nukes

Even the Los Angeles Times notices that President Obama has gone soft on Iran:

In order to fool the U.S. intelligence community when it comes to a nuclear weapons program, all a rogue regime has to do is change the name of the government agency housing it. Although that may sound ludicrous, it is one way to read the IAEA’s newly released report on Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has just published the following article on its website, indicating clearly that the regime seeks a nuclear bomb.

Iran has long stonewalled the IAEA, the organization tasked with enforcing multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions that demand a halt to Iran’s illicit nuclear activities.

A confidential copy of a draft resolution by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which would call for Syria to face consequences for its nuclear transgressions, is now being privately circulated among the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors, in the hopes of getting it approved by the board this week in Vienna, Austria. The United States, Britain, and other partners are standing behind this resolution.

Fox News's Jennifer Griffin reports that Pakistan is rushing to complete its fourth nuclear reactor:

Steve Hayes, with Karen Tumulty and Charles Krauthammer, last night on Fox News:

In the discussion of the relationship between ratification of the new START treaty and the National Nuclear Security Administration’s budget for maintaining our nuclear weapons stockpile, an oft heard war cry in favor of ratification is that the Obama administration’s budget is one that former National Nuclear Security Agency administrator, Ambassador Linton Brooks, has said he “would have killed for.” But how does the budget really stack up against those of years past?

Bill Kristol, with A. B. Stoddard, Kevin Madden and Juan Williams, on Fox News Sunday's Panel Plus:

David Ignatius writes in today's Washington Post on a briefing Obama and his advisers held for a small group of journalists:

President Obama put the issue of negotiating with Iran firmly back on the table Wednesday in an unusual White House session with journalists. His message was that even as U.N. sanctions squeeze Tehran, he is leaving open a "pathway" for a peaceful settlement of the nuclear issue.

"It is very important to put before the Iranians a clear set of steps that we would consider sufficient to show that they are not pursuing nuclear weapons," Obama said, adding: "They should know what they can say 'yes' to." As in the past, he left open the possibility that the United States would accept a deal that allows Iran to maintain its civilian nuclear program, so long as Iran provides "confidence-building measures" to verify that it is not building a bomb.

The renewed opening to Iran also included a proposal for talks on Afghanistan. Obama said he favored a "separate track" for discussion of this issue, in which the two sides have a "mutual interest" in fighting the Taliban. He urged that, as part of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's push for "reintegration" with the Taliban, Iran should be included in regional talks about stability. "Iran should be a part of that and could be a constructive partner," he said.

Robert Kagan came away from the meeting with a distinctly different impression. Kagan writes at the Washington Post:

Here is Benjamin Netanyahu on Fox News with Chris Wallace: 

when the president [of the United States] says that he's determined to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and that all options are on the table, I think that's the right statement of policy. ...the president's position that all options are on the table might actually have the only real effect on Iran...—if they think it's true.

Ratification of the new nuclear arms treaty with the Russians may not be as easy as the White House, Senate Democrats, and the media appear to expect.  The pact, called the New START agreement, faces early trouble in the Senate – serious trouble.