The IAEA and the P5+1 Negotiations

This is a fairly wonky post. I would ordinarily publish it at Nuclear Diner, but Nuclear Diner is recovering from a hack attack, and the post is timely.

Two publications from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace are useful in understanding the role of the IAEA in the Iranian nuclear issue.

IAEA Critical for Making Diplomacy with Iran Work, by Mark Hibbs, Ariel Levite, and Pierre Goldschmidt

The Iranian Nuclear Issue: Negotiating a Win-Win SolutionAfter Baghdad, by Pierre Goldschmidt

 They are long and fairly complex, however, so let me attempt to pull out their main points.

As Susan noted (Nuclear Diner link), there are two negotiation tracks with Iran: one with the IAEA and the other with the P5+1. The two are separate, but not unrelated. Hibbs and his co-authors discuss how they might interact, and Goldschmidt suggests negotiating strategies that would involve IAEA interactions with Iran. Quotes are from the Hibbs paper.

As a party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran has signed a safeguards agreement with the IAEA. The purpose of this agreement is to verify that Iran’s nuclear activities are confined to peaceful use. Because Iran did not declare the Natanz facility to the IAEA, as it was required to under the agreement, the IAEA increased its scrutiny of Iran in 2003. Iran signed an Additional Protocol for safeguards, which gives the IAEA additional access beyond the original agreement.  And 

Iran also agreed—as had many other NPT states before—to a 1991 safeguards provision called “Code 3.1” which required states to inform the IAEA about new nuclear facilities as soon as it was decided to build them. But in 2006 and 2007, respectively, Iran suspended implementation of the Additional Protocol (which it never ratified) and Code 3.1. Meanwhile, the IAEA was probing Iran’s nuclear history, and finding evidence it deemed credible that Iran had engaged in secret military research related to nuclear weapons since the late 1980s.

The IAEA was also instructed by its board of governors to investigate this history.

Under the IAEA statute, these findings may serve as the basis for decisionmaking by the board of governors and, thereafter, the UN Security Council. Beginning in 2006, on the basis of the secretariat’s reports to the board and followed by IAEA board referrals, the Security Council imposed sanctions on Iran and enlarged the IAEA’s role in Iran to monitor its compliance with Security Council resolutions.

That is where the IAEA and the Security Council, sponsor of the current talks, have come together in the past. The P5 are the permanent members of the Security Council; Germany is the +1.

In 2007, the IAEA agreed to a “work plan” sought by Iran to eventually conclude the IAEA’s investigation. Since 2008, Iran has claimed it has fulfilled the work plan and, therefore, that Security Council sanctions are groundless and that the IAEA’s role should be limited to routine safeguards on activities that Iran has formally declared to the agency. Since 2011 Iran has promised the IAEA it would increase cooperation if the IAEA declares the 2007 work plan fulfilled. So far, [IAEA Director General Yukiya] Amano has not been willing to do this, especially because Iran has not cleared up allegations that it has worked on development of nuclear explosives.

The backward-looking role of the IAEA would be to investigate and provide a history of Iran’s nuclear activities. This would allow the P5+1 to understand the likely state of Iran’s nuclear program with respect to the development of a nuclear weapons capability. Iran’s making this information available would help to mend the credibility it has lost by its evasions and unwillingness to work with the IAEA on this subject.

The forward-looking IAEA role would be to negotiate agreements with Iran that provide assurance that Iran is not violating its obligations. This would require a new agreement, which has been in negotiation between Iran and the IAEA. Iran has proposed

to address outstanding issues one by one until remaining boxes are checked and without imposing a deadline for Iran to respond to IAEA requests for access to locations, individuals, and documents.

Clearly, this would not provide the assurance needed. An agreement that would allow the IAEA to investigate and resolve questions about its nuclear program would be a basis for a P5+1 agreement with Iran on such issues as limiting 20% enrichment.

The United Nations Security Council, on the basis of IAEA board of governors recommendations, has passed resolutions asking Iran to suspend its enrichment activities and sanctioning Iran. The P5+1 negotiations address Iran’s enrichment and the sanctions.

The papers recommend specific negotiating points:

For the IAEA reconstruction of Iran’s nuclear program,

The six powers negotiating with Iran could support the IAEA by giving Iran immunity from sanctions for any previous undeclared nuclear activity which Iran discloses to the agency.

