U.S. lacks smart nuclear policy
A smart, soft power approach to US nuclear policy is missing. In the current emerging discussions on a “US “smart power” approach to global affairs, conspicuously absent is any reference to the need to substantially revise the present US nuclear posture. [1]
This is a seriously neglected issue in the marathon US presidential debates as well. The candidates for the Republican Party, such as Mitt Romney, Rudi Guiliani and John McCain, are sufficiently hawkish to be averse to any major rethinking of the US nuclear posture and doctrine as articulated by the George W Bush administration. The Democratic candidates on the other hand have almost without exception focused on other issues, eg, narrow attention to proliferation threats, without due consideration of how those threats are partially generated in response to the nuclear policies of the US and other nuclear weapons states.
But, if there is any witches’ brew, to borrow the title of a recent article by David Albright and Jacqueline Shire on Iran, it certainly heats up on multiple dimensions, including disarmament or, better said, the lack of it, as well as proliferation-provocative postures that rely on “smart” tactical warheads fitted for conventional warfare. [complete article]
Iran nuclear work ‘not worth war’
Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi has called on Iran to suspend its controversial nuclear work to avert what she says is a mounting threat of war with the US.
“Using nuclear energy is every nation’s right, but we have obvious other rights including security, peace and welfare,” she told a press conference.
Iranian lawyer and human rights activist Ms Ebadi won the Nobel peace prize in 2003. [complete article]
