and toxicity for use as incapacitation agents. The United States has longstanding concerns that Iran maintains an undeclared chemical weapons program…

Mehran Babri is the head of Shahid Meisami Group. Prior to his current position at Shahid Meisami Group, Babri worked at Iran’s Defense Chemical Research Lab.

According o State,

The United States is concerned about the regime’s true intent with regard to the testing and production of these so-called chemical incapacitation agents, which could be used either to further oppress Iranian citizens or for offensive purposes.

State’s CWC compliance report from earlier this year had this to say:

A bit old, but worth noting….this 2018 Treasury report has this to say about Pakistan:

Like China and Russia, Pakistan is a nuclear weapons state but there is no U.S. targeted financial sanctions program dedicated to Pakistan for the development and maintenance of its nuclear weapons program. Unlike China and Russia, however, Pakistan is not a party to the NPT and therefore is not recognized under international law as having the right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, to include the transfer or acquisition of nuclear technology. As a result, the Pakistani nuclear program has been marked with controversy since its inception, not just in its own right as a state-led program going against the grain of international norms, but also due to the outward proliferation tied to former members of the program in future years. Having to operate outside of regulated international channels has meant that Pakistan has largely had to acquire technology and know-how through covert means, and in select cases, those acting for on behalf of Pakistani government entities have sought to procure U.S.-origin goods and facilitate these illicit transactions by exploiting the U.S. financial system.

Conflict:

Well, sort of. This document, titled “General and Complete Disarmament: Report of the First Committee,” has a slew of links to documents, resolutions, and links to resolutions.

Here’s a random document...an organizational chart from (I think) 1969 of the National Photographic Interpretation Center.

This 1982 CIA memo to President Reagan is titled “Peace Groups and Leaders in INF Basing Countries.” Here’s the final paragraph of the Overview:

The November 1979 NSC memo cited in this volume of FRUS (about which I blogged yesterday) explains “Soviet variables in the power equation in Iran.”

I’ll confess that I hadn’t previously heard this one:

our demonstrated weakness in the present crisis not only has adverse effects on our allies in the region but also in Europe and East Asia. If we do nothing, the credibility of our nuclear deterrent posture is thrown into question

This edition of FRUS contains an interesting foot =note describing an August 1980 Soviet exercise of which I was unaware:

According to an August 2 CIA brief, the Soviet Union had carried out a command
post exercise in the Transcaucasus Military District in the last week of July. This exercise was the first simulated ground and air operation against Iran since the overthrow of the Shah. The exercise posited Iran as the primary enemy and included the rapid movement of troops across Iran, the use of air power, and the contingency use of tactical nuclear weapons. The objective of the scenario was the Persian Gulf area. On August 6, a CIA brief reported that a second command post exercise simulating a Soviet invasion of Iran had occurred.

The Departments of Commerce, State, and the Treasury recently issued this advisory on N Korean ballistic missile procurement. Two useful features:

1. an annex “listing key items, including materials and equipment, used in the North Korean ballistic missile program.”
2. a “list of key North Korean procurement entities:”

In a recent interview, David Smith mentioned the 1971 USS Enterprise’s movement into the Indian Ocean as a persistent source of Indian mistrust:

The principal reason for such a persistent level of mistrust over time is obviously the U.S. relationship with Pakistan. This relationship has been on a sharply downward trajectory since 2011, but that fact seemed not to have made any discernible impact on Indian students’ perception of the direction of the U.S.-India relationship. The difficulty of forgiving and overcoming these slights is likely due to the strength of persistent historical memory in South Asia. Even after 70 years, the experience of partition continues to poison India-Pakistan relations and in large measure still fuels the Kashmir insurgency. Another example is the USS Enterprise sortie into the Indian Ocean in 1971, which continues to be seen by India as a nuclear threat made by the United States. In all four decades of the study period, the Enterprise incident repeatedly resurfaced as the classic example of American perfidy, symbolizing perhaps an unspoken fear that in the event of a future war with Pakistan the United States would intervene similarly to deny India the fruits of victory.