According to a Western diplomat who spoke in return for anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters, the amount of low-enriched uranium that Iran was prepared to ship to Turkey was believed to represent a little more than half its current stockpile.

“The situation has changed,” the diplomat said.

If you read on in the piece, you’ll see that Iran’s move may not be enough to satisfy the so-called P5+1′s concerns about an Iranian weapons program:

In Tehran, the Foreign Ministry spokesman told a person attending the news conference that Iran would not, for example, suspend its program to enrich uranium to 20 percent — which brings it closer to weapons grade.

Still waiting on an actual official reply from the Obama administration here. But in the meantime, Amb. Susan Rice’s next few weeks are going to be consumed with shepherding a sanctions package through a Security Council that at the very least would rather not pass a new round of sanctions on Iran. The Iranian negotiating posture to date has been to bust up punitive-minded coalitions at the last minute with the prospect of cooperation, so it’s diplomatic malpractice if this comes as a surprise. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t wavering nations who’d want to get off the sanctions bus at the first sign of Iranian openness to a longed-for enrichment deal. What the administration says — and Rice does — today in reaction to the new offering will be crucial.

Partly because elements of the technology behind Prompt Global Strike are “not yet even invented,” it’s hard to say what the system will ultimately cost or when it can be deployed. The New START accord with the Russians even had to limit its development because once launched from an intercontinental ballistic missile, it would be hard for Russia or any other power to determine with confidence that such a missile didn’t carry a nuclear payload.

Relatedly, here’s something that should warm Sen. Jon Kyl’s (R-Ariz.) New START-opponent heart but surely won’t: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told a NATO forum that the U.S. won’t withdraw its tactical nuclear weapons from Europe until there’s a follow-on treaty with Russia ensuring the Russians will do the same.

Update: Noah Shachtman hates Prompt Global Strike. “Relying on conventional ICBMs to do the job, and risking a nuclear showdown, is just plain crazy,” he writes.

You would think that the verifiable absence of an actual objection to the treaty would remove political obstacles to it and win over converts. If you think that, you’re probably not Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), who gave a breakfast crowd at the National Defense University Foundation a whole bunch of — irony of ironies — unverifiable objections to New START. They culminated in this:

“More important to me, the Obama administration negotiators were disingenuous at best in the way they described the wording on missile defense, and some would go further than disingenuous to describe what they did,” Kyl said. “And what did we get out of the Russians in return? They will go down to levels [of nuclear arms] they were heading toward anyway. They tied one hand behind our back on missile defense, and we did nothing to address the Russian advantage in tactical nuclear weapons. So we’re going to have a very robust debate on whether or not the United States is better off with this treaty. Personally, I’m not sure the treaty is worth what we give up.”

On the Russian advantage stuff, the Obama administration plans to negotiate another treaty after New START gets ratified, to cut the arsenals even further. So be charitable to Kyl and give him that. On missile defense, the briefest of inspections of the treaty refutes Kyl’s substantive point. This is what the treaty actually says about missile defense:

For the purposes of this Treaty… a missile of a type developed and tested solely to intercept and counter objects not located on the surface of the Earth shall not be considered to be a ballistic missile to which the provisions of this Treaty apply.

Right there! In black and white! The treaty doesn’t restrict missile defense! Explicitly! There’s even more:

Each Party shall not convert and shall not use ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] launchers and SLBM [submarine-launched ballistic missile] launchers for placement of missile defense interceptors therein. Each Party further shall not convert and shall not use launchers of missile defense interceptors for placement of ICBMs and SLBMs therein. This provision shall not apply to ICBM launchers that were converted prior to signature of this Treaty for placement of missile defense interceptors therein.

Who’s the disingenuous one here?

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (EPA/ZUMApress.com)

The New York Times reported on a memo written by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in January about a paucity of U.S. policy options toward Iran if it continued with illicit uranium enrichment but stopped short of possessing a bomb. It’s a real problem — the proliferation equivalent of a bank robber pointing to the bulge in his pocket. (Does he have a gun or not?) By not declaring itself a nuclear power, something Obama administration officials say won’t happen for at least a year*, Iran won’t have opted out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but it will have increased its deterrent force by keeping its adversaries guessing about its actual nuclear capability. Gates’ memo asked if the U.S. was ready for that situation.

