So What Happened Last Week? The Iran Negotiations

Much of the coverage of the P5+1 or E3+3 talks* with Iran this week has focused on one thing or another, like the blind men and the elephant. I’m going to try to put some of those details into a bigger picture.

There was some disappointment that no “grand bargain” was arrived at, but, given the poor track record for talks on Iran’s nuclear program, none should have been expected. The best that could be expected was an agreement to continue the talks and a willingness on both sides to consider the other’s proposals. That seems to be the outcome, although Laura Rozen and Barbara Slavin indicate that it almost wasn’t.

Iranian representatives have expressed disappointment that a complete removal of sanctions wasn’t on the table. It’s not clear if this is a negotiating ploy or a genuine reaction. It has been reinforced, however, by commentators with experience on the Iranian side of negotiations, so it may be genuine. If so, it is an indication of Iran’s isolation and unrealistic expectations.

Expectations can be unrealistic on the other side, too, and there have been criticisms that the P5+1 have been too insistent on Iran’s suspending enrichment entirely, although that does not seem to be the case in the Istanbul and Baghdad negotiations.

The Back Story
The central issue of the talks is Iran’s nuclear program. Iran has built two facilities for enriching uranium, at Natanz and Fordo (or Fordow, near Qom), and it is building a heavy-water reactor and support facilities at Arak. It has a facility that prepares the uranium hexafluoride for enrichment at Isfahan. Iran has admitted that it has done experiments related to nuclear weapons production before 2003, but says it is not doing any now, and the 2007 and 2011 American intelligence estimates agree with that. Still, material whose sources are officially anonymous but most probably stem from Israel seems to indicate that more recent experiments may have been done, particularly at the Parchin military base. The power reactor at Bushehr is not of concern for a possible weapons program.

There have been five United Nations Security Council resolutions on Iran’s nuclear program. They have resulted from Iran’s concealment of the Natanz and Fordo facilities and difficulties that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has encountered in dealing with Iran on inspections. They require Iran to suspend (not end, but suspend until the various issues are cleared up) its uranium enrichment, and they are the basis for the P5+1 talks. They are also the basis for sanctions on Iran. The United States was very active in passing these resolutions, and Iran has felt that they are punitive and single Iran out unfairly. A more detailed history of the situation can be found here (pdf).

The meeting in Istanbul in April established that there was some basis for talks and scheduled the next meeting for this past week in Baghdad. Trust has been so low, because there have been so many false starts in the past, with both sides dropping the ball, that the process had to start from very low expectations.

On the Table
Last week, the P5+1 put an offer on the table:

Iran stops enriching uranium to 19.75%, often rounded up to 20% in news reports, and eventually closes down the enrichment plant at Fordo. (The difference could be significant, since the latter is considered high-enriched or bomb grade and the former is not. However, I will continue to refer to 20% enrichment as what Iran is doing.)

The P5+1 supply fabricated fuel plates for the Tehran Research Reactor(TRR), along with medical isotopes, the justification for operating the TRR, and safety upgrades. Additionally, plans will be made to replace the TRR with a reactor that runs on low-enriched (3.5%) fuel.

Safety assistance will be made available for the Bushehr reactor.

Trade in replacement parts for civilian airliners will resume.

Iran also put an offer forward. Information is less available on Iran’s offer, but it is said to contain five points, only one connected with the nuclear issues, that Iran’s right to enrich uranium would be recognized. The other four points had to do with events in Syria and other regional issues.

It is disappointing that the two proposals weren’t closer together, but Catherine Ashton, the convenor of the talks and EU Foreign Minister, says that there is common ground. The fact that last week’s talks were difficult and substantive but nonetheless continued is positive relative to previous talks.

What the Two Sides Say

Chief Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili called the talks “thorough but unfinished.” He said Iran was not prepared to make any concessions unless the six nations accept “the undeniable right of the Iranian nation . . . to enrich uranium.” U.S. officials said that is not a concession they are prepared to grant.

Jalili also made it clear that Iran would not countenance a deal that did not alleviate the sanctions that have been taking an increasingly devastating toll on the country’s economy. (Washington Post)

“There is progress, there is an atmosphere of optimism after the Western powers responded to our requests,” Taleb Mahdi, a member of Iran’s delegation, said in an interview.

But, later in the same article,

“There’s been no progress in this round of talks,” Taleb Mahdi, a member of the Iranian delegation, said ... The P5+1 offer calls on Iran to end all uranium enrichment, Mahdi said.

The head of Iran’s nuclear program,

Fereidoun Abbasi, was quoted by the semiofficial ISNA news agency as saying that Iran will continue the higher enrichment level for a medical research reactor that produces isotopes for treatment of about 1 million cancer patients in Iran.

"There is no reason for us to back down on 20 percent-level enrichment, because we produce only as much 20 percent material as we need," Abbasi said. "Not more, not less."

He also said Iran has not yet been convinced to allow the U.N. nuclear agency access to a military complex to probe suspicions that in 2003, Tehran secretly tested explosives needed to set off a nuclear bomb. The suspected blasts would have taken place inside a pressure chamber.

Ambassador Hossein Mousavian, a former spokesman for Iran’s nuclear negotiating team who is now at Princeton University, has frequently been quoted, including by David Ignatius, on what he feels would be an acceptable deal. It is not clear whether he is speaking for the Iranian government; most likely not.

“I’m afraid the P5+1, they ask too much from Iran. They ask Iran to give diamonds in return for peanuts.”

The diamond in question, he said, is Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. “The issue is political, not technical. For the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) Iran would have no problem to cooperate to all questions. But…asking Iran to stop twenty percent (uranium enrichment), to implement additional protocols, to give access beyond additional protocols – this is practically the diamonds the P5 Plus 1 wants.”

He added, “And if they are going to propose Iran spare parts for airplanes (in exchange), these would be the peanuts.” (Christiane Amanpour's blog)

Jay Carney, President Obama’s press spokesman, in a press gaggle on May 24:

There have been concrete ideas exchanged in these negotiations. And the P5-plus-1 are unified in calling for Iran to demonstrate the peaceful intent of its nuclear program and to fully comply with their international obligations…. What we're looking for is progress. We're looking for seriousness on the part of the Iranians in terms of addressing the concerns of the international community. And thus far, those expectations have been met…. even as we have positive steps, the President’s position is that we will judge Iran by its actions, not by its words or simply by the fact that it’s holding meetings.

A “senior European diplomat”:

In Baghdad, the Iranians, for the first time, said, “We are ready to discuss with you the proposals put on the table. This has never happened before. In years before, there has been real discussion, but not about the nuclear issue.”

“For me, it’s important that the talks be detailed and substantive,” she said.

The diplomat said there was a change in the seriousness of the Iranians’ approach to the talks since a February letter from lead Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili to Ashton accepting new nuclear talks. The concise letter — only few paragraphs long — directly mentions willingness to focus talks on the nuclear issue and avoided past versions’ lengthy diatribes against perceived international double standards. The senior European diplomat, who has worked on Iran for almost the past decade, called it a “breakthrough.”

“It is important they are discussing the issues,” the diplomat said. “There is common ground. But they made linkages between recognition of their right to enrich and [international requests on aspects of their program].”

A “senior American diplomat”:

“Maximum pressure is not yet being felt in Iran.” European Union sanctions on Iranian oil and US sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank, both due to be fully implemented in July, “increase leverage on the negotiation as it proceeds forward,” the offical said.

