Weapons

El Chapo, they are not.

U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Samantha Power was talking tough, yesterday. As Nick Gass of Politico reports, in a speech before “Fortune's Most Powerful Women summit in Washington.”

President Obama has promoted the recently agreed Iran deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as “a comprehensive, long-term deal with Iran that will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” There are many fallacies and ambiguities in this statement.

President Obama's deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, has been using doublespeak to sell the nuclear deal to the American people. In April of this year, Rhodes claimed that the nuclear deal would include "anywhere, anytime" access to Iranian nuclear sites. Last night, the top Obama…

Senator Tom Cotton took to the Senate floor to discuss new reports of sarin gas being used in Syria:

It's worth watching President Bill Clinton hail the virtues of the nuclear deal with North Korea, in this video from October 21, 1994:

The Obama White House is enlisting all its allies to make its case for the bad nuclear deal with Iran that, say administration allies, is better than no deal. The alternative, they claim, is war. And to what purpose? Many nuclear experts, Middle East analysts, and journalists argue, after all, that…

Reuters reports:

The Russians want delivery of their aircraft carrier.  They contracted with the French to build it and a deal is a deal.  But things are not (yet) so far gone that a NATO country is willing to arm the enemy for a few francs.

The deadline for the Joint Plan of Action ended it seems without a final agreement between the P5+1 and Iran over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. It’s not yet clear what happens next.

Satellite photographs released yesterday show that the explosion Monday at an Iranian military base at Parchin, where the clerical regime is believed to be working on its nuclear weapons program, did significant damage. The images obtained by Israeli media outlet Israel Defense and “analyzed by…

President Obama has made nuclear nonproliferation one of his highest priorities but, as the Wall Street Journal explains, the White House’s weak response on Ukraine is sending all the wrong messages.

The latest ad from the Emergency Committee for Israel warns that President Obama might not keep his word on preventing Iran from acquiring nukes:

Senator Mark Kirk's statement on the possible U.S.-Iran deal:

In light of recent developments with the U.S., Iran, and Israel, the boss's editorial, co-written with Michael Makovsky, of a month ago is well worth re-reading:

It now seems to be the general consensus that President Obama’s Syria policy is a contradictory mess. But that’s only how it appears on the surface. Probe a bit deeper and it’s very seriously deranged.

It now seems to be the general consensus that President Obama’s Syria policy is a contradictory mess. But that’s only how it appears on the surface. Probe a bit deeper and it’s very seriously deranged.

Secretary of State John Kerry says the use of chemical weapons in Syria is "undeniable" and that the U.S. is considering how to respond: 

Christopher J. Griffin and Evan Moore of the Foreign Policy Initiative writes:

An Air Force vet with experience in the nuclear program writes in:

Robert Zarate writes, for the Foreign Policy Initiative:

Six months after it was first hinted at, and a month after widespread reports surfaced, the United Nations, Britain, and France have all just confirmed the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Yet, there has been no U.S. response to Syria’s increasingly clear violation of President Obama’s publicly…

Syrian brigadier general Zaher al-Saket revealed on Al-Arabiya TV that he had been given orders to use chemical weapons against rebels:

The Obama administration now believes that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad may have used chemical weapons. Today the White House released a letter explaining that the American “intelligence community does assess with varying degrees of confidence that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on…

Chemical weapons have been used by the Assad regime in Syria, according to an Israeli official. The Associated Press reports:

Congressman Mike Rogers writes:

From CNN:

Attorney General Eric Holder said today at a Senate hearing that he believes he once shot an AR-15, a so-called assault weapon:

An unnamed "senior American official" suggests that North Korea is not just testing nukes for itself, but also for (and possibly with) the Iranians. The New York Times reports:

On CBS this morning, Valerie Jarrett, a close advisor to President Obama, reacted to the news that North Korea had conducted a nuclear test last night by saying, "We're heartened to see the U.N. Security Council will be meeting" this morning to discuss the issue.