[Security1] Whether it was or wasn’t then, it’s pretty easy to see administration policy since then inclining to answer Gates’ question. It’s looking more and more like President Obama — who was so roundly vilified for deigning to propose, let alone pursue, a year’s worth of diplomatic outreach to the Iranian leadership — will be the one who shepherds an economic sanctions package on the Iranian regime’s key organs through the United Nations Security Council. After winning China’s acquiescence; spending almost a year and a half rebuilding relations with Russia; and leveraging new and less patient leadership at the International Atomic Energy Agency, the administration has pieces in position to unite the international community against Iran’s uranium enrichment. Even Obama’s chief Iran critic, his 2008 presidential rival Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), had to concede Wednesday, “I never thought a policy of engagement with Iran’s rulers would succeed, but I understand why the president pursued it.”

Beyond Iran, however, is the general problem of a hostile power nearing nuclear breakout capacity, something Gates’ memo correctly identifies as yielding unclear sanction under the NPT. Maybe that’s why next month, the signatories of the NPT will gather in New York to strengthen its provisions. And according to administration officials, one of the areas the U.S. wants to focus on is creating new rules for when signatories face greater penalties for drifting into noncompliance, perhaps through increased verification authorities and responsibilities for the IAEA — something last week’s nuclear security summit in Washington didn’t really substantively address — allowing the international community to have earlier warning into prospective breakout capabilities. The penalties that would come into force in such a case remain to be proposed, debated and accepted or rejected, of course. But the whole discussion speaks to the lacunae that Gates frets over in his memo.

What should be clear is that the memo doesn’t propose going to war, nor does it make war more likely. Administration officials have never ruled out any option on Iran. But they have leaned, at every step, on measures that attract wide international support and deny that support to Iran — from diplomatic outreach; to intensifying diplomacy when word of the Qom reactor leaked; to the proposal for enriching Iran’s uranium to a bomb-incapable state in a third country; to, as the result of the first three, economic sanctions. The administration shows no sign of changing that fundamental strategy.

Seen from that perspective, the prospect of military action, ahead of a push to sanction Iran at the U.N., would place that strategy at risk. The coalition Obama has stitched together might fray if other countries view the sanctions maneuver as a pretext for military strikes. Hence Gates’ own clarifying statement:

The New York Times sources who revealed my January memo to the National Security Advisor mischaracterized its purpose and content. With the Administration’s pivot to a pressure track on Iran earlier this year, the memo identified next steps in our defense planning process where further interagency discussion and policy decisions would be needed in the months and weeks ahead. The memo was not intended as a “wake up call” or received as such by the President’s national security team. Rather, it presented a number of questions and proposals intended to contribute to an orderly and timely decision making process. There should be no confusion by our allies and adversaries that the United States is properly and energetically focused on this question and prepared to act across a broad range of contingencies in support of our interests.

*Clarification, 9:28 a.m.: The National Iranian-American Council takes issue with my “at least a year” formulation about Iranian nuclear capabilities. Gen. David Petraeus, as far as I’m aware, first gave that back-of-the-envelope assessment to the Senate Armed Services Committee last month. And while other administration officials have given further-out assessments of that capability, I leaned on that one for two reasons: first, because all of them, by definition, agree we’re not going to see an Iranian capability for a nuclear weapon this year; and second, because even factoring in that pessimistic assessment, those officials still argue that we don’t have to move to a more bellicose posture from a policy perspective. But NIAC is right, of course, that Gen. James Cartwright, the vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, put the time frame between two and five years; and Cartwright used to oversee our nuclear weapons.

Overall, 40 percent of those polled are convinced the negotiations will result in tighter controls, and 56 percent are not so or not at all confident. Moreover, four times as many express zero confidence in the summit than are sure of its success.