“The Iranians don’t like it," the diplomat continued. "They hope and would rather we not put additional sanctions on. Indeed they are not at all pleased that soon after Istanbul, the president [Barack Obama] signed a new executive order [sanctioning Iran for supplying technical assistance to Syria to repress dissidents]. We heard about that.”

“We have the dual-track policy, and we believe that policy works and is effective,” the official said. “It will take some time for all of that to play out. We will do whatever we need to do to make that effective.”

What’s the Bottom Line?
“All negotiations begin with each side putting on the table its most extreme demands,” said Ambassador Thomas Pickering in an interview with Christiane Amanpour, and that seems to have been the case this past week. Now lower-level personnel will look in detail at the proposals and develop counterproposals and potential compromises.

It’s hard to interpret the comments, both positive and negative. The essential discussion took place behind closed doors. Public statements may be intended for domestic audiences or for negotiating purposes. They may also be genuine. The domestic purposes could include positioning the speaker relative to internal power plays, preparing the public for a change from previous policies, or playing to electoral audiences. Negotiating purposes could be to bluff the other side or to move the talks to a more congenial basis; that could include both in a good-cop/bad-cop approach.

Although the full texts of the proposals are not available, here are a few observations:
The P5+1 proposal couples an end to 20% enrichment to provision of fuel plates for the Tehran Research Reactor, the purpose for which the Iranians say they are enriching to that relatively high level. This high level is of concern to the P5+1 because it would be relatively easy to enrich the 20% uranium to weapons-grade levels of 90% and more.

There has been a significant international effort, led by the United States and Russia, to refit research reactors like the TRR to use low-enriched uranium. Refitting the TRR in this way would be consistent with actions of many other countries to make these reactors more proliferation-resistant. Part of the P5+1 offer is to do this.

It appears from the latest IAEA report (pdf) that Iran is using all its 20% enriched uranium to fabricate fuel plates for the TRR. Thus, the net result of ending 20% enrichment and accepting fuel plate fabrication elsewhere would be little change from the present situation. Iran now has the capability of fuel plate fabrication in case the international supply ends. Further, the fuel would be even easier to fabricate if the TRR were redesigned or a new reactor supplied to run on 3.5% enriched uranium.

The big change, if these steps were taken, would be development of confidence by both sides that the other will follow through on their promises. This is the real issue being addressed and necessary for further, bigger steps.

Airplane parts have been one of the items for which trade has been restricted with Iran by sanctions. This would represent a loosening of sanctions, although a much smaller loosening than, say, delay of the sanctions on oil scheduled for July 1.

Iran’s two sticking points seem to be a desire to delay and remove sanctions, and that their right to enrichment be recognized. The first is a major step and would seem to require an equivalent major step on their side, say a suspension of all enrichment for a stated period of time or until some milestone was reached. The Iranians seem to be arguing that any actions to modify their nuclear program must be reciprocated by removal of all sanctions, or even preceded by removal of sanctions. This is the publicly stated position; whether they are willing to negotiate remains to be seen.

The Iranian view has been that their participation in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty assures them the right to enrichment via Article IV of that document. But the P5+1 and the UN Security Council resolutions make that right conditional on compliance with other provisions of the treaty. Iran has concealed actions in the past that have violated its obligations under the NPT.

Previously, the P5+1 made Iran’s suspending all enrichment a precondition for talks or an early requirement in the negotiations. That requirement has not been reported in this round of negotiations. In fact, the ending of 20% enrichment seems to be the only provision being put forth by the P5+1. This is much less than the demand that all enrichment be suspended. It could be seen as a first step toward a requirement for ending all enrichment, which is probably part of Iran’s concern. Alternatively, it could be seen as a step towards Iran’s indicating to the world that it can be responsible in its nuclear activities.

A Needle To Be Threaded?
It seems to me that the most important statements to come out of the two meetings have been covered hardly at all in the press. From Ashton’s official statement from the Istanbul meeting:

We have agreed that the NPT forms a key basis for what must be serious engagement, to ensure all the obligations under the NPT are met by Iran while fully respecting Iran's right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

And it’s been so little quoted that I don’t have a link, but there was a statement last week to the effect that the IAEA talks between Director General Yukiya Amano and the Iranians were completely separate and decoupled from the P5+1 negotiations.

It is the NPT that assures Iran the right to enrich, as long as Iran meets its other provisions. Whether Iran is meeting those obligations is the subject of the UNSC resolutions and the discussions with the IAEA. In the past, the resolutions have been put first (the requirement that Iran suspend enrichment), with a threat of regime change underlying them, even an explicit threat from some quarters of the P5+1. That requirement and threat have been absent from the latest two meetings. This opens some space for discussion of Iran’s right to enrich vis-à-vis its intentions for the nuclear program, perhaps even actions to support the Supreme Leader’s statements against nuclear weapons.

The result of recent IAEA negotiations carried out by Director General Amano has not yet been made public. The subject was the Parchin facility, which is claimed to have been the site of nuclear-weapons-related testing. Testing of polonium-beryllium neutron initiators, implosion assemblies, or hydrodynamic testing have been mentioned as possitilities. Decoupling these negotiations from the P5+1 negotiations removes a potential point of breakdown for the P5+1 negotiations. Allowing the IAEA access to Parchin has been a highly sensitive issue for the Iranians and a source of much external controversy.

These two simplifications open a space for discussing Iran’s right to enrichment under the proper safeguards. They may be the most important outcomes of the negotiations so far.


Cross-posted at Nuclear Diner, where there is also a fairly wonky article evaluating some of the claims and counterclaims about Iran's Parchin containment vessel.
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* This group consists of the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, and Germany. P5+1 refers to the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany. E3+3 refers to the three members of the EU plus the other three.

Bits and Pieces - May 24, 2012

Fast food portions have increased since the 1950s and so have waistlines.

Feminism in action. Finally.

The World Health Organization has issued a report on the radiation risks from Fukushima and finds them very small. The United Nations Scientific Committee on the effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR)is starting a study of Fukushima that will contribute to the understanding of the effects of low-level radiation. They expect to have preliminary results by next May.

Mixtures and Compounds, Reactions and Energy, and the Great Pacific Plastic Patch

Let's take the last first. Apparently the Great Pacific Plastic Patch, where ocean currents collect discarded plastic junk, has been misrepresented by use of a photo from Manila Harbor, which shows a guy paddling a boat through a layer of garbage, mostly plastic. According to Scripps Institution marine biologist Miriam Goldstein, who has actually been there, it's not like that. The plastic is there, but it's in much smaller pieces and more spread out. The danger to fish and birds, often exemplified by a cut-open stomach crammed with plastic, may be overhyped too. Read the whole thing.

That article is titled, "Lies You've Been Told About the Pacific Garbage Patch." It's not clear to me that "lies" is the right word. "Stuff that makes a better story" or "the only way I can visualize this" might be closer, the "I" being a reporter. Or it's possible that an overwrought scientist made it sound like this or provided a not-too-carefully-researched photo.

Additionally, the National Academies of Science held a colloquium on science communication and I wrote a letter to the editor of the New Yorker on errors in a story by David Owen in their May 14 issue.

