Obama proposes reductions to Cold War-era nuclear arsenal

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Iranian Nuclear Program Progresses with Activation of Plutonium Facility

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By AWR Hawkins

On June 8, Iran inaugurated the main nuclear fission container at the country's heavy water reactor in Arak, part of Iran's plutonium production facility. Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) director Fereydoon Abbasi called the inauguration of this container, "an important step in the advancement of the project."

According to The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), this development has "several ramifications" for Tehran and the international community:

1. It will force the international community to recognize Iran as a nuclear power. 
2. It shows that Tehran has decided to break through the deadlock in the nuclear talks by shifting the focus to plutonium enrichment while moving uranium enrichment to the back burner. 
3. The plutonium plant theoretically provides Iran with some protection against being attacked "because attacking a plutonium reactor that has been activated and is operating will have, inter alia, very grave environmental consequences."

Tehran claims the purposed of the heavy water reactor is "to produce Isotopes for medical purposes." 

However, MEMRI cites an article on the Iranian website Irannuc.ir, which claims "a heavy water reactor could be the easiest path to weapons grade plutonium."

Pentagon: North Korea moving closer to developing nuke that can hit U.S.

NBC News

Jon Chol Jin / AP

A man walks by a poster reading "Severe punishment to the U.S. and their followers" in the central district of Pyongyang, North Korea, on Thursday, May 2, 2013.

By Andrew Rafferty, Staff Writer, NBC News

North Korean advances in nuclear technology are moving the country closer to its goal of being able to strike the United States with an atomic weapon, according to a new Pentagon report submitted to Congress on Thursday.

Though the unclassifed version of the report gave no timetable for when North Korea may have the ability to hit North American soil with a weapon, it did say recent progress is in line with the country's desires to soon be able to carry out such an attack. 

"These advances in ballistic-missile delivery systems, coupled with developments in nuclear technology ... are in line with North Korea's stated objective of being able to strike the U.S. homeland," the report said. 

The report added: "North Korea will move closer to this goal, as well as increase the threat it poses to U.S. forces and allies in the region, if it continues testing and devoting scarce regime resources to these programs."

The Pentagon assessment to lawmakers is required by law and comes after a period of escalating tensions between the two countries. The report calls North Korea one of America's "most critical security challenges" in the region because of its pursuit of nuclear weapons coincides with "provocative and destabilizing behavior."

Washington and Pyongyang began 2013 in a standoff after the North launched of a satellite into space last December, which the report cites as a major contributor to the country's long-range capabilities. That was followed by a nuclear test in February of 2013, which led to sanctions from the United Nations that only brought more threats from the cantankerous country.

Still, the report also noted that North Korea has yet to complete some of the necessary steps required for the country to develop a weapon that can reach the U.S.  It stated that they have not yet tested a re-entry vehicle necessary for a warhead to get back inside the Earth's atmosphere and hit a target.

The report also indicates that newly minted leader Kim Jong Un will follow in his father's footsteps in practicing "coercive diplomacy" and development of military capabilities to deter outside attacks.

U.S. delivers strong warning to Israel

U.S. delivers strong warning to Israel

Aaron Klein

TEL AVIV – According to informed Middle Eastern security officials, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel delivered a strongly worded message to Israel – do not attack Iran.

The officials told WND that Hagel informed the Israeli government the Obama administration will not accept any unilateral Israeli attack against Iran and that Israel must not strike Tehran without coordination with the U.S.

Hagel further told Israel that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cannot decide alone whether Iran has crossed the nuclear threshold, or the so-called Red Line previously outlined by the Israeli leader.

In a speech at the United Nations in September, Netanyahu drew a red line on a drawing of a bomb, depicting the point where he said Iran will have enough medium-enriched uranium to move rapidly toward building a nuclear bomb.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu draws a red line on the image of a bomb at the U.N. Sept. 27, 2012.

Netanyahu said at the U.N. that Iran could reach that point this spring or summer. By contrast, Obama has resisted setting any such deadlines.

Last week, Israel’s former military intelligence chief, Amos Yadlin, said, “If Iran continues to enrich uranium at its current rate, toward the end of the year it will cross the red line in a clear manner.”

The information comes after a former International Atomic Energy Agency senior nuclear inspector warned that Iran has discovered a way to circumvent Israel’s red line and that the red line may have already been passed.

Last fall, an IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program showed a dip in the amount of 20 percent enriched uranium. Commenting on the report, the former deputy director-general for safeguards at the IAEA and senior nuclear inspector Olli Heinonen explained in a recent opinion article how this decrease is likely a gimmick.