And the purpose of polling on this is… what, exactly? It’s cost-free to express skepticism to a pollster about the future achievements of diplomatic summits. The summit itself is supposed to create increased national commitments to secure plutonium and highly-enriched uranium, and to focus international attention around the goal of securing all such material in four years. In other words, the sort of thing that’s easy to be skeptical about and which won’t be immediately measurable. If anything, the most surprising result from this poll is that four in ten are convinced in the summit’s success. But why poll on this at all?

Well, now you can answer all these questions to your satisfaction.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates discusses the Nuclear Posture Review at the Pentagon on Tuesday. (EPA/ZUMApress.com)

The beginning of the new Washington consensus on nuclear strategy, embodied by Tuesday’s release of the Obama administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, began, ironically, with an October 2008 speech that presented a notably different view.

[Security1] A week before the presidential election, Robert Gates, the Bush administration’s well-respected defense secretary, admonished a gathering at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank with an arms-control bent, about the continued need for a robust nuclear deterrent. “Rising and resurgent powers, rogue nations pursuing nuclear weapons, proliferation, international terrorism — all demand that we preserve this ‘hedge,’” Gates said, defending an expansive series of roles and missions for the U.S. nuclear stockpile, including deterring chemical or biological-weapons attacks. Gates held out the prospect for building new nuclear weapons in the guise of modernizing the existing stockpile; gave short shrift to the idea of additional U.S. arms reductions; and even said there was “absolutely no way” to make such cuts without “either resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program.” After all, Gates said, “we must be realistic about the world around us.”

Arms control advocates in the audience were horrified. “I was totally pissed at that speech,” recalled Joe Cirincione, now the president of the non-proliferation Ploughshares Fund. Gates appeared to be challenging the likely next president. “I thought, Obama is going to become president, and this is one of his top objectives!” But in retrospect, Cirincione added, “It turned out this was going to be a political asset for him.”

The new, 75-page Nuclear Posture Review effectively represents a repudiation of Gates’s 2008 speech by, among other administration officials, Robert Gates. Months of laborious interagency meetings and discussions — 80 of them, one participant counted off at a Pentagon press briefing Tuesday afternoon — resulted in a document that for the first time places the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and particularly their acquisition by terrorists, as the principle nuclear threat the U.S. faces. Contrary to the tone and content of Gates’ speech, the so-called NPR expressly forswears the use of nuclear weapons to retaliate against non-nuclear attacks by good-faith signatories of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, perhaps the first time that U.S. nuclear doctrine has been explicitly tethered to compliance with an international treaty. And it pledges that the Obama administration will seek Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the Senate rejected in 1999.

Additionally, while it keeps both the nuclear stockpile and the “triad” of missiles, submarines and bombers to deliver nuclear weapons — though it pledges to cut the arsenal even further than a new treaty with Russia calls for — it embraces the sort of restrictions on the stockpile that Gates’ speech rejected. Or, in the words of Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the first Marine to helm the military command in charge of nuclear weapons, “No new testing, no new warheads… no new missions or capabilities.”

The NPR is a “concrete plan for implementing the presidential vision” of a nuclear-free world, said Bradley H. Roberts, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and missile-defense policy. Accordingly, the NPR “reduce[s] the number and role of nuclear weapons, while at the same time ensuring we maintain a safe, secure and effective deterrent as long as nuclear weapons remain relevant.”

Though it’s not without its caveats. At his press conference, Gates didn’t refer to his 2008 speech, nor did he show interest in dredging up differences between him and other members of the administration. Instead, he singled out Iran and North Korea as potential exemptions to the abandonment of U.S. nuclear retaliation for non-nuclear attack, since Iran has been repeatedly criticized by the International Atomic Energy Agency for insufficient compliance with the NPT and North Korea, now a nuclear power, withdrew from the treaty in 2003. “If you’re not going to play by the rules, if you’re going to be a proliferator,” Gates said, “then all options are on the table.” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton added that the move was an “important step to reinvigorate” the NPT.

