On November 22, Republican candidates will gather together in Washington, D.C., for a presidential debate presented by The Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute on CNN. The subject: foreign policy and national security. Chief among the foreign policy issues that the President of the United States must address is the matter of an increasingly dangerous, hostile, and emboldened Iran. Yesterday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a report confirming that Iran has made substantial progress in its nuclear weapons program. The IAEA says it “has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear …
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) long-awaited report on Iran’s nuclear program was released today, confirming longstanding suspicions that Iran has made substantial progress in its nuclear weapons program. The IAEA’s quarterly report concluded: The Agency has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme. After assessing carefully and critically the extensive information available to it, the Agency finds the information to be, overall, credible. The information indicates that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device. The IAEA report urged Tehran …
Cairo was flooded with protesters for the seventh day on Monday, as opposition leaders promised that Tuesday would see a “march of a million” aimed at toppling the besieged Mubarak regime. Significantly, a spokesman for Egypt’s military noted that the army recognized “the legitimacy of the people’s demands” and promised that it “will not use force against the public.” This suggests that the army has adopted a more neutral stance in the current crisis. Vice President Omar Suleiman, promoted last weekend by President Hosni Mubarak in an effort to calm …
Iran on Saturday began fueling its Bushehr nuclear power plant, a process that is likely to take many days. The reactor’s operations must then be tested before it starts producing electricity, which is expected in about two months. Russia’s Rosatom state nuclear power company, which built the reactor, has assigned Russian technicians to jointly operate the reactor for several years, as Iranian technicians gradually gain full control over the operations. The startup of the reactor is another sign of Iran’s steady progress across many nuclear fronts. Although the Bushehr reactor …
According to The Wall Street Journal’s announcement, Moscow will start to load fuel into Tehran’s first nuclear power plant at Bushehr on Saturday, August 21. Moscow also guaranteed a 10 year supply of the fuel to the reactor. From the moment the first drop of fuel is loaded, the plant will be considered a nuclear-energy installation as defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency. And the ayatollahs will have the potential to produce the plutonium necessary for an atomic bomb, experts say. Additionally, “Bushehr gives Iran the pretext for needing …
The international hullabaloo over the tragic deaths provoked by violent “peace activists” seeking to undermine the Israeli arms blockade on Gaza has set back efforts to contain and neutralize the threats posed by the Palestinian Islamist terrorist group Hamas and its chief foreign bankroller, Iran. The United Nations Security Council, which was focused on intense negotiations over imposing another round of sanctions on Iran due to its nuclear defiance, now has been diverted to focus on Israel’s alleged transgressions against anti-Israel activists who clearly were spoiling for a fight. Politico’s …
The sham agreement signed on May 17 by Iran with Brazil and Turkey to swap low enriched uranium for fuel for the Tehran research reactor has been widely exposed as little more than Iranian effort to divide and confuse the international community and buy time for the construction of a nuclear weapon. Iran, aided and abetted by the leaders of Brazil and Turkey, structured the deal to give the illusion of diplomatic progress without addressing the core issue involved in Iran’s nuclear defiance: Iran continues to enrich uranium in flagrant …
It’s no secret that President Obama has a great interest in nuclear arms control. In Prague last year, the President said, “So today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” President Obama chaired a session of the United Nations Security Council last September to shepherd to approval a resolution aimed at ridding the world of nuclear weapons. As for curbing nuclear proliferation and overseeing disarmament efforts, the President’s recently concluded Nuclear Security Summit relies heavily on voluntary …
Brazil’s President Ignacio Lula da Silva will visit Tehran on May 15. International attention will focus on the visit because Iran has said it agrees “in principle” with working through Brazil and Turkey to broker a nuclear fuels exchange deal with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Despite this diplomatic camouflage, Iran’s central objective remains avoiding or watering down possible UN sanctions and sowing confusion among international players with a diplomacy of gestures and bluffs. It aims to buy more time at the expense of the U.S. and the West …
After rebuffing the Obama Administration’s effort at diplomatic engagement for more than a year, Iran suddenly has seen the advantages of launching its own diplomatic counteroffensive to stave off impending U.N. sanctions. The Washington Post reported that Iran’s regime soon will dispatch diplomatic emissaries to every member of the U.N. Security Council (except the United States) to revive stalled talks on a nuclear fuel swap proposal that was brokered by the International Atomic Energy Agency last fall. By inflating hopes for a diplomatic resolution of the nuclear standoff, Tehran also …