He wrote that Iran has the capability to reconvert the uranium material back to the gas needed for its nuclear program. The converted 20 percent enriched uranium, now in a less worrisome oxide form, can “be converted back into centrifuge feedstock within a week.”

Heinonen warned that Iran may be able to convert the uranium without risk of detection.

If, through this process, Iran can disguise the quantity of enriched uranium it actually possesses, then Israel’s so-called red line may be artificial.

Heinonen further argued Iran has already passed Netanyahu’s red line of 250 kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium, estimating Tehran possess as much as 280 kilograms, excluding any material that has already gone through the conversion process.

NKorean Website Threatens Nuclear Attacks on LA, DC, NY, And... Arkansas

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Kerry in Japan: US ready to ’reach out’ to North Korea

 

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Pakistan test fires nuclear missile capable of striking India

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'Gone nuclear': Iran ramps up uranium production

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Mehdi Ghasemi / ISNA via AP, file

Two technicians in Iran adjust their protective wear alongside a container of yellow cake uranium.

By Yeganeh Torbati, Reuters

Iran said on Tuesday it had started production at two uranium mines and a yellow-cake plant, declaring that Western opposition would not slow its nuclear program days after talks between Tehran and world powers failed to reach an accord.

The country opened the Saghand 1 and 2 uranium mines in the central city of Yazd, which will extract uranium from a depth of more than 1,100 feet, and the Shahid Rezaeinejad yellow-cake plant at Ardakan to mark Iran's National Nuclear Technology Day, state news agency IRNA said.

The Ardakan plant is capable of producing 66 tons of yellow cake -- raw uranium -- annually, IRNA said.

The United States and some allies suspect Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons capability, but Iran insists that its atomic program, including its enrichment of uranium, is for purely peaceful purposes. Talks between Iran and world powers held in Kazakhstan last week failed to reach a breakthrough.

"They [world powers] tried their utmost to prevent Iran from going nuclear, but Iran has gone nuclear," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech at Iran's Atomic Energy Organization on Tuesday.

"This nuclear technology and power and science has been institutionalized. … All the stages are in our control, and every day that we go forward a new horizon opens up before the Iranian nation."

What happens if North Korea gets out of hand? Here are some scenarios

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In response to North Korea's announcement that they will be deploying "small, light" nuclear strikes, the Pentagon has announced it is sending an anti-ballistic missile system to Guam. NBC's Richard Engel reports.

By M. Alex Johnson, staff writer, NBC News

While political and military analysts sound pretty confident that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's threats are just bluster, you can't get around the fact that the region encompassing the Korean peninsula is one of the most heavily militarized places on Earth, home to three of the world's six-largest militaries.

If the unthinkable were to happen, how would it play out?

Leon Panetta, who stepped down as President Barack Obama's defense secretary in February, warned this week in an interview with CNBC that "we don't have as much insight as we should with regards to the inner workings of what happens in North Korea."

But based on declassified U.S. and U.N. assessments and independent analyses by military scholars, we can make some educated guesses:

How would North Korea attack?Probably with a massive ground assault backed by artillery fire. That's because North Korea's standing military, according to the best U.S. and U.N. intelligence assessments, is the fourth largest in the world, at 1.1 million members. South Korea's, by contrast, is about 690,000 strong.

Library of Congress Federal Research Division

That ratio — a manpower superiority of roughly 3-to-2 for the North — is remarkably consistent across calculations of the countries' weaponry, too. By about the same proportion, the North has more tanks, more artillery, more planes, more ships, more missiles. 

In a 2008 report commissioned by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress depicted North Korea as, in essence, one giant military installation:

How would South Korea respond?By being smarter and nimbler.

Much of the North's equipment is seriously outdated, going back to its alliance with the former Soviet Union during the Cold War. 

The South's weaponry is less extensive but far more advanced, thanks to modern equipment provided by the U.S. 

"Overall, South Korea's armed forces have become one of the world's more capable militaries and present a formidable forward defense against any possible attack by North Korea," the British-based International Institute for Strategic Studies concluded in 2011.

All of that presumes that North Korean troops could make it into the South in the first place. To get there, they would have to go through about 28,000 U.S. troops stationed along the Demilitarized Zone separating the two countries, supported by about 40,000 more just a short hop away in Japan and on a large military base in Guam.

Doesn't Kim have China to back him up?In theory, yes, and that's no small matter. 

China's 2.3-million-strong military is the world's biggest, outpacing the U.S.'s by almost 40 percent. In its annual report to Congress last year, the U.S. Defense Department didn't estimate how many Chinese forces might be based in North Korea, but it did outline the massive array of forces China is believed to have inside its own borders facing the Korean peninsula:

The map at left depicts China's naval buildup around the Korean peninsula. The map at right details army deployments. Click each map for its full-size version.