Similarly, the document states that the “fundamental role” of U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter attack, which has struck some arms-control experts as insufficient. “Giving nuclear weapons roles beyond deterring nuclear attack is both unnecessary and counterproductive, and we urge the administration to adopt a ‘sole purpose’ policy now rather than later,” Lisbeth Gronlund of the Union of Concerned Scientists said in a prepared statement.

Roberts conceded the dissatisfaction before downplaying it on a bloggers’ conference call in response to a question from TWI. “We were not prepared to endorse the statement of ‘sole purpose’ in this review, and that will be disappointing to some,” Roberts said. “On the other hand, those who wanted a concrete, pragmatic work plan to actually reduce nuclear dangers and to identify an agenda of activities that can be accomplished cooperatively internationally see a lot in this report. I would say we’ve had much more positive feedback on the latter point than we’ve had negative feedback on the former.”

That “concrete, pragmatic work plan to actually reduce nuclear dangers” is the sort of thing that Gates called for in 2008. And in both his press conference and in his forward to the NPR, he found points at which to implicitly reconcile his old comments with the new administration nuclear assessment. For one thing, Gates spoke of adversaries who attack the U.S. with chemical or biological weapons receiving a “devastating conventional military response,” an statement in line with his 2008 speech’s throwaway line that conventional U.S. weapons are also a powerful deterrent. (A line, incidentally, echoed by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Tuesday when ABC’s Jake Tapper asked about Gates’ 2008 speech.)

And for another, Gates wrote in the NPR’s introduction that a new $5 billion investment in the Department of Energy’s program to refurbish the nation’s nuclear infrastructure “represent[s] a credible modernization plan necessary to sustain the nuclear infrastructure and support our nation’s deterrent.” So much for there being “absolutely no way” to cut the stockpile without new testing or new warheads.

For Cirincione, that line signaled Gates — considered in the press to be the last holdout to administration consensus on the NPR — has joined the fold. “That is a reversal of Bob Gates’ October 2008 speech, and this document puts the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff solidly behind ratification of the test-ban treaty,” he said, referring to the longtime arms-controller priority. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Pentagon press corps that the NPR was a “great product” that the “chiefs and I fully support.”

Key to that support was Cartwright, whose experience running U.S. Strategic Command apparently convinced him of the dubious military utility of nuclear weapons. “Cartwright is the man,” Cirincione said. “He’s the one who advises Mullen, who advises Gates, he’s the one [Undersecretary of State for Arms Control Ellen] Tauscher’s close to. He’s the guy.” Adm. John Roberti, the deputy director for strategy and policy on the military’s Joint Staff, said that Cartwright’s “influence on the final decisions and the final product was felt throughout the process.”

Gates’ support for the NPR will likely signal to official Washington that the Obama administration’s cautious, gradual steps to the elimination of nuclear weapons is the new normal, not some wild-eyed progressive fantasy. The Senate Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing about the document on April 22, and its chairman, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), said in a statement that he was pleased it “balances a discussion of the nuclear triad with a strengthening of nonproliferation programs and commitments.”

Indeed, at his press conference, Gates effectively reprised a formulation used in his October 2008 speech — but this time, in defense of the administration’s approach to eventually junking nuclear weapons. “We recognized the need to make progress in the direction the president has set,” said Obama’s defense secretary, “but we also recognize the real world we continue to live in.”

The document “remove[s] some of the calculated ambiguity” of previous U.S. nuclear strategy, Gates said, referring to its explicit rejection of a nuclear reprisal for a non-nuclear assault. But there are important exceptions. “We essentially carve out states that are not in compliance” with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Gates continued, stating explicitly that such a carve-out sends “a very strong message to Iran and North Korea.” That is: “If you’re not going to play by the rules, if you’re going to be a proliferator, then all options are on the table” should such an international actor attack the United States in any form.