The six states negotiating with Iran should spell out that a comprehensive settlement must include ratification of the Additional Protocol and the acknowledgement that it is already legally committed to implement the new Code 3.1.

Additional authority should be given to the IAEA to investigate, beyond the Additional Protocol.

They recognize that insisting on Iran’s giving up all enrichment activities will not be accepted by Iran.

The paper by Goldschmidt alone also suggests:

Freeze (not dismantle) activities at the Fordow enrichment facility with verification by the IAEA;

   

Cease enriching beyond 5% U-235, with provision from the P5+1 of fuel assemblies for the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR)

   

Send abroad its low-enriched uranium (LEU) every six months for fuel fabrication for Bushehr and other reactors.

The P5+1 commit to impose no additional UNSC sanctions. This is a significant concession because continuing to enrich uranium below 5% U-235 contravenes five UNSC resolutions.

The U.S. and the EU commit to impose no unilateral or multilateral sanctions beyond those already decided and to suspend those which will take effect this summer as soon and as long as Iran implements its IAEA agreements.

The Cruellest Egotism

That's what Roberto Unger, who taught President Obama two courses at Harvard Law School, is indulging in here. I'm not going to try to embed the video. Frankly, his self-righteous manner makes me ill. But do click the link, because it is to an article by Garry Wills explaining why Dr. Unger is mistaken. Or check out what Richard Barry has to say at The Reaction.

We will have two choices in November, no more. There may be one or two cranky and obscure additions to some ballots in the Presidential slot, but there will be only two serious choices. One will be for more action towards a society that adds still more money to the 1%, still more risk for everyone else, subtracts teachers and other public servants (who needs libraries? Let's privatize the fire department!), multiplies wars and bad feeling toward the United States across the world, and divides the country in its drive to rule. That vote will also be for a country in which women, Hispanics and other minorities, gays, and anyone who isn't a wealthy white male will be harassed and and kept from the rights citizens might expect - decent health care, voting, protection from crime.

The other will be for trying to make government work despite violent opposition, the continuation of the gains that have been made since 2008 and perhaps their expansion (health care, Lily Ledbetter Act, ending Don't Ask Don't Tell, fairer rules on immigration, and more), movement away from the wars we've been fighting for too long, and a whole series of imperfect policies that can be pulled out, one by one, to illustrate the puller's virtue.

Enough! We've just started to pull out of the hole that thirty year's belief in rampant free-marketism and the hate politics that have taken over the Republican Party have dumped us into.

So take your choice in November. You want something else? I'd counsel you to take the choice that is closer to that direction. There will be no revolution if Mitt Romney is elected; the Republicans are doing everything they can to tilt the playing field - Citizens United and voter disqualifications - so it will be harder in 2016. It's not a matter of defeating Obama. It's a matter of electing either Obama and all that goes with him or Romney and all that goes with him.

Bits and Pieces - Moscow Negotiations Edition

It looks like the negotiators in Moscow are being close-mouthed, a good sign that they are seriously negotiating rather than posturing. The bad news is that the standard media talking points will continue.

However, there are several articles this morning that are actually worth reading!

Dennis Ross fleshes out what a "going big" proposal from the P5+1 might look like. The headline should be ignored; Ross probably didn't write it, and it doesn't represent what he is saying. Get a grip, guy - whoever wrote that!

Andrew Parasilti also offers some ideas on "going big." The Al Monitor headline writer obviously leans in the opposite direction from the TNR headline writer but comes a little closer to the content.

Reza Marashi suggests that the Iranians agree to talk to their American counterparts, in particular Saeed Jalili to Wendy Sherman. Jalili is scheduled to have dinner with his Russian counterpart tonight, which may be a first step in that direction. I'll admit my bias is that the Iranians are being dumb not to engage, as has been the situation through the Baghdad meeting. I recognize that it's possible to argue whose "fault" is is back to perhaps the beginning of the American republic, but I don't think that's useful.

Kenneth Waltz tends to believe that more nukes are good nukes, or at least that meeting nukes with nukes makes sense. So he thinks that Iranian nukes will balance Israeli nukes and stabilize the Middle East. He says nothing about the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, however.

Here's an analysis of just what weapons Iran can field in case of attack.