But it's not clear that China has the stomach for a fight. Beijing has signaled its displeasure with the North's recent provocations — just last month, it voted for a U.N. resolution to impose sanctions in response to North Korea's announcement of a nuclear test on Feb. 12.

P.J. Crowley, an assistant secretary of state during Obama's first term, told NBC News that Kim's erratic behavior has created major "frustration" in Beijing, which he said "does not want to see an implosion of North Korea."

The U.S., on the other hand, has made it clear that it will defend South Korea. To drive home the point, it sent F-22 stealth fighter jets to South Korea as part of military exercises in a show of force Sunday. And it has sent two warships to the western Pacific to watch for missiles and will soon send an advanced anti-ballistic missile system to its base on Guam, defense officials said.

Military and political analysts say China doesn't want a showdown over the Koreas because then the superpowers' nuclear arsenals become a factor. The U.S. said in an unclassified 2010 report (.pdf) that its stockpile was about 5,100 warheads — more than 20 times that of China, which the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimated in 2011 at 240.

How long could South Korea hold out?Much longer than the North.

If North Korea were to employ nuclear weapons, it would impact U.S. troops and pressure Japan and South Korea to also consider obtaining nuclear weapons – something that could lead to an all-out arms race.  NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.

To put it bluntly — as the CIA did in an economic assessment last month — North Korea is a mess internally. Industrial and power output have receded to pre-1990 levels, while frequent crop failures since a devastating famine in 1995 have compounded food shortages that have fueled chronic malnutrition. All that's keeping its people afloat are international food aid deliveries, mainly from China, which would almost certainly be disrupted or cut off in a war.

South Korea, in sharp contrast, boasts a high-tech industrialized economy — one of the 20 biggest in the world, the CIA reported. It has numerous trading partners worldwide to keep it fed and supplied. And because its communications and transportation systems are among the best in the world, it would be much better placed to coordinate civil defense and to move people and material out of harm's way.

So if a traditional assault is unwinnable, what are Kim's options?Very scary ones.

The Center for International Studies and Research, a nonpartisan French research agency, calculated in October (.pdf) that the North can deploy "a full array of what are typically described as weapons of mass destruction" — one of the biggest chemical and biological stockpiles in the world at 2,500 to 5,000 metric tons, mostly tabun (a nerve agent) and mustard gas.

In a technically secret process, South Korea is believed to have told the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons that it had destroyed its chemical weapons in 2008.

And then there are North Korea's own nuclear weapons — the real wild card in the deck.

U.S. officials and other researchers say, North Korea may already have a few dozen warheads that could be fitted atop its vast fleet of ballistic missiles. They're fully capable of hitting targets in Japan, South Korea or elsewhere in the northern Pacific, the officials said.

Kim may be bluffing, as his father and grandfather did before him. But those weapons mean he must always be taken seriously.

Mission No. 1, Crowley said, is "figure out a way to denuclearize North Korea."

Panetta says US must be ’very firm’ with N. Korea as it issues more threats

 

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U.S. on alert for nuclear blast overhead

wnd

By F. Michael Maloof

WASHINGTON – U.S. officials quietly are expressing concern that North Korea could use its “space launch vehicle” to explode a high-altitude nuclear device over the United States, creating an electromagnetic pulse that would destroy major portions of the U.S. electrical grid system as well as the nation’s critical infrastructures.

The concern is so great that U.S. officials who watch North Korea closely are continually monitoring the status of the North Korean “space launch vehicle,” whose status could suggest a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States.

They are aware of the three-stage missile North Korea launched last December that also orbited a “package,” which experts say could be a test to orbit a nuclear weapon that then would be deorbited on command anywhere over the U.S. and exploded at a high altitude, creating an EMP effect.

This concern is in addition to North Korea’s latest threat to strike targets in Hawaii and the continental U.S., as well as possible attacks against U.S. bases in South Korea and Japan.

The 28-year-old North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has signed an order for North Korea’s strategic rocket forces to be on standby to fire at U.S. targets.

The signing was against a photo backdrop following an emergency meeting of his senior military leaders showing large maps that were labeled “U.S. mainland strike plan, specifically at Hawaii, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and Austin, Texas.”

One WND reader who traced the targeting to Texas said that it really was aimed at the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

The latest North Korean threats occurred after the U.S. sent two B-2 stealth bombers to strike targets with inert bombs during joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises, which Kim considered a major provocation.