Linking U.S. nuclear doctrine to the so-called NPT is an “important step to reinvigorate” the treaty, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton added. Next week, over 40 heads of state will visit Washington for a two-day conference on mutual steps for nuclear security. That in turn tees up a May conference in New York City on strengthening the NPT. Administration officials say they want the treaty to have greater steps for ensuring verification and compliance, as well as more potent penalties for noncompliance or abrogation. Part of getting there, the administration believes, is creating a greater inducement to universal compliance. Eligibility for a U.S. nuclear response should a noncompliant party attack the U.S. is now part of that framework.

Gates gave the speech back when he figured he was retiring from government service and felt that he should outline a series of policy measures his successors might find fruitful. In a couple of months, of course, he’d be asked to join an administration that saw eye to eye with him on most issues and valued his insights in areas of disagreement. Nuclear strategy falls into the latter category.

For instance, here’s Gates on the value nuclear weapons pose in deterring a chemical or biological attack:

As long as other states have or seek nuclear weapons – and potentially can threaten us, our allies, and friends – then we must have a deterrent capacity that makes it clear that challenging the United States in the nuclear arena – or with other weapons of mass destruction – could result in an overwhelming, catastrophic response. …

Our nuclear arsenal also helps deter enemies from using chemical and biological weapons. In the first Gulf War, we made it very clear that if Saddam used chemical or biological weapons, then the United States would keep all options on the table. We later learned that this veiled threat had the intended deterrent effect as Iraq considered its options.

He also urged policymakers to consider the changing parameters of attacks that might prompt a nuclear reprisal. While not giving an answer, Gates pointed to the emerging threat of cyberattack as something to consider. “Similarly, future administrations will have to consider new declaratory policies about what level of cyber-attack might be considered an act of war – and what type of military response is appropriate,” he said. The Obama administration has now given its answer, and it’s that a non-nuclear response will be appropriate.

A good chunk of the speech is about the virtues of the Reliable Replacement Warhead, a program that others in the Obama administration view as skirting too close to building new nukes. Josh Rogin reports that the NPR will “thread the needle” on modernizing the nuclear stockpile (which is how Gates views the RRW) without committing to the program.

It’s no secret that Gates is on the rightward edge of the nuclear strategy debate in the administration. But there are areas in Gates’ 2008 speech where disagreement with the 2010 NPR is really just a matter of emphasis. Gates’ defense of conventional forces from 2008, for instance, will be largely codified by today’s document:

A conventional strike force means that more targets are vulnerable without our having to resort to nuclear weapons. And missile defenses reinforce deterrence and minimize the benefits of rogue nations investing heavily in ballistic missiles:  They won’t know if their missiles will be effective, thus other nations will feel less threatened. And let’s not forget the deterrent value of other parts of our conventional military forces.

Gates speaks at noon. It’ll be instructive to hear how he describes his current thinking on nuclear strategy, and whether he addresses his older comments about it.

Obama gathered some reporters at the White House yesterday to unveil a big change in nuclear strategy, contained in the document that the administration will release at noon. As The New York Times puts it, the Nuclear Posture Review will explicitly forswear the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear attacks:

It eliminates much of the ambiguity that has deliberately existed in American nuclear policy since the opening days of the cold war. For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyberattack.

That’s something arms-controllers have wanted to see for a long time, especially since it recognizes a truth that is key to maintaining a credible non-nuclear deterrent: it’s inconceivable that the U.S. will actually use nuclear weapons unless it’s been struck by them.

What’s more, it appears the document’s abandonment of nuclear retaliation for non-nuclear assault is a clarification, teasing out the implication of one of its central aspects: declaring that the principle nuclear threat to the U.S. is from proliferation — that is, not just from a nuclear-armed enemy, but from the existence of the weapons themselves. Maybe this quote in a Friday piece from the Arms Control Association’s Daryl Kimball will clarify things:

“What will be a transformative shift is to say that the purpose of U.S. nuclear forces is to deter nuclear use against us and our allies,” Kimball said. “That would implicitly eliminate from the roles and missions [any] potential use of nuclear weapons to fight a conflict that begins as conventional or to counter chemical or biological forces.”

Apparently the document will make that explicit.