Nuclear weapons are BAD.*President Obama has reaffirmed a 4-decade-old secret understanding that has allowed Israel to keep a nuclear arsenal without opening it to international inspections, three officials familiar with the understanding said.
The officials, who spoke on the condition that they not be named because they were discussing private conversations, said Mr. Obama pledged to maintain the agreement when he first hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in May.
Under the understanding, the U.S. has not pressured Israel to disclose its nuclear weapons or to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which could require Israel to give up its estimated several hundred nuclear bombs.
Israel had been nervous that Mr. Obama would not continue the 1969 understanding because of his strong support for nonproliferation and priority on preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The U.S. and five other world powers made progress during talks with Iran in Geneva on Thursday as Iran agreed in principle to transfer some potential bomb fuel out of the country and to open a recently disclosed facility to international inspection.
Mr. Netanyahu let the news of the continued U.S.-Israeli accord slip last week in a remark that attracted little notice. He was asked by Israel's Channel 2 whether he was worried that Mr. Obama's speech at the U.N. General Assembly, calling for a world without nuclear weapons, would apply to Israel.
"It was utterly clear from the context of the speech that he was speaking about North Korea and Iran," the Israeli leader said. "But I want to remind you that in my first meeting with President Obama in Washington I received from him, and I asked to receive from him, an itemized list of the strategic understandings that have existed for many years between Israel and the United States on that issue. It was not for naught that I requested, and it was not for naught that I received [that document]."
The chief nuclear understanding was reached at a summit between President Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir that began on Sept. 25, 1969. Avner Cohen, author of "Israel and the Bomb" and the leading authority outside the Israeli government on the history of Israel's nuclear program, said the accord amounts to "the United States passively accepting Israel's nuclear weapons status as long as Israel does not unveil publicly its capability or test a weapon."
There is no formal record of the agreement nor have Israeli nor American governments ever publicly acknowledged it. In 2007, however, the Nixon library declassified a July 19, 1969, memo from national security adviser Henry Kissinger that comes closest to articulating U.S. policy on the issue. That memo says, "While we might ideally like to halt actual Israeli possession, what we really want at a minimum may be just to keep Israeli possession from becoming an established international fact."
Mr. Cohen has said the resulting policy was the equivalent of "don't ask, don't tell."
The Netanyahu government sought to reaffirm the understanding in part out of concern that Iran would seek Israeli disclosures of its nuclear program in negotiations with the United States and other world powers. Iran has frequently accused the U.S. of having a double standard by not objecting to Israel's arsenal.
Mr. Cohen said the reaffirmation and the fact that Mr. Netanyahu sought and received a written record of the deal suggest that "it appears not only that there was no joint understanding of what had been agreed in September 1969 but it is also apparent that even the notes of the two leaders may no longer exist. It means that Netanyahu wanted to have something in writing that implies that understanding. It also affirms the view that the United States is in fact a partner in Israel's policy of nuclear opacity."
Jonathan Peled, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, declined to comment, as did the White House National Security Council.
The secret understanding could undermine the Obama administration's goal of a world without nuclear weapons. In particular, it could impinge on U.S. efforts to bring into force the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, two agreements that U.S. administrations have argued should apply to Israel in the past. They would ban nuclear tests and the production of material for weapons.
A Senate staffer familiar with the May reaffirmation, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, said, "What this means is that the president gave commitments that politically he had no choice but to give regarding Israel's nuclear program. However, it calls into question virtually every part of the president's nonproliferation agenda.The president gave Israel an NPT treaty get out of jail free card."
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said the step was less injurious to U.S. policy.
"I think it is par for the course that the two incoming leaders of the United States and Israel would want to clarify previous understandings between their governments on this issue," he said.
However Mr. Kimball added, "I would respectfully disagree with Mr. Netanyahu. President Obama's speech and U.N. Security Council Resolution 1887 apply to all countries irrespective of secret understandings between the U.S. and Israel. A world without nuclear weapons is consistent with Israel's stated goal of achieving a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction. Obama's message is that the same nonproliferation and disarmament responsibilities should apply to all states and not just a few."
Israeli nuclear doctrine is known as "the long corridor." Under it, Israel would begin to consider nuclear disarmament only after all countries officially at war with it signed peace treaties and all neighboring countries relinquished not only nuclear programs but also chemical and biological arsenals. Israel sees nuclear weapons as an existential guarantee in a hostile environment.