I've been half-watching tweets from the NAS event. It looks like the conclusions were the usual: science reporters need a better background, scientists need to do a better job of explaining, there is little or no motivation for either.

The David Owen article, "The Artificial Leaf" (subscription only), appears to contain two common misunderstandings: what chemical compounds are and what makes chemical reactions happen. Neither is stated explicitly, but Owen's misunderstanding those two foundational concepts is the only explanation for some of what is in the article. It also appears that the scientist being interviewed, Daniel Nocera, was funning Owen, whose limitations in understanding chemistry prevented him from understanding that.

Chemical compounds are often referred to as a mixture of elements. This is incorrect. In a mixture, there is no chemical change. In a compound, there is. So sodium, a soft silvery metal that reacts wildly with water, and chlorine, a pungent and corrosive green gas, react chemically to form the rather innocuous sodium chloride, table salt. In reacting, they share electrons, a serious commitment that, if you want to express it in journalistic terms, is sort of like sex. Dog sex, where the participants get stuck together and are hard to separate.

Water is a chemical compound, not a mixture, of hydrogen and oxygen, two hydrogen atoms sharing electrons with one oxygen atom. It's not very reactive, unless you react it with something very reactive, like sodium. Or put energy into it, by hydrolysis or by using a photoactive catalyst and sunlight, which are the two methods Owen discusses.

Chemical reactions are rearrangements of atoms, but they are also rearrangments of energy. A mixture (physical mixture, not compound) of hydrogen gas and oxygen gas has more energy than does the water that results from their sometimes explosive reaction. The excess energy is given off as heat. Turning that around, producing hydrogen gas and oxygen gas from water requires an energy input. (I'm ignoring entropy for this discussion.)

Unless a reaction produces energy, it can't happen. Catalysts only facilitate reactions that will happen anyway.

Human beings run on respiration. We breathe in molecular oxygen and react it with carbon-containing fuels (fats, sugars) to produce carbon dioxide. Those reactions, very much like controlled combustion, produce heat. The combustion that runs automobiles and generates electricity also reacts molecular oxygen with carbon- and hydrogen-containing compounds to produce carbon dioxide and water.

The fact that carbon dioxide and water are the products indicates that they have little energy left to give up. This is a useful rule of thumb for judging, say, schemes to run automobiles on water. (Hint: not possible.)

Back to Owen's article. He spends a fair bit of time on the electrolysis of water because this is an analogy to what Nocera is trying to do: split water using solar energy. However, Owen gets several things wrong along the way, or finds things remarkable that are simple consequences of what a knowledgeable reporter should understand. Hydrogen is reactive, not because it is light (molecular weight? density? buoyancy? Owen doesn't say), but because of its energy relationships. It is not remarkable that water, a product of combustion, does not combust. Hydrogen is an energy carrier because energy must be input to split water.

Nocera complicates things by declaring that liquid nitrogen, that ooh-aah fuming liquid in funny jars, is necessary "to make stuff," whatever that may mean. He throws in quantum spin liquids and using microwaves "to cook chemicals" to further impress someone who must have shown his ignorance early on.

Owen kind of glances off the idea that the purpose of artificial photosynthesis is to store solar energy. He understands that the point is to make hydrogen and then burn the hydrogen, but, although he mentions that hydrogen is an energy carrier, he never seems to make the connection. I suspect that his lack of clarity stems from his ignorance of chemistry. And his portrait of Nocera might have been different if Owen had been able to tell when Nocera was joking.

Update: One more to add to this list of shame.

Reuel Marc Gerecht and and Mark Dubowitz beat the drums for war against Iran. It's a small point within their larger drum-beating, but separation science isn't subject to authority.

Western powers seem ready to concede to Khamenei the “right” to enrich uranium to 5 percent, which would, according to Olli Heinonen, former deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, put Iran two-thirds of the way toward making bomb-grade uranium.

The energy put into enriching uranium to 5 percent is indeed about two-thirds of the energy needed to enrich to 90 percent. Anyone can calculate that from an elementary chemical engineering textbook. It's not necessary to cite Olli Heinonen.

Another Update: From Steve Clemons:

Fred Espenak is Scientist Emeritus for Goddard Space Flight Center, and a retired NASA astrophysicist. He is known throughout the world for his work on eclipse predictions and blogs at MrEclipse.com. His website lists dates and times for future solar eclipses through the year 2020.

The ancient Mayas knew how to predict eclipses. The Babylonians knew how to predict eclipses. The tables called ephemerides list eclipses out into some long future. (I'm being lazy and not looking things up, like Steve didn't.) If Fred Espenak is a well-known astrophysicist, I doubt that it's for his predictions of eclipses.

The Prickly Pears In My Yard

One of the things I love about my yard is the great variety of local plants, including a number of cactus. The past few years, however, many of my prickly pears have been attacked by mealybugs. They have entirely killed some clumps, and earlier this year they were looking voracious, abetted by rabbits that were quite willing to munch through the spears and glochids (the tiny, almost unseeable, prickles that you can't get out of your fingers).

But the cactus are coming back with blooms and new growth. I have at least three kinds of prickly pear native to the yard and have added other kinds that aren't but are resistant to frost. The mealybugs seem particularly to like the smallest, spiniest variety.

Here are some photos (mealybugs first):

The white things are the mealybugs, sucking the juices out of the cactus. But this one is making a flower anyway. Or perhaps in desperation of making seeds as it succumbs. All of the infected cactuses, though, look healthier today than they have been. We had a tiny bit of rain last night, which may have helped.

The upper left-hand corner is a rabbit munch. Don't know how they do it!

And here's a beavertail prickly pear (Opuntia basilaris) that I planted, doing what I want it to do: stopping erosion. Those pads are very good at that!

Outrage

I received a missive from a long-time friend this afternoon. I've known that she's moved toward the Republican side for some time, asked her not to send me stuff a while ago, so this was something of a surprise.

It was pretty much incoherent, although the outrage was clear. Something about a crotch salute, which (I googled) has to do with the position of President Obama's hands in military circumstances. By the standards of the Right, Presidents (particularly this President) must do certain things at certain times, particularly saluting the flag, whether it is by the hand over heart or the pseudo-military handflick from head that President Bush enjoyed. I'm recalling that Mitt Romney failed in this gesture at least once, but I'm not outraged enough to google that.

I also won't google something I saw recently that said that this saluting thing (along with the flag pin on lapel is fairly recent, particularly the pseudo-military variety, which seems to go back only two presidents or so.

But OUTRAGE! NOT AN AMERICAN! (caps from the source)

It's that outrage that I'm wondering about. What function does it serve?

I'm in a listserv in which one of the members seems to need to provide an OUTRAGE first thing every morning. It may be that this is his substitute for, or supplement to, his morning caffeine. I'm one of those lucky people who don't seem to need caffeine or OUTRAGE in the morning. So I can just delete early-morning e-mails from that person. Much better.

Or another listserv on which this OUTRAGE was posted. To be fair, it wasn't posted with quite the same outrage as my other two examples. A touch of fear, though, it seemed to me.

It does seem that the authors of that one are outraged in a polite academic way or perhaps are trying to develop some outrage in their readers. So many illicit radiological incidents! (And let's throw the word smuggling in for emphasis!)

But a careful look at the list shows that many of the incidents are simply "reports", which probably mean nothing, or if they were something, may be replicated by real reports on the list. Others are of detectors set off by natural materials like granite and vermiculite. Not quite bomb material.

