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.”

But this isn’t the first time Obama administration officials have affirmed an assessment that the intelligence does not endorse.

Last month, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that Iran has enough fissile material to make a nuclear weapon. It was up to Secretary of Defense Bob Gates — a former CIA director — to implicitly correct Mullen, saying Iran was “not close” to a bomb. But this is a tone set from the top: in his first press conference after winning the election, President Obama said that “Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon I believe is unacceptable,” even though the intelligence community backed away from presuming Iran was engaged in such development in 2007.

While it’s not as if Obama is going to start bombing Iran — he’s gone out of his way to engage the Iranians; and even promised in Prague to “support Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear energy with rigorous inspections” — nevertheless, as Blair said in his confirmation-hearing statement, facts are stubborn things. A coalition of progressive and realist foreign policy experts known as the American Foreign Policy Project warned yesterday that “Pressure is mounting on the President to deliver an ultimatum to Iran that it must immediately suspend all enrichment of uranium or face draconian economic sanctions, or worse,” pressure that mounts through a misrepresentation of the current intelligence assessment on Iran’s nuclear energy program.

As a result, Blair also should clarify whether he stands behind something he told Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) during his confirmation hearing.

LEVIN: … Are you committed to speak truth to power and committed that when your factual assessments, your intelligence assessments say one thing and public say another thing and don’t delineate between your own personal views and what the intelligence community has informed them that you will speak to them about that?

ADM. BLAIR: Yes, sir. I think that’s the only way to proceed.

Anyway, SteelJaw at the U.S. Naval Institute’s blog makes this point:

While one presumably successful space  launch (still awaiting independent confirmation) does not a missile force make, the fact that the Iranian program marks this success, that it is outside the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and is known to have strong ties with the North Korean  and Syrian programs, bodes ill for future proliferation schemes. As the US and its European partners gather this week to review the way ahead for continued engagement regarding Iran’s nuclear program, this shot, coming on the eve of that meeting and near the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution should give the assembled party pause to consider just what are  Iran’s intentions, particularly vis-a-vis negotiated agreements and arms control.

It’s a good point. Whether the Iranians actually succeeded in the test or not, the fact that they announced launching their satellite on the eve of new nuclear-program negotiations is significant, and intended to put pressure on the western coalition.

But I’m not sure that SteelJaw is right that the test “bodes ill for future nonproliferation schemes.” It’s a challenge for them, to be sure. But consider that Iran has been encircled by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan for the past five years, with the Bush administration dropping hints throughout its time in office that it might destabilize the regime as it did the two on Iran’s borders. Obviously, Iran’s nuclear ambitions go back to the Shah, so it’s not as if the United States in any way caused Iran to become more bellicose. But it’s an entirely rational decision on Iran’s part to bolster its defense capabilities after seeing the world’s remaining superpower adopt a more hostile posture to it.

And that’s a point independent of the strength of proliferation accords. North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 2002 and accelerated its nuclear weapons production in 2003 when it looked like the United States was going to overthrow the nuclear-incapable Saddam Hussein. At the time, many people worried that the North’s actions meant that nuclear nonproliferation regimes were doomed. But then the Bush administration flip-flopped, began intensive multilateral negotiations with the North led by Ambassador Chris Hill, and — with recent problems, to be sure — secured important disarmament steps. With Dennis Ross likely to explore bilateral dialogue with Iran, there’s no obvious reason why a similar round of arduous, frustrating, stop-and-start diplomacy can’t achieve similar results.

It’s true that nonproliferation regimes don’t look like appealing options to countries that perceive themselves, credibly, under constant threat. But getting rid of the persistent fear is the greater stumbling block to nonproliferation, not inherent weaknesses in the accords.

“If the United States once again leads and constructs” a firm global series of rules on nuclear proliferation “we can isolate the bad actors.”

Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.), dean of nonproliferation statesmen, is busting his buttons with pride.

Bob Joseph, the U.S. special envoy for nuclear nonproliferation: “It’s important to support the new president in his efforts to deal with historic problems and challenges facing the United States, both in regard to the economy and in regard to national security,” he says. Very generous. He talks about Russia, where he says the “fundamental” issue is Russian leadership “seeking to reestablish Russia as a great power… to exercise Russian power and prestige around the world.” That’s not necessarily problematic, but what is a problem is Russia’s “increasingly aggressive actions abroad,” and its view of American power as a zero-sum game. (It’s kind of funny how Bush administration officials can say that about other countries.) Joseph says that outside “direct and intrusive sanctions” imposed by the U.N. Security Council, Iran will acquire nuclear weapons, and that requires “cooperation from Russia.”

Daniel Poneman, a longtime nuclear energy and proliferation official, ties the discussion to global climate change, “a different tipping point” than the one Perry mentioned. Moots the idea of a massive expansion of nuclear energy as a part of a solution — the process of creating nuclear power produces enriched uranium and plutonium, which “increases the risk of nuclear terrorism.” Poneman fears that avoiding a climate tipping point, the world might end up bringing about a nuclear tipping point. The alternative is to “talk to the utilities”: in other words “a leasing regime” to provide fuel for reactors but than to remove the spent fuel that could be used for nuclear weapons. He’s riffing — this is really difficult — but says “you have to avoid the third rail of political discrimination,” by which he means the regime has to include the entire world. “This will not solve the Iran problem or the North Korea problem,” Poneman concedes, but it will “put a sharp light of scrutiny on the international outliers.”

Now here’s Wendy Sherman, who offers perhaps the best window into the Obama administration. (She’s a protege of Madeleine Albright and is close with Secretary of State-designee Hillary Rodham Clinton. Wow, she just said “Bill Perry is one of my heroes.”) But she says she’s done with “all transition work” for the new administration and instead talks starkly about how she was eight hours away from staying at the Islamabad Marriott that Pakistani terrorists destroyed in the fall. Sherman talks about the need for President-elect Barack Obama to renegotiate nuclear weapons reduction treaties with Russia and other countries. In 2010, the Nonproliferation Treaty’s review conference will get underway, which requires “enormous leadership” from the United States to “impose a range of penalties for withdrawal from the NPT” while “creating access to a nuclear fuel cycle for everyone,” which speaks to Poneman’s point. The nuclear-watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency should be strengthened, as should the Bush administration’s signal proliferation effort, the Proliferation Security Initiative. “No– new– states” obtaining nuclear weapons capability. She also underscores the need for North Korean disarmament and preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The baton “won’t become a magic wand” in an Obama administration, though, Sherman concludes, which is a pretty cringe-inducing cliche.

Sherman says “it is quite crucial to maintain our deterrent” as Obama has said, “while we move toward the goal” of a nuclear-free world. Striking the balance is the difficulty, but she says the United States has to “define the norms” for nuclear reductions.