In My Inbox

Not sure how it got there, but here it is:

Memo
From: MSM Editor
To: Reporting Staff

It’s within a week of the next negotiations between the P5+1 and Iran, so we need some commentary from important people on what is likely to or should happen at the talks. If you can’t get someone important, here are some ideas that you can combine with odd facts about Iran’s nuclear program or the 1979 coup or whatever.

• The negotiations will be hard. 
• Choose one; our publication has its preferences, so keep it consistent. A contrarian viewpoint can be fresh and new: The Iranians have been making too many too harsh too arrogant comments out of school. // Various members of the P5+1, usually identified as anonymous diplomats, have been making too many too harsh too arrogant comments out of school.
•  None of this would have happened if the US/Iran/Israel had been nicer at some time in the past. 
• Another choose one pair: If Iran would concede everything that the P5+1 plus Israel wants up front, the talks would proceed nicely. // If the P5+1 would concede everything Iran wants up front, the talks would proceed nicely.
• If the US and Iran would just sit down over a warm cup of cocoa and talk nicely to each other, we could arrive at a solution.
• If there isn’t a full solution by June 20, there will be a world war, probably nuclear. 

Adding the last to any of the earlier ones provides urgency.

“It’s all [fill in the name]’s fault” has been used a lot and needs more on the bones. You may want to do some research (hey, Google!) to give historical depth.

You may want to leaven it with some “both sides do it.” The first of the “choose one” pairs and placing fault are particularly suited to this.

And keep this memo confidential, please! Last month’s must have got out; someone said that the blogs scooped us on these stories! Not good!

Israel Not Invited To Counterterrorism Forum

I've suspected that when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu visited the US earlier in the spring, President Barack Obama laid down some lines on Israel's behavior. This small bit of news isn't enough to support that idea, but I'd like to note it for future reference.

Last week, the Global Counterterrorism Forum held its first meeting. Without Israel. Turkey is the co-convenor of the Forum, with the United States, and the rumor circulated that Turkey had insisted on excluding Israel. The official US statement on that subject was noncommittal.

Later news reports from Israel are more mixed, but some sense of exclusion remains.

State Department page on the Global Counterterrorism Forum.
CFR seems to have found an updated fact sheet.

Bits and Pieces - June 12, 2012

It looks like nuclear trade between the US and India won't pick up any time soon.

More about that californium flux multiplier at Kodak that isn't a nuclear reactor.

Can shopping for health insurance be easy?

Michael Eisen provides FAQ answers on GMO food. Two posts so far, more to come.

Crooked Timber has been having a symposium on the book Soviet Plenty. Read the book, and the CT posts as well. Here are two from the author, Francis Spufford.

If you want a reason to vote for Obama rather than Romney in November, here it is. Romney has had many good words to say for the great statesman John Bolton.

What Is Iran's Negotiating Strategy?

I am trying to figure out Iran’s strategy in the current round of negotiations. The P5+1 presented a proposal in Baghdad last month. Iran has not responded to that proposal, nor presented a proposal of its own, although a number of Iranian government officials have made a variety of statements, some of them contradicting each other.

The preferred end states for Iran and the P5+1 emphasize different aspects of what might be a settlement. Neither side has made its preferred end state explicit, which is fair enough in negotiations. A public statement makes it harder to compromise. However, it is possible to infer something about the end states from the two sides' public statements and actions.

The P5+1 would like an Iranian nuclear program that is clearly of peaceful intent, which would require extensive IAEA investigation and monitoring. Israel has insisted on no nuclear program at all for Iran; Israel is not a part of the P5+1 but is rather a noisy onlooker. I want to focus on actions and statements in this post, rather than motives, so I will not speculate as to Israel’s influence on the P5+1.

The Iranians would like to continue building a full fuel cycle. They would like for the world to accept this as, say, Japan’s fuel cycle is accepted. They would like for sanctions to be lifted. They would like to be assured that the West is not determined to bring about regime change. Again, I will leave aside the possible motive of being able to build nuclear weapons.

Neither side seems to want war, and, in fact, all indications are that war would be disastrous for all who might be involved. It would seem that a settlement would be possible in which Iran would continue its nuclear program under intensive IAEA supervision, and sanctions would be lifted. Both sides have things they can give up: on Iran’s side, 20% enrichment and its continuing intransigence with the IAEA; on the other side, sanctions and the demand for Iran to open all its books on nuclear weapons work more than, say, a decade old.

