April 16, 2009: Combating Nuclear Proliferation - the Strategic and Decisionmaking contexts

The News:

• 11 Pirates Are Seized in Raid by French Navy, NYT April 16, 2009
• Iraq Tries to Prove Autonomy, and Makes Inroads, NYT April 15, 2009
• In Recruiting an Afghan Militia, U.S. Faces a Test, NYT April 15, 2009
• Iran Says It Plans New Nuclear Offer, NYT April 16, 2009

From 3 years ago:

• Are We Really Going To Nuke Iran? Decoding our options, by Fred Kapllan, Slate Magazine
• Iran Announces Success in Enriching Uranium (NYT Apr 11, 2006)
• Iraq to Boycott Cairo Meeting to Protest Mubarak's Remarks (NYT Apr 11, 2006)
• Key Diplomats Together Again, but Not Meeting on North Korea ( NYT Apr 11, 2006)
• London Bombers Tied to Internet, Not Al Qaeda, Newspaper Says ( NYT Apr 11, 2006)
• Bush Insists on Diplomacy in Confronting a Nuclear Iran (NYT Apr 11, 2006)
• THE IRAN PLANS by Seymour Hersh, New Yorker, April 17, 2006
• Jafaari and Political Reality in Iraq: A Tipping Year At Best, by Anthony H. Cordesman
• Thomas Friedman, "The Hamas Dilemma," op-ed NYT April 12

The Syrian pivot - Syria: Chess Match at the Borders - a film by Amal Hamelin des Essarts, Icarus Films, 2008.

• Victim as well as vicitmizer - 140,000 Syrian refugees from Golan in 167; 1.5 million refugees from Iraq since 2003
• Evolution of Syrian politics: the Mysterious Downfall of Assef Shawkat (Aug 2008 rumor mill)
• International Tribunal to try alleged assassins of Rafik Hariri opened March 1, 2009, now awaiting:
• Lebanese parliamentary elections of June 7, 2009 on basis of a compromise electoral law. Here is a Lebanese analysis of the possibilities.
• Hizbollah's Iranian connection - recall the Israeli invasion of Southern Lebanon and destruction of parts of Beirut, July 12-Aug. 13, 2006
• Precarious peace in Lebanon since election of President Michel Suleiman, May 25, 2008

Strategic Context of the Iranian Nuclear Program

• Iran in Iraq
• regional conference? - need for US "soft power"
• Israel: concerns about Iranian threat. Recall Dimona (map). Note that "The reactor is four decades old, and may be reaching the end of its practical lifetime."
• Iran's plutonium enrichment at Natanz - and many (400 including chemical WMD?) other locations..
• Iran and the Palestinians: is Hamas another ally-client for Iran? "Eyeless in Gaza" exchange of views in NYRB
• Egypt: Iran and NPT concerns
• the UN Security Council - the EU, Russia, and China
• Quartet to work for regional nuclear free zone?
• Other US-Iranian concerns might also be addressed (cf Roger Cohen #120)
  • US concerns: Iran ceases military support for Hamas and Hezbollah; adopts a “Malaysian” approach to Israel (nonrecognition and noninterference); agrees to work for stability in Iraq and Afghanistan; accepts intrusive International Atomic Energy Agency verification of a limited nuclear program for peaceful ends only; promises to fight Qaeda terrorism; commits to improving its human rights record.
  • Iranian concerns: The United States commits itself to the Islamic Republic’s security and endorses its pivotal regional role; accepts Iran’s right to operate a limited enrichment facility with several hundred centrifuges for research purposes; agrees to Iran’s acquiring a new nuclear power reactor from the French; promises to back Iran’s entry into the World Trade Organization; returns seized Iranian assets; lifts all sanctions; and notes past Iranian statements that it will endorse a two-state solution acceptable to the Palestinians.

Decision-Making theories revisited (from March 3 class)

• rational actor or Mad Man Theory of Bush Administration?
• Seymour Hersh account: did bureacratic politics prevent the Neo-Cons from bombing Iran in 2007?
• pro Israeli think tanks on Iranian threat, such as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and of course AIPAC.

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April 15, 2009

Department of Government, College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin.

Questions, Comments, and Suggestions to chenry@mail.utexas.edu