Middle East needs WMD experts to push the cause of arms control

December 2, 2013

  By Nilsu Goren, Aviv Melamud, Ibrahim Said Ibrahim and Ariane Tabatabai – Middle East regional stability and security continues to face substantial challenges, among them the problem of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Israel’s opaque nuclear posture, doubts surrounding the military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program, the use of chemical weapons in Syria, and other suspected weapons programs are all impediments to arms control efforts.   In an environment where terrorist organizations are active and statehood is fragile, physical...

An early look at the Iran-EU-5+1 Joint Action Plan

November 25, 2013

  By Miles A. Pomper – The P5+1 (the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, and China, facilitated by the European Union) agreed with Iran on November 24, 2013 in Geneva on a six-month Joint Action Plan. The agreement is supposed to serve as an interim deal, setting the stage for negotiations over a longer term, comprehensive agreement. Below are three sets of observations related to the interim agreement, the forthcoming negotiations over a potential long term deal, and...

Anger management in the Middle East

August 9, 2013

  By Nilsu Goren, Aviv Melamud, Ibrahim Said Ibrahim, and Ariane Tabatabai – The Middle East has provided an arena for different weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs. Such weapons – nuclear, chemical, biological – are either being developed, acquired, stored, or contemplated throughout this highly-volatile and conflict-prone region. Most notably, there is the nuclear issue (Israel’s opaque nuclear posture and the controversial Iranian nuclear program), but the abundance of chemical and biological weapon programs throughout is arguably just as...

The future of arms control in the Middle East

July 30, 2013

  By Bilal Y. Saab – Political space is opening up in the Arab world. While it is particularly difficult to speak with any degree of confidence on the ultimate trajectory of the Arab uprisings (with all their local variants), the process of democratization that is sweeping the region is likely to have a significant impact on how Arab societies and their soon-to-be representative governments make and conduct foreign and defense policy in the future. One key area of concern...

Asia pivot step one: ease Gulf worries

June 20, 2013

  By Bilal Y. Saab – The Obama administration’s 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance and U.S. Central Command’s 2013 Posture Statement call, among other things, for shifting the focus of U.S. military planning to the Asia-Pacific. To give itself a chance to successfully implement its global reposturing strategy, the United States must reshape its military presence and recalibrate its level of engagement in the Middle East. Doing so will require the support of willing and capable regional allies that can share...

Progress report: Conference for a WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East

April 23, 2013

By Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova –   In October 2011, Finland was designated as the host country for the 2012 Conference, and the Finnish Undersecretary of State Ambassador Jaakko Laajava was named as the Facilitator. In May 2012, the Facilitator reported on his work to the first PrepCom meeting. Despite conducting intensive consultations with states in the Middle East, as well as with the NPT depositaries and co-sponsors of the 1995 Resolution (Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States), Laajava indicated...

Judgment at Luxembourg: will Iran forgo a negotiated outcome?

March 22, 2013

By Javier Serrat – At the March meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors (BoG), the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) plus Germany (P5+1) – a group of countries which since 2006 negotiates with Iran on its nuclear program – underscored their expectation that current negotiations with Iran must produce “tangible results […] at an early stage”. As the six powers have grown impatient with Tehran’s tendency to stymie serious progress at the...

Obama’s Syria red line

December 4, 2012

By Bilal Y. Saab – Syria’s military has once again moved its chemical weapons. Last time this happened, worries that chemical attacks on rebels or the civilian population were imminent ended up being unfounded. This time, American and Israeli officials are saying that the movement is “a kind of action we’ve never seen before” and “suggests some potential chemical weapon preparation.” This prompted another round of vague warnings by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that using chemical weapons would cross...

US nuclear cooperation agreements and the Middle East

August 3, 2012

By Chen Kane – A recent article by Mark Hibbs examining the implications of Taiwan renouncing enrichment and reprocessing under its proposed nuclear cooperation agreement (NCA) with the United States has sparked significant controversy.     I disagree with the premise of Mark’s article  – that the UAE agreement was related to the gold standard in any way – but agree with his conclusion when he says “…others will have a different calculus, depending on what they want from the...

Delivery systems: A key component of a Middle East zone free of WMD

June 14, 2012

By Carlo Trezza – The 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference resolution on the Middle East and the 2010 Review Conference declaration on the Middle East call for the establishment of a WMD- free zone. The two documents also include a provision for the elimination of the “delivery systems” for such weapons. There is no precedent for such a wide and comprehensive regional arms control effort. All previous similar regional initiatives were confined to nuclear weapons.        ...