IRAN U.S. Concerned Iran on Verge of Underground Nuclear Enrichment A.R. Lakshmanan, The San Francisco Chronicle — December 15, 2011 The Obama administration is concerned Iran is on the verge of being able to enrich uranium at a facility deep undergro…

IRAN
Iran to move enrichment operations if needed: report
Parisa Hafezi, Reuters – December 14, 2011
Iran will move its uranium enrichment plants to safer sites if necessary, a Revolutionary Guards commander was quoted on Wednesday as saying, following speculation that Tehran’s enemies could attack the facilities.

Ex-Middle East adviser: ‘We still have time’ to prevent Iran’s nuclear program
Joby Warrick, Washington Post – December 13, 2011
The Obama administration is committed to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear arms as a “vital national security interest” but believes there is still time to change Iranian behavior through economic and political pressure, a former top adviser on the Middle East said Tuesday.

Outlawing diplomacy with Iran comes with dangerous repercussions
Jamal Abdi, The Hill (Op-Ed) – December 13, 2011
For a bill being sold as a last best alternative to military confrontation, H.R.1905 sets a destructive precedent that will silence our diplomats, endanger our troops, and dangerously intensify the danger of war with Iran.

RUSSIA
Defense bill: Administration must tell Congress before giving missile defense info to Russia
Josh Rogin, Foreign Policy – December 13, 2011
If President Barack Obama’s administration wants to share sensitive data about U.S. missile defense systems with Russia, it now must at least tell Congress in advance, according to the final version of the defense authorization bill.

The Russian Spring Has Begun
Andrei Piontkovsky, WSJ (Op-Ed) – December 14, 2011
There is a remarkable consistency over the course of Russian history: Every authoritarian regime perished not because of destiny’s blows or enemy onslaught but because of internal disease. In the 20th century, it happened twice: the February Revolution of 1917 and Mikhail Gorbachev’s Perestroika.

SWITZERLAND
Swiss charge three in nuclear weapons case
Reuters – December 13, 2011
Switzerland has charged a father and two sons with involvement in the smuggling ring of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s atom bomb who sold nuclear secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

IRAQ
Obama winds down Iraq war but verdict elusive
Matt Spetalnick, Reuters – December 13, 2011
“Mission Accomplished” are two words President Barack Obama will not use as he winds down the most unpopular U.S. military venture since Vietnam and declares an end to another war without victory.

Foreign Policy: Can Obama Claim Victory In Iraq?
Kori Schake, npr – December 14, 2011
The Obama administration is attempting to cast the Iraq war as a triumph of the president’s vision for American foreign policy. As a candidate, he promised to bring this war to an end, and as president he’s done so. It also conveniently fits into the Obama campaign’s general narrative that President Obama inherited problems of Herculean magnitude.

UNITED STATES
GOP senators to unveil replacement for automatic Defense cuts on Wednesday
Jeremy Herb, The Hill (Blog) – December 13, 2011
Four Republican senators are unveiling a proposal Wednesday that would replace $600 billion in automatic Defense cuts with other budget reductions.

Time to rethink nuclear weapons spending
Tom Collina & Daryl Kimball, The Hill (Blog) – December 13, 2011
The supercommittee’s failure to reach agreement on a deficit reduction plan may trigger deep, automatic reductions in future U.S. defense spending. At the same time, some in Congress are finally beginning to examine how much the United States plans to spend on nuclear weapons in the years ahead.

IRAN
Israeli aide: U.S. will lose standing if Iran gets nuclear weapons
Ben Birnbaum, The Washington Times — December 12, 2011
The United States could lose its role as the “main player” in the Middle East if Washington fails to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, according to a special envoy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Iran Rejects US Calls to Return Downed Drone
Voice of America — December 13, 2011
Iran says the United States should accept its consequences after a U.S. surveillance aircraft went down in Iranian territory earlier this month.  The Obama administration has made a formal request for Iran to return the aircraft, but Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Tuesday that the U.S. should apologize instead.

NORTH KOREA
US envoy says North Korea ‘must change behaviour’
Associated Foreign Press — December 12, 2011
The United States will consider meeting North Korean officials if they make good on nuclear disarmament pledges, but they first “must change their behaviour”, according to a top US envoy.  “The basic, most important point that has to be underscored is that it’s really up to North Korea to take the right steps,” Glyn Davies, the US special representative on North Korea, told reporters after meeting Japanese officials on Monday.

N Korea furious at South’s Christmas lights plan
BBC News — December 11, 2011
North Korea has warned South Korea of “unexpected consequences” if it lights up a Christmas tree-shaped tower near their tense border.

UNITED STATES
Iran Rejects US Calls to Return Downed Drone
Voice of America — December 13, 2011
Iran says the United States should accept its consequences after a U.S. surveillance aircraft went down in Iranian territory earlier this month.  The Obama administration has made a formal request for Iran to return the aircraft, but Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Tuesday that the U.S. should apologize instead.

SYRIA
Syria crackdown has killed 5,000 people, UN says
CBS News — December 13, 2011
The death toll from Syria’s crackdown on a 9-month-old uprising has exceeded 5,000 people, the top U.N. rights official said Monday, as Syrians closed their businesses and kept children home from school as part of a general strike to pressure President Bashar Assad to end the bloodshed.

Violence In Syrian Border Province Leaves 28 Dead
Bassem Mroue, NPR — December 13, 2011
Syrian security forces fired on a funeral procession in a restive northwestern border region, killing two people and raising Tuesday’s death toll to at least 28, activists said.
The flare-up of violence in Idlib province highlighted how Syria’s uprising, which earlier this year involved mostly peaceful demonstrations in small towns and cities, has become a virtual insurgency in the countryside along the Turkish border.