Each side lacks confidence that the other will carry out its promises. Additionally, there may be differences in negotiating styles like what Steve Hynd wrote in 2006. However, the negotiation framework is a conventional one, the kind that diplomats of many nations have become accustomed to.

A customary approach to confidence-building is for each side to agree to a small action and then carry it through. The agreement put forth by the P5+1 at Baghdad has not been made fully public, but its main features seem to be:

Iran stops enriching uranium to 19.75% and eventually closes down the enrichment plant at Fordow.

The P5+1 supply fabricated fuel plates for the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), along with medical isotopes 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.

The offer is still on the table, and Iran has not made a counteroffer through the negotiating channels.

Since Iran now has enough 20% enriched uranium to fuel the TRR for almost a decade, shutting down that enrichment line would be consistent with reactor fuel as Tehran’s goal. Replacement parts for civilian airliners have been part of the sanctions, so that offer is a small step in the direction of removing sanctions. A counteroffer from Iran might, for one example, argue that Fordow operations should be a suspended rather than completely shut down, and that the sanctions scheduled for July be suspended for a year. There are an enormous number of possibilities for an Iranian response or counterproposal.

Iran’s response over the past week has been largely public, with contradictory statements from several officials saying that the offer is not enough; that 20% enrichment can be considered, or, conversely, never given up; and complaints that P5+1 followup has been inadequate.

Such a response lies outside the normal diplomatic process. That, in itself, undercuts confidence in Iran as a negotiating partner. It is now beginning to appear that, once again, Iran’s internal disagreements have been surfacing in the last week’s statements. But that is a factor in whether Iran can be trusted to carry out its commitments.

There are also reasons for Iran not to trust the P5+1. David Sanger’s recent report that the US and Israel are responsible for Duqu and Stuxnet, the New York Times report on US use of drones, the Spiegel report of Germany’s long relationship with Israel and sales of submarines, and reports of the Flame computer virus may well be seen by the Iranians as a combination of bragging and threats against them. Bad timing for these reports to come out. Or necessary to keep Israel from attacking now? The P5+1 has its disagreements too.

Last week’s failure of talks with the IAEA undercuts confidence in Iran. Something happened three weeks ago that convinced Director-General Yukiya Amano that his presence in Iran could help to facilitate an agreement on access to Parchin. But Iran comes back to its insistence on a “structured approach,” process rather than substance. Amano demonstrated goodwill by his rapid response to Iran’s overture and obtained nothing in return.

Some months back, Russia proposed a step-by-step process for the negotiations, not made public. It was reported to be based on small steps, and Iran seemed to like it. If the P5+1’s Baghdad offer was based on the Russian proposal, and if Iran continues to ignore the P5+1 proposal, one more reason not to trust Iran.

Another problem in the negotiations is that the two sides appear to value concessions differently. This may be a matter of statements designed to influence the negotiation or it may be a genuine divergence in thinking. The only way to find out will be to continue the negotiations.

A great many possibilities have been suggested for tradeoffs between the two. Iran values its nuclear program highly and seems to see any modifications to it as a large concession. A large concession for the P5+1 involves delaying or lifting sanctions.

More generally, from an anonymous Western official:

"Our basic position is versatile concessions for versatile concessions, and irreversible concessions for irreversible concessions," he said about the administration's thinking. "We would view an irreversible concession as the lifting of sanctions. And in return they would have to take an irreversible step."

Reza Marashi:

Europe [could] offer a delay of its impending embargo of Iranian oil for six months. In return, Iran would freeze its enrichment of uranium at the twenty-percent level for the same duration.

A more detailed example of this tactical mismatch is provided by Gareth Porter’s conclusion that the activities of apparent cleanup at the Parchin military base are intended as bargaining chips to motivate the IAEA (and P5+1?) to give up more in the negotiations. If this is indeed the purpose of the activities at Parchin, it is a misreading of the IAEA’s and P5+1’s goals or an inflexibility in understanding the negotiations.