“He finally signed the plan on technical preparations of strategic rockets, ordering them to be on standby to fire so that they may strike any time the U.S. mainland, its military bases in the operational theaters in the Pacific, including Hawaii and Guam, and those in South Korea,” according to a statement by the North Korean news agency, KCNA.

The statement added that the B-2 flights showed Washington’s “hostile” intent, and the “reckless” act had gone “beyond the phase of threat and blackmail.”

In response, U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel condemned North Korea’s actions which to date have included dissolving the 1953 armistice between North and South Korea, severing the military hotline with South Korea and putting its artillery forces on high alert and threatening, once again, nuclear strikes against the U.S.

In recent weeks, North Korea also had released three videos showing a nuclear strike on the U.S.

“We’ve made very clear that we have the capability and willingness to protect our interests and our allies in the region,” according to deputy White House press secretary Josh Earnest. He said that the U.S. military exercises with South Korea should offer “pretty clear evidence” that the U.S. can defend its interests and those of its allies in the region.

Sources say that sending the B-2s was in response to the recent North Korean threats to send a message – a message which Russia and China called a “provocative act.”

Russia and China have asked the U.S. to continue talking to North Korea and not to take military action against North Korea.

In response to North Korea’s initial bellicose rhetoric, Hagel ordered the deployment of additional Aegis anti-missile systems for the U.S. West Coast. They originally were destined for Europe. And a second anti-ballistic missile radar is to be installed in Japan.

However, the Aegis anti-missile systems won’t be operational until 2017, although there are some systems already deployed along the West Coast.

North Korea’s continuing threats of a pre-emptive nuclear strike against U.S. targets suggest to U.S. officials that its military is confident in the capability of its missiles and that its recent nuclear testing for miniaturization of a warhead to be placed on a missile similarly was successful.

These officials are looking at the prospect that upon launch of the missile and a potential nuclear payload, it would take a polar path, clearly out of range of U.S. Aegis anti-missile systems.

The fact that U.S.military officials are expressing quiet but increasing concern that North Korea could launch an EMP attack has raised alarms over the preservation of the U.S. national grid and such critical infrastructures as communications, energy, food and water delivery and space systems.

This concern recently has been reinforced by a little-publicized study by the U.S. Army War College that said a nuclear detonation at altitude above a U.S. city could wipe out the electrical grid for hundreds, possibly thousands of miles around.

The impact would be catastrophic.

“Preparing for months without a commercial source of clean water (city water pressure is often dependent on electric pumping to storage towers) and stoppage of sewage treatment facilities will require net methods of survival particularly in populated areas,” the military study said.

The May 2011 study, titled, “In the Dark: Military Planning for a Catastrophic Critical Infrastructure Event,” concluded that there is “very little” in the way of backup capability to the electric grid upon which the communications infrastructure is vitally dependent.

Analysts say that it is apparent that Kim has ignored any advice from its closest friend, China, to stop any further missile or nuclear testing suggesting, as one official described Kim, as a “loose cannon.”

Kim also has been defiant of any United Nations Security Council resolutions similarly condemning the recent missile and nuclear tests. China had joined in approving those resolutions.

“The time has come to settle accounts with the U.S.,” the KCNA agency declared.

“The Obama administration is either clueless or deceiving the American people with false assurances that North Korea’s recent threats to destroy the United States are merely ‘empty rhetoric’ because they allegedly ‘lack the capability,’” one former U.S. official told WND.

Some regional analysts, however, believe that Kim is seeking to leverage the U.S. for further concessions while attempting to win favor with his own military to show how tough he can be.

These analysts say that until now Kim has not had the support from the military that his father, Kim Jong-Il, had.

His war-like tone may be indicative of attempts to solidify military support within his country.

At the moment, experts are looking at efforts for preparations at known long-range missile launch sites.

Those signs may be appearing.

“North Korea’s launch sites to fire off mid- and long-range missiles have recently shown increased movement of vehicles and forces,” according to one South Korean official who described the activity at the sites as “brisk.”

“We are closely watching possibilities of missile launches,” the official said.

In this connection, officials have seen several vehicles moving to the Tongchang-ri missile site on the western coast, in what appeared to them to be preparations for testing its long-range missiles.

Some observers, however, believe the latest threats of a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the U.S. remain for now just domestic posturing and efforts to establish military credentials on Kim’s part to show that he is more forceful than his father.

In other efforts to determine warnings and indications of an attack, analysts are looking for major troop movements, although none has been detected to date.

Late last week, a North Korean Mig-21 fighter jet flew near South Korea’s front line airspace, known as the Tactical Action Line,but returned to base, according to a South Korean military official. In response, the South Koreans scrambled a KF-16 fighter.