David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, said he hoped the Obama administration did not concede too much to Israel.
"One hopes that the price for such concessions is Israeli agreement to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty and an acceptance of the long-term goal of a Middle East weapons-of-mass-destruction-free zone," he said. "Otherwise, the Obama administration paid too much, given its focus on a world free of nuclear weapons."
* Unless you are a country whose lobby groups hold our leaders hostage to smear campaigns.
The sweet smell of hypocrisy - part 2
Fraudulent elections are BAD.*A former senior United Nations diplomat in Kabul has made a scathing attack on the UN's handling of Afghanistan's disputed elections, claiming that almost one in three of the votes cast for president Hamid Karzai were fraudulent.
Peter Galbraith, the former deputy head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, singled out his former chief, Kai Eide, for criticism, saying he had deliberately played down the level of cheating in an election where, in one region, "10 times as many votes were recorded as voters actually cast".
Jon Boone on claims of election fraud in Afghanistan Link to this audio
Galbraith was sacked last week, after his disagreements with Eide, a Norwegian diplomat in charge of the UN mission, about how to deal with electoral fraud became public. Galbraith said the extraordinary level of fraud in the August vote "has handed the Taliban its greatest strategic victory in eight years of fighting the United States and its Afghan partners".
The election was a "foreseeable train wreck", he said, with Eide standing idle as Afghan election authorities and ministers loyal to the president avoided taking steps that could have reduced massive fraud.
The forceful intervention via an opinion piece in Sunday's Washington Post, came at an increasingly difficult time for the US-led war effort, beset by deteriorating security, mounting deaths and political uncertainty. The US military suffered its deadliest day in more than a year on Saturday when eight American soldiers were killed in sustained attacks on eastern outposts.
Galbraith's disclosure could torpedo what many diplomats in Kabul suspect is an attempt by Eide and the US to minimise controversy over fraud allegations, and to move quickly to declare Karzai re-elected president. Opposition politicians, including Abdullah Abdullah, the second-placed candidate, who wants to see a run-off vote, have seized on remarks made by Galbraith since he was sacked by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, last Wednesday.
On Saturday Abdullah accused Eide of "giving a green card for fraud to determine the outcome of the election".
A war of words between Galbraith and the UN (which has attempted to characterise the row as a "personality dispute") has been gradually escalating. In a letter to Ban, leaked to the New York Times, Galbraith made devastating allegations against Eide, including the claim that the latter ordered him not to hand to election officials information which showed turnout had been tiny in the south, where the Taliban intimidation campaign against voters was most effective.
Galbraith also said Eide told him to stop lobbying for the elimination of "ghost polling stations" — voting centres too dangerous to actually open, but which nonetheless received ballot papers that could be filled out by corrupt officials.
His article in the Washington Post, "What I Saw at the Afghan Election", went even further with its claim that a third of Karzai's votes were fraudulent. If true, that would mean the president received well under the 50% for him to win on the first round. Preliminary results give Karzai 55% and Abdullah 28%.
The UN-backed Afghan election complaints commission has ordered an audit of 10% of 3,063 votes deemed to be suspicious either because of a very high turnout or where nearly all votes went to a single candidate.
However, Galbraith writes: "President Obama needs a legitimate Afghan partner to make any new strategy for the country work. However, the extensive fraud that took place on August 20 virtually guarantees that a government emerging from the tainted vote will not be credible with many Afghans."
Unless the US can build a relationship with a legitimate Afghan partner, its options are drastically reduced. The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, last week recognised as much: "Without a willing partner, one free of corruption and transparent, I don't think any situation or any series of meetings can adequately solve for the Afghan people the problem that that would contribute to."
In his earlier letter to Ban, Galbraith also claimed Eide prevented him trying to stop the independent election commission, in overall charge of the vote, from abandoning its safeguards, which would have excluded fraudulent ballots, probably reducing Karzai's score to below 50%, forcing a second-round vote.
Eide told him to back off, Galbraith said, after Karzai ordered his foreign minister to protest that the American was interfering in Afghan affairs. He said the Afghan government threatened him with expulsion.
* Unless you are a country whose government are our puppets.
Lacking the words to coherently express feelings.