If the desired endgame on the part of the IAEA and P5+1 is a verifiably peaceful and transparent Iranian nuclear program, then what they want is not simply access to Parchin. They are looking for cooperation by the Iranians on disclosing their previous weapons activities that access to Parchin would represent. However, by their activities at Parchin, which seem to indicate a cleanup campaign, the Iranians have made it impossible for sampling to confirm that nuclear-weapons-related activities did not take place or did not at Parchin. Although an Iranian objective with the IAEA is to close questions on the nuclear weapons program, this sort of activity provides the IAEA with a reason to keep those questions open.

If an Iranian nuclear weapons program ended in 2003, as many believe, and if the Iranians have no plans to develop nuclear weapons in the future, they should be able to open their books on the matter to the IAEA. They would not be the first nation to do this. There would be more questions beyond Parchin, but if the program is ended, they should be able to answer them satisfactorily. Even more so if some of the questions are, as the Iranians claim, based on fabrications.

However, it appears that the IAEA issues will not directly impact the talks in Moscow. Russia does not want the talks to collapse on their soil, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is headed for Tehran. China has also been urging the Iranians to negotiate.

Laura Rozen has reported that the United States is considering “going big” in a proposal in Moscow. It’s not clear what this would entail. It seems unlikely from the cautious negotiating strategies both sides have employed, but surprises are always possible. If a radically different P5+1 proposal were put forth and Iran responded they way it has for the past month, the argument that negotiations are fruitless would gain strength.

This morning it almost looked like the talks would be called off. As the day has gone on, somewhat more optimistic reports are surfacing, particularly on Laura Rozen’s blog, one example here. Tomorrow could be yet another story, and it’s a week until the talks are scheduled to start. Look for more ups and downs.

Update: I didn't say much about the IAEA's role, which is just as well, because Mark Hibbs, Ariel Levite, and Pierre Goldschmidt say it all here.

6/13/12: I'm having some problems connecting with that article. Here's another version.

Cross-posted at Nuclear Diner and The Agonist.

Bits and Pieces - June 9, 2012

Wisconsin, don't despair. It's not you, it's them.

Case Closed: The 401(k) is a Failure.

Japanese dock washes up in Oregon. More links here. And there will be more flotsam from last year's tsunami. And, Knight Science Journalism, you might just want to get your geography right. Newport, Oregon, is not on the Olympic Peninsula!

Bloggers do a better job than the MSM on a science story.

The Coming World of Absolute Transparency

Duqu, the spy software that paved the way for Stuxnet, the centrifuge-destroying software, and now Flame are designed to gather information; Duqu on centrifuge operations and Flame apparently on much more. They seem to have been designed for the same national entities, Israel and the United States, according to an earlier Times article.

We are constantly warned to protect our own computers and now smartphones, and some of us do. Some don't, perhaps more than do. And people will stick thumb drives into their computers - just too tempting to see what's on them!

So these three are propagating around the world, rather slowly it seems. But others have developed similar malware and use it for their own purposes. That's why we're supposed to protect our computers.

There is an industry that has developed around identifying and protecting against malware. They find it and then take it apart. The nature of malware, that it needs to spread, and the surveillance by these companies, insures that this will happen.

The malware is designed to make information available to the parties that develop it. But other parties have an interest in making the malware known. As more malware is developed and discovered, it becomes easier for more malware developers to develop more malware. Along with making the malware known, some of the information the malware mines becomes available, for more transparency.

Is it possible to control information in that world, which is now our own?

Ralph Langner, one of the uncoverers of Stuxnet, thinks so. But as long as fallible human beings who don't want to be bothered any more than is necessary are running the computers, there will be break-ins and more information will be opened up.

It's not going to happen all at once, but the ultimate end of this seems to be absolute transparency. Information may be sequestered for a time, or a person may be of little enough interest that their information isn't attacked, but all will be pretty much open to all. And that would include government information.

Photos from the Transit of Venus

The Washington Post has a picture gallery. The photos I like are 1, 8, 14, 25, and 26. Most of these photos require the big telescopes, one of which was not even on the earth.

I'm glad that this event brought so many people out to learn something about science. There's not enough of that today, and its lack compounds itself when, for example, science textbooks privilege a religious myth above the best we can do with science.