So are these authors dishonest or ignorant? And the reviewers and the editors and the people they work for...?

David Kaiser writes a worthy post once a week. This week's is on

dau tranh, or struggle, the philosophy behind the Vietnamese Communist revolution. Dau tranh, Pike explains, had two forms: military and political. Of the two, the political was far more important, and indeed, the Viet Cong always had several times as many active political workers as soldiers during the Vietnam War. Their mission was to rally their own troops and sow confusion among the enemy, doing whatever they could, in particular, to make the South Vietnamese government unable to function effectively.

He goes on to speculate that the Republicans are using dau tranh, have been using it for a decade or more.

It seems to me that far too much of this OUTRAGE is dau tranh. It confuses us and keeps us in a perpetual state of caffeine jitters. Kaiser thinks there may be no counter to it.

I wrote back to my friend in a friendly tone, suggesting that not everything one reads is to be believed, mentioned the lovely spring day and hoped that it was as beautiful where she is. I'm hoping that's part of a counter.

This Is Important

What I like about this news item is that it shows that nature just keeps on doing what it's doing, even when it might not seem that way.

And that it's helpful to us humans, who, after all, are part of nature.

Just Wondering

I flew to Wisconsin over the weekend. Leaving Milwaukee on Monday morning, my airplane was a smallish Embraer, three seats across, eighteen rows. That's a total of 54 people, a few less for the one-seat rows near the front.

The temperature was in the low to mid seventies. Milwaukee's altitude is 581.2 feet, pretty close to sea level.

As the temperature goes up, the air thins and it becomes more difficult for a plane to take off. This is called density altitude: warmer air makes the plane perform as though it were at a higher altitude, and it can't carry as much cargo (bodies, luggage).

While we were still in the terminal, the airline personnel were asking two people to volunteer to take a later flight for $400 in vouchers. On the plane, they asked for another volunteer: $500 in vouchers. Plus they were rearranging the luggage in the forward and rear compartments to get a satisfactory weight and balance, the distribution that can cause flight problems. Two of us in the front seats were asked to volunteer to go to the back to help with the weight and balance. I volunteered to get the flight off the ground, and so did a man.

What I'm wondering is what will happen when it gets really warm. If they can't fly with all the seats full in seventy-degree weather, they will have to fly with many fewer when summer comes to Milwaukee. Not to mention Denver and Albuquerque, which are 5000 feet or so altitude.

So why did they cram so many seats in? What is the cost when they have to give vouchers to get people off the plane? Taking out one or two rows of seats might give the others a reasonable amount of room. But then people would be able to contrast that with the much less limited capability to squash people into sardine-like compartments in the larger jets. And we couldn't have that.

Bits and Pieces - Rainbow Edition

Seems like there are a number of good posts on various equality themes today. And some others.

The business about "first gay president" has seemed silly to me. Bill Clinton as "first black president" seemed silly too, although there was more basis that he had shared some of the culture. Simply coming out in favor of one group or another doesn't confer that group's experience and characteristics on anyone. Michelangelo Signorile agrees.

Juan Cole with some history and observations on what makes up "white people."

I guess that now that this initiative has been outed, the GOP won't be able to play the race card in exactly this way. But I'm sure that Joe Ricketts and his money will find a way. Repudiated today by Mitt Romney in public, but who knows what kind of horse-trading is going on behind the scenes.

This political changing of people's minds must often be a long-term project. This article makes that point about Germany and Greece.

Hawaii bans plastic bags. When I was traveling across the Texas high plains in March, they were blowing everywhere. Even as I write this, one is smothering one of the cactuses in my yard.

Finally, some frightening claims about Fukushima Unit 4's spent fuel pool got a lot of play over the past couple of weeks. They were nonsense, but believed by many people. Some better information here and here.

Added later: Wealthy venture capitalist tells TED that economics says the wealthy need to pay more taxes. TED cans the video. Text of talk here.

Progress report on the great blue heron nest: All five eggs hatched successfully, and the babies are looking good. Feeding time is a hoot.

Western Wallflower

Erisymum capitatum.

John Boehner Puts On The Full Crazy Suit

Remember last summer's suspenseful adventures of the New Republican Tea Party? When they threatened to do something that even Greece hasn't quite done yet - default on the country's debt? When American bonds were downgraded?

Well, they love the country so much that they want to do it again. John Boehner said so yesterday.

It seems to me that deliberately sabotaging the country's financial standing verges on (is?) treason. It's like when a couple divorces and one of them manages to pull all the money from their joint bank accounts.

Except we're not so lucky to have the Republicans getting out of our lives with their addictions to racism and failed economics.

It looks like Ezra Klein will be following this. That's good, because it makes me sick.

Update: Stan Collender confirms my headline.

More from Ezra.

Update (5/17/12): Ezra: OTOH,...

A Fat Cat We're Sad To Lose

Meow, the 39-pound cat died over the weekend of respiratory failure. He seems to have been a sweet cat, although allowed to eat far too much.

The other fat cats, who were allowed far too much latitude in financial derivatives, sadly, are still with us.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf - Updated 5/8/12

My Twitter stream, about the middle of the afternoon, started telling me that the CIA had acquired an improved underwear bomb. The various reports were that a plot had been thwarted, but the person with the bomb hadn't been found, and a number of other confusing details. That's par for the course on Twitter. The early news reports didn't have much information. It's the CIA, and if the reporters printed any information, they'd have to kill them, haha.

Almost immediately, the questions began pouring in with no answers. No sources, no country identified, no information about how the bomb was acquired or why it was an improved model (improved detonator was mentioned). Would it be detectable by the naked scanners, which, after all, were brought in to detect precisely such things? Which airline?

And, along with the questions, the snark. Was this an FBI plot disrupted by the CIA?

@dougsaunders: Just when underwear was beginning to recover its respect and credibility, it gets caught up in another bomb plot.

@stevehynd: New HuffPo/Yahoo! "sex sells" photogallery: "10 celebrity underwear choices you couldn't fit a bomb into" in 3...2...

@joshuafoust: Anonymous officials allege plot by unknown people broken up using unclear methods. Natsec reporting in a sad nutshell

@mattduss: Maybe bin Laden's directive to "keep trying to blow up your underwear" will be in the next batch of docs

@lrozen: Maybe CIA can enlist underwear manufacturer/distributors to Yemen to add some more flame retardant? #likelockingcockpitdoors

There have been a number of "terrorist plots" here at home that have depended on FBI informants for ideas and materials. Reports of TSA being missing hazardous materials while harassing four-year-old girls and grandmothers in wheelchairs continue. And we are regularly treated to alarums and excursions about how terrible a cyberattack would be if there were an attacker and if it were possible to damage physical things with code. So much hype, so little content.

Please look at the title of this post. It is a reference to a folk tale, which, if you haven't heard it as a child, you can probably find through Google.

A more modern version is that people turn off alarms that go off too readily. The snark on my Tweetfeed is the same thing. The counter to it was anticipated by one of my follows, something about a pool for which outfit, probably rightwing, would be the first to declare this a victory for the terrorists. That doesn't seem to have happened yet, but it probably will, a partial corrective to the snark in keeping us vigilant and the manufacturers of bodyscanners and whatever new gadget is in the pipeline wealthy.