The TAL is the point between 20 and 50 kilometers north of South Korean airspace that will prompt the South Korea to scramble its fighter jets.

In addition, border crossings between North and South Korea remain open, for now.

In one video, North Korea shows a nuclear attack on Washington:

Back in February, it released a video that showed a nuclear attack on New York City, against a musical backdrop of “We are the World,” a song by the late Michael Jackson.

Obama: Iran more than a year away from nuclear weapon

worldnews

By Becky Bratu, Staff Writer, NBC News

Iran is "over a year or so" away from developing a nuclear weapon and the United States remains committed to preventing that from happening, President Barack Obama told a reporter in an interview aired Thursday on Israeli television.

Obama told Channel 2 TV ahead of his first visit to Israel as president that a nuclear Iran continues to be a "red line" for the United States, but that there is still a window of opportunity — "not an infinite period of time" — to resolve the issue diplomatically. "Right now, we think that it would take over a year or so for Iran to actually develop a nuclear weapon, but obviously we don't want to cut it too close, and what we're going to be doing is to continue to engage internationally with Iran," Obama said, adding that his communication with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the topic is ongoing. "So, what I'm consulting (on) with Bibi as I have over the last several years on this issue, my message to him is the same as before: If we can resolve it diplomatically, that's a more lasting solution, but if not I continue to keep all options on the table," Obama said. Iran has maintained its nuclear program is peaceful and designed to produce energy. While the U.S. has favored diplomacy and economic sanctions to pressure Iran to halt its nuclear development, Israel has threatened several times it would take military action if Iran got close to obtaining a bomb. In the interview, however, Obama sought to reassure that the two countries share the same goal. "Our goal here is to make sure that Iran does not possess a nuclear weapon that could threaten Israel or could trigger an arms race in the region that would be extraordinarily dangerous at a time when obviously there are already ... a lot of things going on," he said. Obama also emphasized that he and Netanyahu "have a terrific businesslike relationship" that keeps Israel's security and U.S. support at the forefront. Obama is due to arrive in Israel on Wednesday for a three-day trip, which will be his third visit to the country but his first as president. The president said he intends to meet with political leaders inside Israel, including Netanyahu, but also with Palestinian officials such as Salam Fayyad, prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority, and President Mahmoud Abbas. "My goal on this trip is to listen," Obama said, adding that it is in the interest of both Israelis and Palestinians to advance their peace process and a two-state solution. "It's going to involve the Palestinians actually feeling like they have got a land of their own, and autonomy and the capacity to govern and to set up businesses and to prosper, and that they have self-determination," he said. "And for the Israelis, it's going to require them having the confidence that that doesn't come at the price of Israeli security."

North Korea general: Nuclear missiles ready

After cancelling all non-aggression agreements with South Korea, North Korean officials continue to maintain that the country could carry out a preemptive nuclear strike against the U.S. 

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North Korea threatens a nuke strike as UN gets tough

 

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The Structural Crisis: Middle-Run Imponderables

Immanuel Wallerstein

www.gehablog.org

I have previously laid out why I think the capitalist world-system is in a structural crisis, and why this leads to a worldwide political struggle over which of two alternative outcomes will prevail: one that results in a non-capitalist system that retains all the worst features of capitalism (hierarchy, exploitation, and polarization); or one that lays the basis for a system that is based on relative democratization and relative egalitarianism, a kind of system that has never yet existed.

There are however three imponderables in the process of systemic transition. These are three phenomena whose roots are in the historical developments of the modern world-system, and which could "explode" in some sense in the next twenty to forty years in an extremely destructive manner, with very uncertain consequences for the worldwide political struggle.

These three imponderables are climate change, pandemics, and nuclear warfare. They are not imponderable in the dangers they pose for all of humanity. They are imponderables in terms of the timing of any disasters. Our knowledge about each of these is extensive but there are enough uncertainties and differences of views among those who have studied seriously these issues that I do not believe we can be sure what exactly will happen. Let us discuss each in turn.

Climate change seems an unquestionable reality, except for those who reject this reality for political or ideological reasons. Furthermore, everything that has been causing climate change is actually accelerating rather than slowing down. The political differences between wealthier and less wealthy states as to what should be done about climate change make an accord that would mitigate the risks appear unattainable.

However, the earth's ecological complexity is so great, and these changes so extensive, that we do not know what kinds of readjustments will occur. It seems clear that water levels will rise, are already rising, and this threatens the drowning of vast land areas. It also seems clear that the average temperatures in various parts of the world will change, are already changing. But this can also result in shifting the location of agricultural production and energy sources to different zones in ways that might in some sense "compensate" for the acute damage to other zones.