IRAN
Israel calls for “paralyzing” sanctions on Iran
Reuters — December12, 2011
Iran’s ruling clerics could use nuclear weapons to strengthen their grip on power and the world must urgently impose crippling sanctions to prevent them from building such arms, Israel’s defense minister said on Sunday.

Iran’s Got Our Drone: Distraction or Disaster?
Mark Thomson, TIME — December 11, 2011
Let’s say you’re outside walking around when you’re hit in the head by an iPhone that falls from the sky. Just how lucky are you? Pretty darn lucky, especially if you were trying to bring it down. But now that you’ve got it, how much can you learn from it? That’s the challenge facing Tehran following its claim last week that it had brought down one of America’s most-secret reconnaissance systems: the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel drone.

NORTH KOREA
U.S. Diplomat Urges North Korea to “Change Behavior”
Global Security Newswire — December 11, 2011
The U.S. special representative for North Korea on Monday said the Obama administration would not agree to another round of bilateral talks with the Stalinist state until officials there “change their behavior,” Agence France-Presse reported.

INTERVIEW: North Korea’s end heralds the real crisis
Victor Fic and Jennifer Lind, The Asia Times — December 12, 2011
What is more dangerous than a strong dictatorship? A collapsed one, so Lind warns in her latest analysis. [1] In this interview with Asia Times Online contributor Victor Fic, Lind says that a North Korean implosion creates many perils, such as “loose nukes” entering the global black market. She also calls upon the US, South Korea and China to start planning together – now – for the staggering task of managing North Korea’s collapse.

RUSSIA
At launch of nuclear reactor, Russia’s Putin speaks of atomic energy ‘renaissance’
Washington Post — December 12, 2011
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin attended the launch of a new nuclear power reactor Monday, calling it part of a “renaissance” of atomic energy.

Putin Attends Russian Launch of New Nuclear Reactor
Fox News, December 12, 2011
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin attended the launch of a new nuclear power reactor Monday, calling it part of a “renaissance” of atomic energy.

UNITED STATES
Among Gingrich’s Passions, a Doomsday Vision
William J. Broad, The New York Times — December 11, 2011
Newt Gingrich, the Republican presidential hopeful, wants you to know that as commander in chief he is ready to confront one of the most nightmarish of doomsday scenarios: a nuclear blast high above the United States that would instantly throw the nation into a dark age.

Romney jabs Gingrich for ‘erratic outspokenness’
Catalina Camia, USA Today — December 11, 2011
Mitt Romney says Newt Gingrich displayed “erratic outspokenness” when he said Palestinians are an “invented” people as he turned up the criticism on his GOP presidential rival.

IRAN
EU to Consider More Sanctions on Iran, Summit Draft Shows
Jurjen van de Pol & James G. Neuger, Bloomberg – December 9, 2011
European Union governments will consider imposing stiffer sanctions on Iran amid “serious and deepening concerns” over the country’s nuclear program, according to a draft EU summit statement.

Fear, speculation in Iran over military strike
Parisa Hafezi & Hashem Kalantari, Reuters – December 8, 2011
The threat of military strikes on Iran has upturned the quiet and comfortable lives once enjoyed by many Iranians, ushering in a new era of struggle and fear.

Obama defends US sanctions policy on Iran
AFP – December 8, 2011
US President Barack Obama on Thursday defended his policy on Iran amid fierce Republican criticism of his effort to halt the Islamic republic’s nuclear drive, saying Tehran is under the “toughest sanctions” ever.

NORTH KOREA
Myanmar denies working with North Korea on atomic weapons
Aung HIa Tun, Reuters – December 9, 2011
Myanmar denied it had been cooperating with North Korea on nuclear weapons technology, the first time it has commented on speculation that the two internationally ostracised states might be working together to build atomic weapons.

RUSSIA
Clinton, Russia Spar Over Missile Defense System
Jackie Northam, npr – December 8, 2011
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has spent the last two days meeting with her NATO and Russian counterparts in Brussels. They’ve been talking about NATO plans to deploy a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, to counter “rogue” Iranian weapons. Russia, again, raised objections last month — and even threatened to pull out of the latest U.S.-Russia nuclear weapons treaty.

Russia’s Putin wins China’s support – and peace prize
Michael Martina, Reuters – Decmber 0, 2011
Accused in the West of trampling on democratic freedoms and denounced at home by protesters over the conduct of a parliamentary election, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin won not only China’s support on Friday, but also a peace prize.

IRAQ
Obama Cheers ‘Whole Bunch’ of Homecomings as Iraq Role Evolves
Margaret Talev & Viola Gienger, Bloomberg – December 9, 2011
President Barack Obama is calling attention to the end of the war in Iraq that will bring U.S. troops home for the holidays, staging a series of events even as his administration and Iraqis talk about the future U.S. role there and rising threats from neighbor Iran.

Final Briefing from Baghdad
Mark Thompson, Time Magazine (Blog) – December 8, 2011
Three thousand, one hundred and eight-five days after U.S. forces invaded Iraq, the U.S. military held what is expected to be its final formal press briefing from Baghdad on Wednesday. “With less than one month remaining, we are poised to complete our mission,” said Lieutenant General Frank Helmick, the deputy commander for operations in Iraq, 3,142 days after President Bush landed on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln under a banner proclaiming Mission Accomplished.

UNITED STATES
Military Detention of All Terror Suspects Deserves a Veto: View
Bloomberg – December 8, 2011
Vetoing a defense budget bill at a time of war might be tantamount to political suicide. Yet U.S. President Barack Obama may have no choice.