Convincing people that governmental announcements of danger can be ignored seems like a bad idea to me. Yes, get the news out, but make it matter of fact.

Ah, more coming in:
@will_mccants: now reports of more undi-bombs on the loose. unsubtle junk scratching on planes next few days may lead 2 passenger beat down

Update (5/8/12): Well, it looks like a CIA informant delivered the bomb. It's not clear whether this means that the CIA is doing much better in infiltrating al-Qaeda or that it's another law-enforcement-enabled bunch of screwups. It does explain why the CIA announced they had the bomb but not the bomber.

Meanwhile, the TSA is breaking insulin pumps for diabetics.

Further Update: It looks like maybe they got it right this time. NYT, WaPo.

Legacies of the Manhattan Project - May 12-13

Next weekend, May 12-13, at the Santa Fe Institute, a hand-picked group of physicists, historians, social scientists, systems theorists, and writers will examine the long-term legacies of the Manhattan Project in a timely discussion of an important event in world history that still influences science and society today. Harold Agnew, who was part of the historic effort to develop the first atomic bomb, will participate in the discussion.

SFI is collaborating with Nuclear Diner to bring the discussion to you live on Twitter. You can participate before, during, and after by searching for the hashtag #bomblegacy or following @nucleardiner. Before the event, you can also leave questions at Nuclear Diner and the Facebook event page. If you "like" the Facebook page, you will get updates throughout the week and continuing information after the workshop.

The group will discuss new information, review original records, and mine the memories of project participants to present a case study in conflict from an important period in scientific history.

More about the Santa Fe Institute working group, including biographies of the participants and discussion topics, here.

Many of SFI’s founders were senior fellows at Los Alamos National Laboratory. As the Institute has emerged as a leader in complexity science, particularly in working toward a theory of conflict in human and animal societies, the Manhattan Project has become an important case study for understanding conflict. The project’s history also illustrates the occasional tension between pure theoretical research and applied science.

Chen Guancheng: No Easy Choices - Updated 5/5/12

A blind activist shows up at the US Embassy in Beijing. He and his family are being threatened. The movie version is that the brave diplomats spirit him out in the dark of night, lying on the floor of the back seat of the limousine, and fly him to safety.

The reality is otherwise. Embassies represent an agreement with the host country not to mess with internal issues. This is an especially sensitive consideration when there are big differences between the countries' internal policies. An embassy can't set up as dissident central, in open opposition to the host country's policies.

That means that when someone like Chen Guancheng comes to the US Embassy, it's a problem for all concerned. The details of his arrival, while not all available, make for even more of a problem. His human rights are clearly being threatened, and his life and family may be in danger. What any person would want is for that danger to be removed. The problem is how to do it.

The movie version is not available. Sorry, it just isn't under international law and the conventions that apply to embassies. And, in any case, Chen didn't bring his family with him, so they would be left to face the authorities, probably in more danger than they are now.

So, no, Mitt Romney, and no, hardline leftist human rights activists, it's not that President Obama and/or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are miserable people, suborning human rights to the financial ties to China. I suspect that the best people in the State Department and White House are trying to figure out the path to the best outcome. The incident isn't over. Stay tuned.

I'm not at all a China expert, so I can't speak to the politics involved. Here's some commentary that takes the realities into account from people who know more about China than I do.


Debacle in Beijing

Blame China, not the U.S., for the Plight of Chen Guangcheng

the Ai precedent

Update (5/5/12): The situation seems to be in the process of resolution, and there seems to be a good chance that the Chen family will be allowed to go to the United States. James Joyner links some articles worth reading in full, and I particularly emphasize the article by Max Fischer, which says, in effect, that Chen seems to have believed the movie version.

And it's not over yet.

Bits and Pieces - April 30, 2012

Perhaps the New Yorker could share its surplus of dots-over-letters with the New York Times, which doesn't seem to believe in them.

If we want electricity, the generating plants have to be put somewhere.

For those of us who have been struggling with the problem like, forever, this is a duh moment. But Foreign Policy is trying to make up to us for its horrible misjudgement on its latest SEX ISSUE cover.

Where did Los Alamos staff get their Ph.D.s?

As the days go on and North Korea doesn't do another nuclear test, I will go out on a limb and say they won't do one any time soon. I'm also wondering where the idea that they will use uranium came from. Facts? A leak? Or just out of, um, the thin air?

Good for China. Now that they've said this, it would be a good idea for the United States and/or Russia to engage them and invite them to the ongoing talks leading up to the next round of nuclear weapons reductions. And encourage them to be more forthcoming about exactly how many nuclear weapons they have. This statement took place at the regular conference of nations in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, checking up on progress. If you're up for it, here's a longish article on another result that would be good coming from this meeting but probably won't. Wonkish.

Bits and Pieces - April 26, 2012

Today is the twenty-sixth anniversary of the reactor explosion at Chernobyl.

I love the Norwegians. I wish we had more coverage of the Breivik trial in the US, so we could see how stupid our security fixation and propensities to hate are.

Another story we're not hearing enough about. Or that Murdoch owns Fox. And the Wall Street Journal. The Guardian is doing a good job. The Agonist, where I sometimes also post, has more on this than a lot of places.

I've always enjoyed the movie Red Dawn (the 1984 version). A lot of the scenery is from around here, and the irony of justifying boobytrapping bodies, which had been seen as a manifestation of evil when the Viet Cong did it, was intriguing. And now the Russians are coming to Colorado. But it's the Front Range, not the valleys.

Republicans are backing cuts in the nuclear weapons budget. We'll see how long that lasts.

Some good background reading on nuclear nonproliferation in the Middle East and North Korea.

Added later: Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein (the second from the American Enterprise Institute) say it: The Republicans are the Problem.

Charli Carpenter Gets It Right on Foreign Policy's Sex Issue

Blake Hounshell, currently the managing editor of Foreign Policy, and once upon a time the blogger known as Praktike, has been all over the twitter machine the past few days hawking FP's SEX ISSUE!

Yes, sex sells, and yes, I read some of the articles. I was particularly disgusted at the illustrations of a nude woman with a burkha painted on her body. Yes, FP was selling articles about the sexploitation of women with, um, a woman's body. Whatta concept!

I thought about griping about it, but I've got beta lot on my plate right now, and, although that kind of blind and unthinking sexism continues to irritate me, decided not to take the time.

Which was just as well, because Charli Carpenter nails it. Required reading for the Foreign Policy editorial staff.

And I particularly like the graphic!


Many thanks to @dandrezner and @BulletinAtomic for tweeting and retweeting Carpenter's article.

Rocky Mountain Penstemon

Penstemon strictus.

Oddly, this is the only penstemon blooming in the neighborhood. It's in a sunny place that probably got a little more moisture during the winter than others, but there are literally thousands of penstemon plants around, and I haven't seen another one that looks like it's getting ready to bloom.

If you look very carefully at the enlarged photo, you can see a bee hovering to the right of the plant.

We Need Some Disruptive Thinking Here

It’s hard to break out of a mindset. It’s harder whan you don’t have a simple substitute.

So Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft, who spent the heights of their careers in the Cold War, need some disruptive thinking. Let’s see if I can provide it.

At least six of their eight key facts depend heavily on Cold-War assumptions, the major one being that the United States and the Sov...er...Russia are enemies. Is that true?