The same thing seems to be true of pandemics. The enormous "advances" of world medicine in the last hundred or so years that have seemed to bring so many diseases under control have simultaneously created a situation in which humanity's ancient enemy, the germ, has found new ways to be resistant and to create new kinds of maladies that our medical forces find extremely difficult to combat.

On the other hand, we seem to be beginning to learn that germs can sometimes be humanity's best friend. Once again, our knowledge seemed great but, when all is said and done, turns out to be pitifully small. In this race against time, how fast will we learn? And how much must we unlearn, in order to survive?

Finally, there is nuclear war. I have argued that there will be significant nuclear proliferation in the decade or so to come. I do not see this as a danger in terms of interstate warfare. Indeed it is almost the contrary. Nuclear weapons are essentially defensive weapons and therefore reduce, not increase, the likelihood of interstate wars.

However, there are several imponderables. The motivations of non-state actors are not necessarily the same. And there are some no doubt who would like to get their hands on such weapons (as well as on chemical and biological weapons) and use them. In addition, the limited ability of many states to protect such weapons from seizure or purchase may facilitate their acquisition by non-state actors. Finally, the actual use of such weapons is necessarily in the hands of some individuals. And the possibility of a "rogue" state agent, a Dr. Strangelove of fiction, is never to be ruled out.

It is perfectly possible that the world weathers the global transition to a new world-system or systems without any of these catastrophes occurring. But it is also possible that it doesn't. And, if it does weather the transition, it is also possible that the new world-system will take the kinds of measures that will reduce (even eliminate) the likelihood of any of them coming to fruition.

Obviously, we cannot simply sit back and see what happens. We need to pursue whatever measures we can in the immediate present to minimize the possibility of the "explosion" of any of these three imponderables. However, as long as we find ourselves in the modern world-system, what we can accomplish politically is limited. That is why I call them imponderables. We cannot be sure what will actually happen and what effect it will have on the transition.

Let me make myself clear. None of these dangerous occurrences would end the process of structural transition. But it could affect seriously the balance of political forces in the struggle. It seems already clear that one major way in which many people react to these dangers is to pull inward in a heavily protectionist and xenophobic way, thereby strengthening the hand of those who are seeking to create an oppressive system (even if it be a non-capitalist one). We see this tendency already almost everywhere. It means that those who seek a system that is relatively democratic and relatively egalitarian have to become clearer about what is happening and work harder at developing political strategies that will counter this trend.

--------------------------------
Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New Press).

The REAL Obama Agenda – the Destruction of US Nuclear Defense – the Long Overdue Fightback Begins

NewZeal

By Trevor
At a meeting in Seoul Korea, March 2012, with then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, US President Barack Obama leaned toward Medvedev, thinking he was off mike and said, “On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this can be solved, but it’s important for him [Prime Minister Vladimir Putin] to give me space.” He added, “This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.”

That was the single most important statement made by Obama in his entire first term of office.

The destruction of the US nuclear deterrent and the American military has been Moscow’s, Beijing’s and Havana’s number one dream for decades.

It is what Obama’s communist mentors such as Frank Marshall Davis, Alice Palmer and Bill Ayers, have always worked relentlessly towards. Now their protege has the power to make that hellish fantasy a reality.

At last some in Washington seem to be taking the US’ looming national suicide seriously.

NATIONAL SECURITY LEADERS TO PRESIDENT OBAMA: STOP THE UNILATERAL DENUCLEARIZATION OF THE UNITED STATES

February 22, 2013

(Washington, D.C.): A group of former senior military and civilian national security professionals today called on President Barack Obama to abandon his reported intention to make further, deep and apparently unilateral reductions in the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Press accounts indicate that the President was planning on announcing a cut of as much as one-third of the American deterrent during his State of the Union address on February 12th. He evidently decided to postpone the unveiling of this initiative, however, when North Korea conducted on that same day it latest nuclear test – an event that underscored the fact that only the United States is, under his administration, engaging in denuclearization.

The authors, who include two former members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and eighteen others with “decades of experience with national security policy and practice,” declare:

“It is now clear that, as a practical matter under present and foreseeable circumstances, this agenda will only result in the unilateral disarmament of the U.S. nuclear deterrent. That will make the world more dangerous, not less.

In our professional judgment…America’s “Triad” of nuclear-armed land-based and submarine-launched missiles and bomber-delivered nuclear weapons have promoted strategic stability and discouraged proliferation. Steps that raise uncertainty about the viability, reliability and effectiveness of our deterrent will have the opposite effect.”

