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Yesterday William Broad of the New York Times put Newt Gingrich's role as one of the chieftains of the Cult of Electromagnetic Pulse Crazy onto the front page of that high button newspaper. The piece was mildly critical but such things always give the story...
Read all of "Newt, chieftain of the Cult of Electromagnetic Pulse Crazy" »
The mythology of Stuxnet is indefatigable. Too many businesses are directly interested in the lasting perception that cyberwar can accomplish anything....
Read all of "Friday's Mixed Nuts: Stuxnet and an amusing WikiLeaks web review" »
The GOP-controlled House now officially has a Cult of Electromagnetic Pulse Crazy caucus. Started by Trent Franks, the official announcement is here....
Read all of "The Cult of Electromagnetic Pulse Crazy: A caucus and a movie" »
My colleague at the Naval War College, professor John Schindler, comments on the situation: "Several decades of U.S. policies towards the Middle East are unraveling in real-time, before our eyes." Tunisia's government fell; Egypt's is possibly toppling; and others (like Jordan and Yemen) are attempting...
Read all of "The Situation in the Middle East: A Turkish Model of A Different Sort?" »
By now you have heard of or read the exciting story of Stuxnet as a joint Israeli-US cyberweapon. The first of its kind, setting back Iran's nuclear program for years, Stuxnet ushers in a new and glorious age of cyberwar, the world is forever changed....
Read all of "The Exciting Story of Stuxnet and Received Wisdom" »
The Iranian regime plans to replace nearly $100 billion of government subsidies on fuel, electricity, and food with more targeted assistance to needy Iranians. If successful, the overhaul would be a major and historic change, one designed to save the government money in the wake...
Read all of "Iran Overhauls Subsidies in the Face of Sanctions" »
During the past week there was been much speculation about a cyber attack in the form of the Stuxnet worm. It is remarkable for a number of reasons. It is the first known worm to target exclusively industrial control systems that are used in factories,...
The Obama administration is expected to request Congressional approval for the sale of $60 billion of military aircraft to Saudi Arabia. Stephen Kurczy writing in the Christian Science Monitor reports that the largest weapon sale in history is unlikely to invoke much criticism given U.S....
At first glance, we seem to have reached a major divergence in terms of the world community's approach towards Iran. The European Union and Canada have both adopted a set of harsh new sanctions against Tehran that bring their policies much closer into conformity with...
For more than a year the United States and its allies have courted various nations on the periphery of Iran, in the hope of isolating it and thus motivating it to change its course. Events show that this strategy is not working. Indeed, more and...
Read all of "Iran: the time to deal with the periphery has passed" »
I thought April Fools' Day was two months ago. Today we read that the 189-nation NPT review conference, after three weeks of meetings, produced a new agreement. Hurray. What does it cover? North Korea's growing number of nukes and threats? Pakistan's expanding nuclear program--in response...
On May 3 the representatives of 188 nations (give or take a few) will assemble in New York City to debate ways to revise the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The issue could not be more important. As President Obama's new Nuclear Posture Review declares, the greatest...
Iran's headstrong attempt to join the world's nuclear-weapons club is setting the stage for a military confrontation that nobody wants, but may happen anyway. The Obama administration has decided to ratchet up the rhetoric in its outreach with Gulf State partners. Israel's view on the...
Iran could well wind up being the top foreign policy and national security news story of 2010. Internal opposition has forced the government to strengthen its authoritarian grip and empowered hard liners in the regime to an even greater extent. Meanwhile, the US administration's "engagement"...
Read all of "Living in the Margin Error--US Policy on Iran" »
If you run a domain or a blog and keep track of your statistics, you know that there are always a couple of files or posts which pick up global currency in Google. They accumulate views, perhaps giving you a picture of the world collected...
The revelation of a secret nuclear facility near the holy city of Qom, and the likely existence of other advanced facilities across Iran, makes more urgent the need for a quick solution to the nuclear impasse. The Obama administration appears to be following a strategy...
With all of the talk about the newfound determination of the major powers to really put pressure on Iran--including Russian president Dmitry Medvedev's admission last week that sanctions are sometimes needed--what will it really take to get other members of the P-5 process on board?...
The Obama Administration made a bombshell revelation on the eve of the G-20 summit about Iran's continued lying about its nuclear program. Anonymous "American officials" disclosed to the New York Times that U.S. intelligence agencies had uncovered another secret Iranian nuclear facility that Iran...
This week, President Obama reneged on a long-standing agreement with America's allies and formally abandoned the "third site" missile defense plan. The U.S. will no longer be deploying 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic, a plan formerly regarded as...
Read all of "Obama Administration's New Missile Defense Plan Is a Losing Proposition" »
National leadership in Iran continues to make national headlines here. According to the Voice of America, "Iranian media report that Iran's supreme leader told President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to has dismiss his chosen top deputy, after the selection angered conservative Iranians." In addition to ongoing political...
Despite the huge protests on the streets of Tehran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has once again triumphed. A relative newcomer to Iran's political scene, Ahmadinejad's re-election and subsequent crackdown on the demonstrators suggest that the Iranian political system is moving in a new and potentially...
Read all of "Iran's Real Winners: The Revolutionary Guards" »
Events in Tehran and Washington are clearly moving faster than White House policy. Iran's Supreme Leader declared the election valid and ordered demonstrations to end. The next day protests continued and violence escalated. Much of the global pushback against the regime appears to be driven...
By Aram Nerguizian and Ghassan Schbley Lebanon is scheduled to hold elections Sunday [June 7], and the pro-Western political alliance favored by the United States may lose. If it does, the Obama Administration should not consider the result a triumph for Hezbollah, but a challenge....
Read all of "Living with the Outcome: Elections in Lebanon By Aram Nerguizian and Ghassan Schbley" »
Iran's nuclear program is back in the news. The BBC reported President Obama's recent statement that, "No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons" and said Iran had the right to peaceful nuclear power." According to the Middle East Media Research...
The United States currently has roughly a thousand strategic launchers with several thousand warheads, a number expected to drop to roughly two thousand under the Moscow Treaty. These strategic nuclear warheads have yields ranging from 100 to 500 kilotons and are the core of the...
On Sunday, March 1, the U.S. chief military and civilian defense leaders spoke out on Iran's atomic weapons program. Assuming both had full access to US intelligence on this program, it is surprising that they voiced two different views. Or is it? For parochial reasons,...