The Soviet Union died in 1991. Fourteen republics, most of which were unhappy about their forcible integration into the Union, became independent, along with Russia. Two years earlier, Mikhail Gorbachev gave up Soviet puppetry in the satellite nations. Some of those nations have become members of the European Union and NATO.

But it’s Russia that inherited the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons. Its capitol continues at Moscow, and it inherited the Red Army. What it did not inherit, explicitly disavowed by Gorbachev was the Soviet policy of exporting class warfare. In fact, after 1991, that policy made no sense in a newly capitalistic Russia.

The nuclear arms race, slowed before then, was ended. America sent help to Russia in converting its nuclear security system to an inventory basis. Americans worked with Russians on other nuclear-related issues, and Russian scientists moved to America.

The two nations do not face each other militarily anywhere, directly or through proxies, and they have worked together in Central Asia.

So what is to be done about those nuclear arsenals? They seem to have a life of their own, with missiles still targeted across the northern hemisphere. Under what circumstances might they be launched? It’s possible to imagine a number of Cold-War-type scenarios, but they seem highly unlikely. The most likely scenario would seem to be accidental. So there is a motivation for eliminating those arsenals as quickly as possible.

Kissinger and Scowcroft’s first three points are straight out of Herman Kahn: strategic stability, and second strike. Strategic stability is a concern, in the credibility of reductions. Their fourth point almost addresses this, but it is in the Kahnian mode. Verification is the basis for this credibility, but, rather than the uncertainty associated with the measurements, the methods are the primary concern. Credibility now lies in the status of warheads taken out of service. That means counting warheads and access to storage and decommissioning facilities, unthinkable in Kahn’s time.

Their point five would apply Kahnian logic to the up-and-coming nuclear powers: China, India, Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea. But until the United States and Russia come down to several hundred nuclear weapons, this is simply not an issue. The analysis may be worth doing, but it is hard to see how being in the same range of nuclear numbers would damage strategic stability. In any case, none of those countries poses a serious threat to the United States. And joining up together? Please.

Which brings us to point six, which, like point four, has been addressed both in the New START Treaty and the recent Nuclear Posture Review. Bringing in other countries as the US and Russian numbers approach theirs will indeed be necessary. Britain is already addressing its numbers, and, IIRC, the US is beginning informal talks with China.

Point seven is a rehash of point one, strategic stability. People who do that sort of thing do indeed consider missiles, both defensive and offensive. And, again, tactical nuclear weapons are on the New START to-do list. Point eight is being addressed in an ongoing way, as our allies and we work out what defenses are necessary in the post-Cold-War world.

It’s tempting to look for enemies, particularly when that is what one’s career was based on. But the sort of enmity that characterized the Cold War is gone, most likely never to return. What could make it return is refusing to believe that things have changed. The Republican presidential candidates seemed to want to see Russia in the Cold War Soviet mold. I was at a lecture last week where one of the questioners kept referring to the Soviets when he meant the current-day Russians. And now Kissinger and Scowcroft come back to Herman Kahn.

Having one big enemy simplifies a lot of strategy. The world today isn’t offering one up, just a lot of little headaches that could grow bigger.

More disruptive thinking, please!

Cross-posted at Nuclear Diner and The Agonist.

Bits and Pieces - April 23, 2012

Politics with Socrates:

He felt it was vitally important to admit that the human condition is one of profound uncertainty, deep doubt. We are in between creatures. On the one hand, we are not ignorant and un-self-aware like most other animals. We can learn much. But on the other hand, we are not omniscient and all-seeing like the gods.

This is why the lust for certainty is a sin, as a former Archbishop of York put it, because certainty demands the eradication of doubts and imagining you are a god. Forget that life is enveloped not just by known unknowns but unknown unknowns and you will fall like Icarus from the sky.

Hero Lady Cop Will Probably Be Fired For Stopping Police Beatdown, Because Duh

Young men's dropping out of pretty much everything continues to puzzle me. I am tempted to say that it is a result of the incomplete transformation begun in the sixties to gender equity, but I can't prove that.

A Nation of Spoiled Brats. A view from Britain.

Scandinavian Airports Reject Shin Bet Racial Profiling Security Screening Procedures.

Bits and Pieces - Iran Edition

And now we face the rushing wave of op-ed pieces on what's next in the negotiations with Iran. Just before last week's meeting, there was such a wave, much of which was highly repetitive and a somewhat smaller portion was wrong. If I had a spare week or so, I would go over all that and show which writers you needn't read any more on the subject because they were so far off on that first meeting.

But I don't have a spare week or so. Instead, I'll pick up some of the better commentary from this week. Subsequent pieces are likely to repeat some of this or go off on hobbyhorses.

If you want to follow only one commenter on negotiating with Iran, Gary Sick is the one. He was involved in the 1979 negotiations over the hostage crisis. He has a tumblr to which he posts his own work and articles that he finds worth reading.

Sick recommends an article by John Limbert and another in which Sick looks at what the history of Iran's nuclear program might tell us about the present.

BTW, Al Monitor is a good source of information and commentary about the Iran negotiations. Laura Rozen has some inside stuff there from last week's negotiations. Looks like the Iranians are really concerned about the sanctions.

Michael Brzoska, Oliver Meier, and Götz Neuneck gives their seven steps toward an agreement. Look for a lot of articles like this over the next month. This is likely among the better of them, but I don't have time to work through it today.

And, finally, Max Fischer provides some polling data that says that Americans are more afraid of Iran now than we were of the Soviet Union in the 1980s. I would be less generous to the media than he is.

Just Wondering

if the fetishizing of law-enforcement personnel after 9/11, the assault vehicles for ordinary police departments, the Darth Vader protective gear, the chemical weapons, the excessive force that police are allowed, the humiliating TSA procedures, if all those things might just have gone to the elite Secret Service cops' heads to convince them they're above petty rules.

David Ignatius Gets It Right

I'm not a fan of David Ignatius, but this is pretty close to what I would write if I were writing a post like this today.

I think that Ignatius has the broad outlines of the negotiations right:

“Step-by-step” and “reciprocity” are the two guideposts for this exercise. They mark a dignified process for making concessions, much like the formula that President Obama used in his January 2009 inaugural address when he first signaled his outreach to Iran: “We seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”

The Russians first suggested the step-by-step approach, and I hope they'll eventually get credit for that. Now is not the time, however; we need a success first.

Ignatius's reading of the shape of the deal is vague and will allow him to claim he predicted whatever happens later:

The Iranians seem to be preparing their public for a deal that limits enrichment while preserving the right to enrich. In an interview Monday with the Iranian student news agency, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi explained that “making 20 percent fuel is our right,” but that “if they guarantee that they will provide us with the different levels of enriched fuel that we need, then that would be another issue.” Salehi seemed to be reviving a 2009 Turkish plan to export Iran’s low-enriched uranium abroad, and receive back 20 percent fuel for its Tehran research reactor, supposedly to make the isotopes. That earlier deal collapsed because of opposition from Khamenei, who apparently is now ready to bargain.

There's more worth reading.

Pet Peeves - Language and Ethnicity

For a short while, it looked like Rosetta Stone was going to include both halves of the human race in its language program. But they've gone back to men as the only species that needs to learn other languages.

