rssClinton on Nonproliferation
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 12:16 pm
- 5 Comments
Barely an hour after word came from Vienna that an Iranian negotiating team has accepted a draft version of a deal to ship nuclear fuel out of the country for enrichment, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave a speech this morning at Washington’s tony Mayflower hotel on nuclear nonproliferation, a core Obama administration priority. Clinton didn’t focus on Iran, instead offering an overview of administration policy. But she said that “we will continue to engage multilaterally and bilaterally,” and reiterating that the U.S. commitment to diplomacy with Iran “is not open-ended.” On the actual negotiations in Vienna, she briefly urged “prompt action” on the plan to move low-enriched uranium out of Iran. Addressing the Iranians as well as the audience gathered by the U.S. Institute of Peace, she said “the door is open to a better future.” But that was all Clinton said on the issue.
Beyond Iran and the other urgent nuclear threat the United States is confronting in North Korea, Clinton said the U.S. would take a variety of multilateral steps to shore up the global nonproliferation regime. In addition to existing administration desires to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, Clinton declared the administration prepared to offer states additional access to nuclear-power technology, and proposed initiatives like “international fuel banks” and global “spent fuel repositories” that allow states to “pursue legitimate civilian nuclear” activities.
On the harsher side of the equation, the secretary of state also urged increasing both legal authorities and resources to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the global nuclear watchdog, particularly to inspect “suspect nuclear activities … even when no nuclear materials are present.” Similarly, while Clinton pledged a comprehensive look at the United States’ own nuclear posture and to negotiate a new nuclear weapons reduction treaty with Russia, she said the U.S. would maintain its own nuclear stockpile for deterrent purposes and the Obama administration would support a “new stockpile management program” to be “confident in the capabilities we have.”
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5 Comments
Pingback posted October 21, 2009 @ 5:12 pm
[...] Clinton on Nonproliferation « The Washington Independent [...]
Comment posted October 21, 2009 @ 5:13 pm
Several points that should be understood:
1) Israel will not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. It doesn’t matter what the U.S. President wants, it doesn’t matter what the U.S. public thinks (stupid polls), it doesn’t matter what the rest of the world thinks. Israel will not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
2) The delivery date of Russian advanced anti-aircraft missiles to Iran is the deadline by which Israel must act. They will not risk being unsuccessful in a strike to take out the Iranian capability. They know they cannot depend on the U.S. to stop Iran’s development politically or militarily. (Diplomacy without the threat of potential military consequences doesn’t work. Negotiation from a position of power is always more successful than groveling, appealing to a “moral” sense, or empty threats.) When Israel strikes, it will be thorough and conclusive – they know they’ll only have one chance. They will most likely then need to divert their attention to stopping the retaliation by moving into Syria and Lebanon – and maybe other counties….
3) Israel doesn’t really have to worry about the U.S. entering the ensuing war from a strike on Iran. In response to the strike, Iran will close the Straits of Hormuz – and the U.S. will move to open them again.
4) Iran does not need an ICBM capability to deliver nuclear weapons to the United States. They can be brought in secretly disguised as other cargo and detonated in U.S. cities with devastating consequence. While the current regime is in power in Iran, it is not in the interest of the U.S. for Iran to achieve nuclear weapons capability. It does not matter that most of the Iranian people are good, rational, and civilized – their leaders are insane. Until the civilized people are in power in Iran, Iran is a threat to the rest of the world.
While it is far more pleasant to be naïve, it has never stopped brutal reality – sooner or later the sheep must run to the sheepdog for protection from the wolves, whether they like the sheepdog or not.
Pingback posted October 21, 2009 @ 6:14 pm
[...] exercise is anything but a response to the ongoing tensions over Iran’s nuclear program. Clinton on Nonproliferation – washingtonindependent.com 10/21/2009 Barely an hour after word came from Vienna that an Iranian [...]
Comment posted October 22, 2009 @ 10:16 am
Quark1:”They can be brought in secretly disguised as other cargo and detonated in U.S. cities with devastating consequence”
I personally have no confidence that Israel wouldn't do this and attempt to pin the blame on Iran.
Iran has no history of unprovoked military belligerency against the US, and Israel has attacked us using false flag ops more than once. I can see Henry Kissinger standing on the Capital steps again saying “See how it feels to be attacked?”.
Comment posted October 22, 2009 @ 10:18 am
And lets not lose sight of who really has the nukes.
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