Non-Proliferation
Pakistan, India, and Nuclear Winter
Scientific American has a cheery article on up their website right now, estimating the global impact of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. The result: sunlight is reduced, the planet cools, and the growing season shortens. Drought ensues. The ozone layer erodes. Global agriculture is decimated.
If Iran deal falters, then what?
Spencer Ackerman says:
there’s no doubt that diplomatic outreach to Iran on the nuclear question suffers tremendously if Iran rejects the Vienna deal. Desired strategies have to bow to emergent realities, in the final analysis, and Iran just doesn’t appear like it will accept an eminently reasonable deal that would buy time for a diplomatic thaw. If this is indeed Iran’s formal response to Vienna, than sanctions look more likely now, and, frankly, appropriate.
Mir Hussein Moussavi coming out against the IAEA nuclear deal
The saga of the potential Iranian low-enriched uranium export deal continues. The New York Times reports that Iran is preparing a counter-offer, which may or may not include sending partial shipments of its low-enriched-uranium outside the country for further processing. This sort of back and forth is to be expected. But what caught my eye was this:
Sec Clinton hits right notes on empowering IAEA
Secretary Clinton hit all the right notes about the International Atomic Energy Agency during her big non-proliferation speech yesterday.
Enhancing the IAEA’s capabilities to verify whether states are engaging in illicit nuclear activity is essential to strengthening the nonproliferation regime. The IAEA’s additional protocol, which allows for more aggressive, short-notice inspections should be made universal, through concerted efforts to persuade key holdout states to join.
Inching toward a deal on Iran?
Last night, Joshua Pollack of ArmsControlWonk wrote: “I do hope I won’t have to eat these words in a few hours, but here goes…the odds are quite good that the IAEA soon will be able to announce a deal between Iran and the American-Russian-French sides.” Credit where credit is due.
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The SC; HRC; DPRK; South Sudan
The SC: The Security Council today held its last consultations under the Council Presidency of ROK. Tomorrow, Russia will take over the rotating Presidency of the Security Council for March under Ambassador Vitaly Churkin.
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The SG; Mali; Middle East; Palestine
The SG: At the Fifth Global Forum of the UN Alliance of Civilizations in Vienna, Austria today, the SG emphasized the role of youth in ensuring a “prosperous, equitable and peaceful future.”
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The SG; DRC; HRC; Palestinian Prisoner
The SG: In Ethiopia over the weekend, the SG is now in the United Arab Emirates. Today he met with Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, where the two discussed developments in the region, including Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan, and in the Middle East Peace Process.
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