Proud fathers with graduating sons who will become successes. Learn a language to impress hot babes! And then, for a short time, a family, with dog, to show us how the system works. But then back to brave muscled explorers climbing a sheer cliff in a veldt-like landscape. And, most recently, a hypertestosteroned guy dancing on his desk because he beat out the competition to get the assignment in Japan.

I guess I was primed by the historical excerpts in Scientific American: John Glenn and the future of man in space (1962) and another one about men, I think designing ships that will be more successful than the Titanic from 1912.

So why do I care about Rosetta Stone? It looks like a method that could help me learn Estonian. Reviews are mixed on the existing languages, though. And they don't have Estonian. I guess none of the guys that the guy owners of Rosetta Stone know are interested in Estonian babes.

Daniel Little has a nice article on ethnicity today. For me, this is less a pet peeve than a continuing question, although louts like the Rosetta Stone guys can make it into a pet peeve.

I have loved expressions of various kinds of ethnicity since I was a child. My best friend and I would pretend to be Russian or a sort of generic Eastern/Central European that we found in relatives' stories and fairy tales, plus our own imagination. We picked up kitsch in second-hand stores when we could afford it. And I loved encountering the real thing. I bought a number of things in my first enthusiasms, things made for people living in those places. Do they become kitsch when I bring them home?

I've thought about writing more about my adventures in other countries. But it's very, very hard to write things like that through an American viewpoint that don't condescend to the people and their traditions. Some of it seems worth sharing. But I haven't found a way to do it that I'm comfortable with.

And yeah, I hate most travel writing.

Bits and Pieces - April 14, 2012

When you think the world is screwed up, try to put yourself back into 1950.

Another war avoided!

Some sense on airport security. I don't suppose anyone who might change the policies is listening, though.

American media isn't giving us near enough on the travails of the Murdoch family. That's a sitcome I'd be willing to watch!

A shout-out to a very enjoyable blog on geology.

Choosing Wisely: trying to figure out the utility of medical and diagnostic treatments.

For those of you who have read the whole post, a really marvelous livecam: a great blue heron nest in New York State. Unlike most livecams, it has sound, so I can listen to the redwinged blackbirds, geese, and ducks that remind me of being at Bosque del Apache. Very lovely.

Bits and Pieces - April 11, 2012

Here's the only article I've found about Ann Romney's ideas on what mothers do that has much substance.

I do love Siberia - here are photos of the Nenets.

Opinions on how international law affects a possible Israeli attack on Iran.

Some of the numbers on the New START Treaty.

Those of you who are interested in raising chickens should follow this blog. Betty Cracker at Balloon Juice is documenting her start in chicken-raising. Here's the latest. And there's even chicken diplomacy.

A Trip to Trinity Site

It’s about a two and half hour drive to White Sands’s Stallion Gate from my home in Santa Fe. I wasn’t sure of what to expect, so I brought reading material, having heard stories of long waits to get in. I left about six-thirty, got there about nine, and the dozen or so cars in front of me moved through the gate expeditiously, drivers showing a picture id to the security people.

From the gate, it’s another fifteen miles to Trinity. The site is on the beginnings of a mountain elevation, and as you approach, you can see the roughly circular cleared area. You also pass the control bunker before you enter an immense parking lot, directed by young soldiers dressed in camouflage mimicking the creosote-bush vegetation that surrounds the gray gravel lot.

Nothing was as I expected. Far more people, but I guess I couldn’t expect the personal attention I got on my trip to Opytnoe Pole, the site of the Soviet Union’s first nuclear test of essentially the same design that was tested at Trinity. We had maybe a dozen people in two vehicles. I would not be surprised if there were (literally, yes!) a thousand times that at Trinity on Saturday. The car license plates were from all over the United States, and I heard, besides English, Japanese and a Scandinavian language.

Everything is, of course, very trampled. The desert is delicate, but lichens and other small organisms form soil crusts, easily destroyed. So the path to the site and the site itself are dust, what you get when you destroy those soil crusts.

One area of the blast site has been covered to preserve the trinitite pavement. I was surprised to see some trinitite still outside that area. A foamy green piece begged to come keep my Opytnoe Pole spherule company, but I sublimated that need into buying a souvenir windbreaker to be part of my Nuclear Diner wardrobe.

What is left of Jumbo has been moved to the parking area. It was smaller than I expected. Explanatory photos are mounted by the blasted cylinder and on the fence around ground zero, but many people didn’t seem to get it. A couple of guys were looking at a picture of Jumbo on its many-wheeled truck and saying that it was built at Los Alamos. I told them it was built in Pittsburgh and transported by train and truck. Why? They wanted to know. So I told the story that General Groves didn’t want to spread his billion dollars worth of plutonium over the desert and the three possibilities they tested at Los Alamos. I recently was told, by someone who has better connections to that very specialized rumor mill than I have, that the reason Jumbo wasn’t used was the concern that if the explosion went as planned, it would scatter giant shrapnel from Albuquerque to Las Cruces. I take that with a grain of salt, but I passed it along to my listeners.

There was a model of Fat Man on a flatbed truck in the ground zero area. It looked smaller in the crater than the Fat Man model does in the Bradbury Museum.

A nice surprise was a bus out to the MacDonald Ranch. Again, much too walked over.

I did manage to step aside and get alone with my thoughts, although it was much harder than at Semipalatinsk. Both areas have a stark, open beauty. The steppe is greener, and in many places the ground was paved with houseleeks, impossible to walk without stepping on little plants. It may simply be that I am more accustomed to the New Mexico flora. In many places, not just at Trinity, the creosote bushes had died but were coming up again from the roots. I hadn’t seen that before and am wondering if it is from last year’s very dry winter, followed by our recent rain.

The most impressive part to me was the depression, a very shallow crater, formed by the explosion. According to one of the signs, it is eight feet deep, little enough that you almost don't notice it. The stone marker is at precise Ground Zero, under where the device was mounted on a tower.

Stallion Gate is ten miles or so further east on US 380 than the famous Owl Bar and Grill, which seemed to be doing an enormous business as I was leaving, so I decided not to have a chile cheeseburger there. I turned south at that corner. Many years ago, I spent a lot of time at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge photographing birds. Someday, when I have nothing else to do, I will digitize those ten thousand slides.

That was before there was a visitor center and before it cost $5 to drive around the refuge. It was before Socorro’s Festival of the Cranes, and there were times when no other people were on the refuge, even during crane season. Lately I have learned that some people don’t realize that there are any other kinds of birds there.

It was the first time for this camera. I played a bit with the coots, just to get a feel for what might be worth photographing. And I did get lucky: ibis and egrets. I posted one photo yesterday. Here are more.

Great heron with a snack.

White-faced ibis.

White-faced ibis coming in for a landing over snowy egret.


There have been a lot of improvements since my last visit, and lots of water.

Coming back from my Texas trip a couple of weeks ago, I stopped at Bitter Lake NWR and was disappointed. The roads seemed to be fewer than I recalled, and practically all of the cover was gone. I got some really wonderful bittern photos at Bitter Lake a long time ago. In contrast, Bosque is developing some very nice rail and bittern habitat.

If you go:
White Sands opens Trinity Site twice a year, on the first Saturdays in April and October. Information can be found here. A lot of walking is required, perhaps a half-mile from the parking lot to Ground Zero, and just as much to the toilets. People transporters are available. Bring a jacket; the temperature when I arrived was in the sixties, and some people were shivering in shorts. Food is available, along with souvenirs. Looked like mostly burritos, along with various non-alcoholic beverages.