U.S. senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut is calling President Barack Obama to provide more details on how the commander in chief plans to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

This past weekend the Christian Science Monitor reported that Stuxnet, the original computer virus detected in the American-led cyber war against Iran’s nuclear program, was set to deactivate on June 24. That just so happens to be “seven years to the day after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad…

J.E. Dyer, writing on Iran's continued quest for nuclear weapons: 

The Obama administration’s recent focus on finding a compromise to allow the Iranian regime to maintain some enrichment capabilities “for peaceful purposes” distracts from the underlying nuclear threat at hand. Any outcome short of the verifiable dismantling and end of the Iranian nuclear program…

A key feature of the negotiations with the Iranians over their nuclear program is doublespeak. To be more precise, you’ll notice that Iranian officials offer different accounts of what they are--and are not--willing to consider. Moreover, the meaning behind their words is often left obscure. 

As Washington wrangles over the size of the federal budget in a time of fiscal austerity, Congress is debating whether to hold President Obama to his promise of adequately funding the modernization of America’s nuclear arsenal and infrastructure in exchange for the Senate’s passage of the…

In a Politico op-ed today, Congressman Michael Turner (R, Ohio) criticizes the Obama administration’s lack of transparency on its controversial study of future reductions to America’s nuclear deterrent—including one option that would cut the arsenal by 80 percent, down to as few as 300 deployed…

Josh Rogin reports on the debate over whether the U.S. should intervene in Syria, where strongman Bashar al-Assad is killing and torturing his own citizens. Rogin discusses the views of Senators John McCain and Carl Levin, and then writes this:

Thirty-four lawmakers sent a letter to the White House on Thursday in response to news reports that President Obama had ordered his staff to study the option of reducing America’s nuclear deterrent by 80 percent—down to as few as 300 deployed strategic nuclear warheads. The United States currently…

During an interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer shortly before the Super Bowl on February 5, President Obama was asked about Iran’s nuclear weapons program and the possibility of an Israeli airstrike. “I don’t think that Israel has made a decision on what they need to do,” Obama said. “I think they, like…

The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper is reporting that the Japanese government is close to settling on the F-35 Lightning as the much-needed replacement for its F-15 fighter.  That’s exceptionally good news for a program that’s both key to preserving American military preeminence and at a lot of risk due…

The New York Times reports that Iran's missile program has been setback: 

In order to fool the U.S. intelligence community when it comes to a nuclear weapons program, all a rogue regime has to do is change the name of the government agency housing it. Although that may sound ludicrous, it is one way to read the IAEA’s newly released report on Iran’s nuclear program.

In Newsweek, Eli Lake reports that “Obama Sold Israel Bunker-Buster Bombs.” Actually, as the story notes, it was George W. Bush who ordered the bombs toward the end of his second term. Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert wanted them delivered in 2007, but Bush told him to wait until…

Iran has long stonewalled the IAEA, the organization tasked with enforcing multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions that demand a halt to Iran’s illicit nuclear activities. And this week the rogue regime continued its march: Iranian leaders announced steps to accelerate and harden their…

As the White House endeavors to secure Senate approval of the new START treaty, it is seeking to forge a grand bargain with Senator Jon Kyl: increased funding for the U.S. nuclear weapons enterprise—a long-standing priority of Kyl’s—in exchange for ratification. While this might sound like routine…

The Atlantic (and now Wired) is reporting that an entire squadron of nuclear missiles unexpectedly dropped into a "launch facility down" status on Saturday morning, taking a sizable portion of America's nuclear deterrent offline:

Are we moving toward zero nuclear weapons? Zero is the declared objective of the Obama administration. But it is realistic enough to recognize, as the president did in Prague, that achieving it might take a long time: “I'm not naive. This goal will not be reached quickly–perhaps not in my lifetime.…

Eyes have been focused on the succession underway in North Korea, where Kim Jong Un, Kim Jong Il’s pudgy third son, appears to be being groomed for power.

MEMRI just published an interesting study that's worth a look:

Rasmussen has a new poll out showing that the Obama administration nuclear policies are strikingly at odds with public opinion.