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the President and CEO of the Center for Security Policy which facilitated this letter, observed:

“As President Obama meets today with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, he is expected to emphasize the United States’ commitment to its most important Asian ally at a time when the threat to Japan from China and North Korea is growing by the day. The single most tangible thing Mr. Obama could do to give substance to such rhetoric would be to eschew further weakening of the U.S. nuclear arsenal – and the extended deterrent or “nuclear umbrella” it has constituted for nearly seventy years. The signers of this letter have rendered an incalculably important service by challenging the myth that doing otherwise in pursuit of a “world without nuclear weapons” is either achievable or desirable under present and foreseeable circumstances.”

Signers of the letter were:

• Adm. Thomas B. Hayward, USN (Ret.), Former Chief of Naval Operations
• Gen. Carl E. Mundy, Jr., USMC (Ret.), Former Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps
• Adm. Jerry Johnson, USN (Ret.), Former Vice Chief of Naval Operations
• Adm. James “Ace” Lyons, USN (Ret.), Former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet
• Vice Adm. Robert Monroe, USN (Ret.), Former Director, Defense Nuclear Agency
• Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, USAF (Ret.), Former Deputy Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force
• Hon. R. James Woolsey, Former Director of Central Intelligence
• Hon. John R. Bolton, Former U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
• Hon. Douglas J. Feith, Former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
• Dr. William R. Graham, Chairman, General Advisory Committee on Arms Control, 1981-1985; Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President, 1986-1989
• Lt. Gen. E.G. “Buck” Shuler, USAF (Ret.), Former Commander of the Eighth Air Force (Strategic Air Command)
• Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, USA (Ret.), Former Deputy Commanding General, U.S. Army, Pacific
• Rear Adm. Robert H. Gormley, USN (Ret.), Former Chief of Studies, Analysis and War Gaming, Joint Chiefs of Staff
• Hon. Kathleen Bailey, Former Assistant Director, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
• Hon. Henry F. “Hank” Cooper, Former Director of the Defense Strategic Initiative (SDI); Former U.S. Representative to the Defense and Space Talks
• Hon. Samantha Ravich, Former Deputy National Security Advisor, Office of the Vice President
• Hon. Troy Wade, Former Director, Defense Programs, Department of Energy
• Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., Former Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy
• David J. Trachtenberg, Former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy
• Fred Celec, Former Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs

Propaganda, parades promote nuclear North Korea

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N.Korea makes progress at rocket site: images

spacewar

Already under fire for its latest nuclear test, North Korea has been making preparations at a launchpad that could pave the way for firing a long-range missile, a US think tank said Thursday.

38 North, a blog of the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, analyzed satellite photos that it said showed possible assistance from Iran at the Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground in northeastern North Korea.

38 North said that a commercial satellite photograph taken on January 5 showed "important progress" since the area was hit with typhoons last year and indicated activity that was consistent with preparations for a launch.

But the website said there was not enough evidence to support speculation that North Korea could raise the stakes by testing its KN-08, a new missile with potential intercontinental range first displayed in a parade in April.

The website said that North Korea likely was preparing to test much larger rockets by the time the site is completed in 2016. The launchpad was last used in April 2009 for a long-range test widely seen as a failure.

The area has a new flame trench covering, which would protect large rockets from exhaust gases, that has a design similar to one used at the Semnan launchpad in central Iran, the website said.

It said that the satellite photos showed that three storage tanks were built last year that can hold 439,100 liters (116,000 gallons) of fuel, a level far above North Korea's capacity during its most recent launch.

38 North said that it also observed a conduit through which technicians and electrical and communications lines can pass, even though Tonghae is accessible only by a dirt road.

North Korea defiantly carried out its third nuclear test on Tuesday, saying it was responding to US "hostility" after the UN Security Council condemned its last launch two months earlier.

On December 12, North Korea launched a rocket from its separate Sohae site that, according to experts, managed to reach near the Philippines and to put a small satellite into orbit.

The United States and its allies condemned the launch, fearing it was part of efforts to refine a longer-range missile.

North Korea Nuclear Test in Conjunction with Iran?

breitbart

By AWR Hawkins 

Security experts are now wondering if North Korea's nuclear test on Tuesday was carried out for Iran's benefit.

Bar-Ilan University's Dr. Alon Levkowitz says there's no information to confirm such a collaboration yet but warns that it Iran could be conducting tests in secret:

The most disturbing question is whether the Iranians are using North Korea as a backdoor plan for their own nuclear program. The Iranians didn't carry out a nuclear test in Iran, but they may have done so in North Korea. There is no official information on this. But Iran may have bypassed inspections via North Korea.

You will recall that cooperation between Iran and North Korea is not uncommon on matters like this. Not only has North Korea sold missiles to Iran in the past, but Iranian scientists have been present in North Korea for major weapons tests along the way. 