Alcohol and firearms are not allowed on site. Photography is allowed only at Trinity Site. The radiation levels are minimal.

Placeholder

I visited Trinity Site, the place the first atom bomb was exploded, yesterday. I'm working on a photo essay on that, but in the meantime, here's a photo I took yesterday at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, on the way home from Trinity.

White-faced ibis with a snowy egret.

Obama's Signal to Iran - So Much for That

Yesterday David Ignatius told us that President Obama sent a message to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei via Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the United States would accept an Iranian civilian nuclear program if the program was safeguarded and transparent enough to show that it was not directed toward nuclear weapons. This would be a big step toward an agreement between Iran and the rest of the world.

Talks between Iran and the P5+1 are being scheduled for next week or the week after. Earlier, Iran suggested Istabul as the venue. Suddenly this week and Iranian official suggested Baghdad as a preferable meeting place. And now Prime Minister Erdogan says

It is necessary to act honestly. [The Iranians] continue to lose prestige in the world because of a lack of honesty.

Oops.

This may have something to do with the unrest in Syria, where Iran backs the Assad regime. Or it may be something else. Not a good sign for the negotiations.

Update (4/8/12): The Iranians are willing to accept Istanbul for talks. Today, anyway. Hard to say what this means, but it's probably better than their insisting on Baghdad.

Bits and Pieces - April 4, 2012

Driving Inside the Soviets’ Secret Submarine Lair.

Living in a nuclear hell. The Soviets were very casual about disposing of the kinds of nuclear waste that was put into tanks at Hanford and Savannah River in the US: they just poured it into the river.

Clarifying some terms that have to do with the US oil supply.

It has bothered me for some time that so much of Science magazine is behind a paywall. I've wanted to write about their material and didn't many times because I couldn't link to it. Sometimes I take the time to find an article or the press release from Science. Michael Eisen points out that those press releases don't always portray the material accurately.

At first glance, this seems like a good idea: Brazil would take a leadership position in nuclear nonproliferation by eschewing enrichment. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty guarantees peaceful nuclear technology to countries that don't make bombs with it. The problem is that enrichment enables both civilian reactors and bomb-making. Seems to me there needs to be a lot more buy-in by NPT signatories before something like this can happen.

In 2006, Philip Zelikow, then a counselor in the State Department, wrote a memo opposing the use of torture. Yesterday the National Security Archive obtained a copy of that memo through the Freedom of Information Act. Here's the memo, a short article on it in the Washington Post, and more from the National Security Archive.

The Israel-Iran-US Information War

News scoops may happen because of hard work by reporters. That hard work may be supplemented by government officials wanting to leak information that might not be as effectively released through official channels.

Governments may also release information officially that is not true.

Both seem to be happening in the case of Iran, Israel, and the United States. The motives seem to be many and not entirely decipherable.

Iran claims that its nuclear program is for peaceful uses. It has admitted to the pursuit of technologies related to nuclear weapons in the past but says that nuclear weapons are not a current goal, and the ruling mullahs repeat that nuclear weapons are religiously forbidden. However, some of the activities in Iran’s nuclear program lay a foundation for production of nuclear weapons if that decision is taken, and, as a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran is obligated to explain those activities, which it has not. Iran loudly announces advances in its nuclear technology, sometimes claiming more than has been achieved. Putting an Additional Protocol into effect and allowing IAEA inspectors easy access to more sites would help to show the program’s goals, but Iran claims that IAEA inspections in the past have included spies.

Israel has been agitating for an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites and additional sanctions against Iran. Israel claims repeatedly over the years that Iran’s program is reaching a point of no return. The “redline” for attack is poorly defined: the ability to enrich, the development of underground sites, or that Iran can produce a nuclear weapon by some date in the future, some of which have passed with no nuclear weapon in evidence. The poor definition itself may be intended to generate uncertainty. Israel, of course, has long concealed its nuclear weapons programs from the world and even now will not admit to them.

The United States has issued two National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) that say that Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons. It has also pressed for an end to Iran’s enrichment program. The second may be contrary to the goals of the NPT, but that has been fuzzed up by United Nations Security Council resolutions that Iran is in violation of its NPT obligations by withholding information about former weapons work; such resolutions are consistent with limiting a signatory’s rights under the NPT. The Obama administration seems to emphasize an end to Iranian enrichment less than the Bush administration did. At the same time, the President and Secretary of State say that upcoming talks represent a window of opportunity that will not remain open forever.

Evidence on Iran’s nuclear program is difficult to come by, as is information about the sources of that information. The NIEs and the IAEA report from last November don’t provide sources as part of their standard procedure. One likely source has been much discussed: the so-called laptop of death, which may well be a thumb drive or other electronic format. This turned up in 2007 and seems to be part of the IAEA’s evidence, although the IAEA also says that it has done additional checking of the claims it lists in the November report. How much more do the intelligence services of Israel, America, and other countries know about the Iranian program than shows up in the media?

Does Israel really plan to attack Iran? What would be the American response? Presumably President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu discussed these questions more candidly than either has revealed to the press. “We’ve got Israel’s back” is inherently ambiguous. “We’ll back you no matter what you do”? or “We will respond only if Israel is about to be destroyed”?

What are Iran’s intentions for its nuclear program? If they are peaceful, why doesn’t it cooperate more fully with the IAEA?

Motivations are harder to read. Does Iran want a deterrent or a path to regional hegemony? Are Israeli leaders really concerned about a second Holocaust, or are they worried about losing their nuclear weapons monopoly in the region? How far is America influenced by Israel? What do the leaders of the three countries actually believe about the others?

Sheera Frenkel published three articles (here, here, and here) at McClatchy in the beginning of March based on interviews of Israeli officials. She tries to sort fact from propaganda. Bernard Finel suggests three possible motivations for Israel’s latest blast of saber-rattling. There are probably more.

More recently, Mark Perry got a scoop in Foreign Policy: Israel is purchasing the right to use air bases in Azerbaijan, just north of Iran, useful for refueling or landing planes damaged in an attack. Perry’s information is from “several high-level sources I've spoken with inside the U.S. government.” A single source might be speaking on his/her own, but not “four senior diplomats and military intelligence officers.” So the conclusion was easily drawn (by the Christian Science Monitor, Ron Ben-Yishai at Y-Net, and others in Israel) that the United States was trying to scuttle Israel’s preparations for an attack on Iran.

Actions are a somewhat firmer clue than statements. Israel’s war drums have lowered their volume, and Israel seems to be backing off from its apparent sabotage of the Iranian nuclear program. Iran is willing to begin talks again on its nuclear program while warning that it can reply in kind to a military attack. The United States is not advertising detailed expectations of the talks while maintaining a hard line that there must be results.

Articles like this one, of which there have been many over the last month, depend on the author’s best guess as to what the situation and motives are. That goes for what I write as well. Additional layers of “should” are often brought in, the authors recommending what they see as the most desirable actions. Those “shoulds” incorporate more of the hypothetical and unstated assumptions.

It’s important to be alert for those “shoulds”, for the background and expertise of the authors of articles claiming to know the intentions and plans of any of the parties. And to remember that there’s a lot that isn’t known. There’s some hard selling going on.

Cross-posted at Nuclear Diner and The Agonist.

Sapote

Photo: Helmut