Video from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (speeded up):

Bits and Pieces - June 5, 2012

I love it that birds are the descendents of dinosaurs. Some are more so than others, in various ways. Chickens' stolid stance. Jays' aggressiveness. Roadrunners' fleet run. And, of course, the birds that are not like dinosaurs at all: hummingbirds. From apatosaurus (once known as brontosaurus) to those tiny flying machines. Very cool. This article on birds' and dinosaurs' skulls brings up another issue: does evolution tend to favor neoteny, the preservation of youthful characteristics into adulthood? Humans have some neotenous characteristics of apes. And birds have a neotenous skull relative to dinosaurs. Or if this isn't generally true, what makes it favorable to survival?

Another question. Paul Kerr notes a comment on the Iranian Supreme Leader's fatwa against nuclear weapons from this article. The fatwa has been repeated numerous times. So can we believe it? Let's leave the business about religiously-sanctioned lies aside. National leaders have been known to lie in the defense of their country or for lesser reasons. Is a religiously-oriented leader of a supposedly religious country any different? Why or why not? Does he have the last word? I don't know the answers to any of these questions.

Germany is supplying submarines to Israel that can support nuclear missiles. I'm not sure this is a total surprise; the procurement of these submarines has been known for some time, and it's been at least speculated that they can support nuclear missiles. The history going back to the 1950s seems to me to be something that hasn't been available. I don't recall it from Avner Cohen's Israel and the Bomb, the sourcebook on such things.

How euro coins from different countries diffuse across France.

Oregon's Josephine County takes the Republicans' political economy to its logical end. Some of the people there seem distressed. I wonder if they voted to have enough taxes to run the county properly.

Don't bother to pass on that Facebook privacy notice.

Why I'm Not Watching the Transit of Venus

Today is the transit of Venus across the Sun. A couple of weeks back, we had an annular eclipse of the moon. I'm not sure what people get out of seeing one circle move across another until they are mutually centered, or a very small circle moving across a big circle. I do get total solar eclipses, because you can see the magnetic flares in a way you usually can't. Although I've spent a fair amount of time looking at the moon rising, or the moon eclipsing a star. It could be that these "big" events are the only way most people actually can observe astronomical movements. Anyhow, I didn't bother to set up my telescope for the eclipse. I was looking for something that might disrupt the ordinary. A relative in California hit the jackpot:



It's a shadow of a tree on a wall. The spaces between the leaves formed pinhole cameras to make the multiple images of the partially eclipsed sun. Very cool.

So I'm not setting up my telescope for the transit of Venus either. The big telescopes will be able to pick up information about Venus's atmosphere, and probably some things about the Sun, too. But all I would see is a little dark circle passing over a big bright one.

Mango, Papaya, Passion Fruit, Tamarillo

Photo: Helmut

Bits and Pieces - May 29, 2012

More Iran, of course, but let's start with something else.

Chris Hayes did the right thing over this weekend, although it's not clear that the discussion will go the way it should. I'm very uncomfortable with the "heroes" label attached to everyone who wears a uniform; there are true heroes who fall on hand grenades to save their platoon or run into a burning building to save a child. There are others who wear uniforms who act creditably but never find themselves in those circumstances. And there are scumbags who wear uniforms and don't deserve the respect that those others do.

But the word was inflated after 9/11, one more of those unthinking things we've saddled ourselves with. And it's being used as a loyalty test by the worst of the 101st Keyboarders and others who would love to see others killed in another war. Not heroes!

Conor Friedersdorf says it's those guys who need to do the explaining. And he offers up five questions we all should be thinking about.

How many times have we heard that if we prevent industry from pouring their wastes into our rivers and underground water supplies, they will go broke from spending all that money and then where will we be? And how many times did they actually save money after that terrible unspeakable regulation went into force? Quite a few, actually, although the second story doesn't seem to make the same headlines the first does. So...could it be that regulating fracking to use responsible methods could save the industry money? Naaaah...

And now, of course, Iran:

Julian Borger says something very similar to what I said last week, although he says it in fewer words.

David Albright, who has been very hawkish on Iran's nuclear program, backs off a little.

Iran delays a planned missile launch, perhaps to next year. This is a good thing. I am taking actions like this to mean more than any of the talk coming out of Iranian officials. They contradict each other and themselves. I suspect that this has to do with their internal politics as well as a confused view of how the rest of the world works, but they would do themselves a service to dial it down.

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.
___________________________________
* 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.