As Levkowitz put it, if Tuesday's nuclear test was in fact Iranian or for Iran, "this is a very worrying development."

Iran: U.N. nuke inspectors are spies

wnd

By Reza KahliliThe head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization Wednesday accused the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog of leaking confidential information on Iran’s nuclear program.

Fereydoon Abbasi, in an announcement on the organization’s website, also insinuated that some inspectors for the International Atomic Energy Agency work for foreign intelligence agencies. He said that because the agency does not have adequate security, Iran should not provide it with sensitive information.

Abbasi said the media did not uncover any secrets on Iran’s nuclear program, but that the IAEA did leak reports to the media. Although he mentioned reports on the installation of new-generation centrifuges at Natanz, he has not yet confirmed or denied explosions at the Fordow plant.

WND reported exclusively on Jan. 24 that explosions rocked Iran’s nuclear facility at Fordow on Jan. 21 with updates on Jan. 27, 29, 30, 31, and Feb. 3 and 6. The blasts at first trapped 219 workers, including 16 North Koreans. The bodies of at least 40 people, including two North Koreans, have been recovered.

Iranian media reported Wednesday that the IAEA and the Islamic regime had failed for a second time in less than a month to agree on further inspections of Iran’s nuclear activities.

Since WND’s initial report on the explosions, all Iranian media have avoided mentioning Fordow, after initially denying the incident occurred.

As reported in a WND update, a high-ranking Iranian diplomat serving in Asia said the regime has ordered a total news blackout on the Fordow incident, referring only to statements by the White House and IAEA. A former Iranian diplomat now in Tehran verified the order and said that since the WND report, the regime’s Supreme National Security Council has met several times and issued directives to all of its branches on the Fordow incident.

Two days after WND’s initial report on Fordow, Iran notified the IAEA of its intention to install its new-generation centrifuges at Natanz and it now has informed the IAEA that the installation has already begun and that it plans to install thousands more. The regime had 2,700 of these machines, which enrich uranium at a much faster speed, at Fordow.

Al-Manar, a Lebanese TV station affiliated with the terrorist group Hezbollah, echoed a claim by the Islamic regime’s official news agency IRNA and other media that the author of the WND reports, Reza Kahlili, is a lying defector and that Hamidreza Zaker, a former Iranian intelligence officer who has provided information on the Fordow incident, is another defector notorious for lying.

In a bizarre comparison, Al-Manar said that in the run-up to the Iraq war, many publications, including The New York Times, put out false reports about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, which the Bush administration used as a pretext to war. No WMDs were ever found.

Al-Manar is under the direct supervision of the office of Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Hezbollah who was placed on the U.S. terrorist list in 2004.The media organization is funded by Iran and is used as a propaganda machine against Israel and America.

Al-Manar referred to the White House statement that called the WND report not credible and said that the IAEA backed Iran’s denial of the incident. It said Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful, stating that, “U.S. officials have recently said that the assessment included in the 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, which claims that there is no evidence whatever of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, remains the consensus view of the U.S.’s 16 intelligence agencies.”

Al-Manar claimed WND’s report is a part of an Israeli campaign to spread false information on the Iranian nuclear program and that shortly after the initial WND story, the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot supported the WND report, which was echoed by the Times of London’s sources in Israeli intelligence.

“Recently and after having scored a heavy defeat in the last parliamentary elections, where he and his right-wing partner Avigdor Lieberman lost 25 percent of their seats in the Knesset, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to hide his current political weakness by shifting the public’s attention to Iran,” Al-Manar said. “In his ‘victory speech,’ he insisted that his first challenge would be preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.”

IRNA, in a report Jan. 30, called WND a “mouthpiece of the CIA” and Kahlili a CIA agent whose reporting was mere propaganda by the West before the start of renewed negotiations between Iran and the 5-plus-1 powers – the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China, plus Germany. The next round of talks is set to take place on Feb. 26 in Kazakhstan.

In what may be an ominous development, North Korea conducted another nuclear bomb test one day prior to President Obama’s State of Union Address. Iran and North Korea collaborate closely on their missile and nuclear bomb programs, and as reported in December 2010, Iranian scientists monitor North Korean tests.

With both North Korea and Iran having launched satellites into space, a sign of intercontinental ballistic missile delivery capability, a source in the Revolutionary Guards intelligence division said that with Monday’s test in North Korea of a more powerful and more militarized bomb, the two countries are much closer to clearing the last obstacle to arming their missiles with nuclear warheads.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/iran-u-n-nuke-inspectors-are-spies/#jqWv2mYVflV0yLI4.99