Nuclear dangers

  • Give the man a break. Donald Trump found out in Singapore that, as Churchill said, “Jaw-Jaw is better than War-War”. If war can be avoided by a warm, long, very private chat without advisers, with effusive body gestures and promises of a world stage when his opponent, Kim Jong Un, is invited to the White House, then Trump has showed the way. It was learning the hard way because a few months ago when Trump threatened to incinerate North Korea he met counter threats from North Korea that could have led to the deaths of 30 million people in South Korea alone, never mind what numbers might die in an attack on American troops stationed in Japan and Guam naval base. I have no proof but I do think Trump can make a grand peace with North Korea, unlike his predecessors. They too had the will but were...

  Commenting on PressTV on the occasion of the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, in Vienna confirming once again that Iran is in full compliance with the nuclear deal, the JCPOA, that the US withdrew from. Oberg argues that this is a defining moment for the Union: Either it is able to stand up for international law and it’s commitments vis-a-vis Iran – and that means not giving in to U.S. pressure to drop the deal – or the level of statesmanship is such that one must question whether the EU will survive in the longer run. See the video here.

Photo by Nadav Kander   By Marzhan Nurzhan The CTBTO Youth Group (CYG) holds its second international conference in Kazakh capital city Astana from August 28-30, 2018. The author is a CYG member from Kazakhstan, a convener of Abolition 2000 Youth Network and a PNND Coordinator for CIS countries. This article first appeared in The Astana Times on May 29, 2018 with the title ‘Kazakhstan’s Nuclear Legacy and Importance of CTBTO’. It is being reproduced with the author’s permission. – The Editor.   PRAGUE (IDN) – I am coming from Kazakhstan, the country which inherited around 1,500 nuclear weapons from the Soviet Union making it the 4th biggest nuclear arsenal in the world at the time. For almost half a century, from 1949 until 1989, the Soviet Union conducted 456 nuclear tests above and underground at the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site, known also as Semey polygon, in the eastern part...

A review of the evidence points to Israeli and MEK disinformation, not an open-and-shut case. By Gareth Porter May 25, 2018   Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at UN in 2012. (You Tube)   Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which has set the stage for another Iran crisis, has opened a new round of domestic political struggle, as Democrats in Congress, the anti-Trump television networks, and the tattered remains of the old anti-war movement try to push back. But that effort has a fatal weakness at its core. It concedes to Trump and opponents of the Iran deal an effective argument: that the Iranians have been lying when they say they’ve never had a covert nuclear weapons program. Originally published by The American Conservative here The theme of Iran’s duplicity has been the emotional core of the assault on the JCPOA....

  About an hour after President Trump had announced another US withdrawal – this time from the Summit with North Korea on June 12 – I commented on RT (formerly Russia Today) and got quite a long time until we were broken off by Trump appearing in the White House lawn to speak about it.      

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will chart the way forward in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.   Click here, scroll down to the video Full transcript here BREAKING NEWS After the Deal: A New US #Iran Strategy. This speech equals a declaration of war. The US and #Pompeo here raises demands that no country could ever accept. Therefore, it means war in a variety of ways including military action against Iran – sooner or later. The US hatred of Iran is irrational beyond words and built on lies. This Hitlerist foreign policy speech is obscene and should – must – be met by complete, worldwide condemnation. Click here, scroll down to the video and if you are only interest in the demands, Mr. Pompeo starts listing them around 13 minutes into the video.

  White paper pushes bid to help Iranians topple already weak hardline regime   By Adam Kredo May 10, 2018 3:35 pm The Trump administration is examining a new plan to help Iranians fighting the hardline regime in Iran following America’s exit from the landmark nuclear deal and reimposition of harsh economic sanctions that could topple a regime already beset by protests and a crashing economy, according to a copy of the plan obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Originally published by The Washington Free Beacon on May 10, 2018 here   The three-page white paper being circulated among National Security Council officials in the White House offers a strategy by which the Trump administration can actively work to assist an already aggravated Iranian public topple the hardline ruling regime through a democratization strategy that focuses on driving a deeper wedge between the Iranian people and the ruling regime. The plan,...

    Farhang Jahanpour Against the advice of practically the whole world, including many American scientists, politicians and diplomats, and contrary to the Security Council Resolution 2231 that has given the Iran Nuclear Deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA) the backing of international law, last night President Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement. Not only did he withdraw America from the deal, but he also threatened to impose sanctions on all countries and companies that trade with Iran. He also issued a warning that he would do to Iran what that country has never experienced before. That statement by itself is in clear violation of International law. His short statement that was meant to justify his action was full of clear errors and inaccuracies and the reversals of known facts. He implied that Iran had violated the terms of the agreement. This is not true....

  – all about this agreement and its text here). Noteworthy is that the nuclear deal is incorporated into international law by UN Security Council Resolution 2231, even though the U.S. already at that point stated – as an exceptionalist state – that it did not consider the deal binding for it. With the exception of Germany, the deal was negotiated – cynically, of course – by countries which have themselves thousands of nuclear weapons. It never mentioned the only state in the region that possesses them, against international law in the form of UN resolutions and, additionally, has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). That state is Israel whose nuclear weapons Western politicians and their loyal, politically correct media omit mention of – as systematically and uniformly as if orchestrated by an invisible hand from above. Back in 2014-15, many of us stated that the alternative to a negotiated...

By John Buell May 7, 2018 Recently there was an extraordinary moment on corporate TV. Late last month CNN’s Chris Cuomo asked Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “Does Israel have nuclear capabilities and nuclear weapons, yes or no?” Netanyahu responded evasively, claiming: “we’ve always been the first to say we wouldn’t introduce it so we haven’t introduced it.” After Cuomo continued to press for a “yes or no answer,” Netanyahu said, “That’s as good an answer as you’re going to get.” As The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald noted in response to the exchange between Cuomo and Netanyahu, “Kudos to @ChrisCuomo for pressing Netanyahu on that little uncomfortable fact that is typically ignored: the only country in the Middle East with a proven, clandestine nuclear weapons stockpile is . . . Israel. And the rogue state refuses to join the NPT.” Originally published by Informed Comment on May 7, 2018, here While...

  By Gareth Porter* May 3, 2018 The still-unscheduled Donald Trump-Kim Jong Un summit offers the opportunity for a denuclearization deal that would avoid a possible nuclear war, but that potential deal remains vulnerable to a hostile corporate media sector and political elites in the United States. At the center of this hostility is national security adviser John Bolton, who’s not just uninterested in selling a denuclearization deal to the public. He’s working actively to undermine it. Originally published by Truthdig on April 30, 2018, here     Strong circumstantial evidence indicates that he leaked intelligence to a Washington think tank sympathetic to his views in order to generate media questioning about the president’s announced plan to reach an agreement with North Korea’s leader. Bolton made no secret of his visceral opposition to such a deal before Trump announced that Bolton would become national security adviser, arguing that Kim Jong...

  The next few days are fraught with danger. One of the most momentous decisions of the century is about to be made. Will President Donald Trump certify or not that Iran is honouring the agreement made with the US and the other permanent members of the UN Security Council to end its nuclear enrichment research, which some observers argued (but not the CIA) was leading to an Iranian nuclear bomb? Danger number one is that it will push Iran to break its side of the bargain and the fear of nuclear bomb manufacture will provoke Saudi Arabia to emulate Iran. Already the Saudi foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, has charged that “Iran is on a rampage”. Danger number two is that Israel, no longer constrained by the negotiations led by John Kerry, President Barack Obama’s Secretary of State, will launch a preemptive attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Already there is...