Free Republic

So far Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's peace ruse is still bearing some fruit. President Obama was eager to talk with him at the United Nations -- only to be reportedly rebuffed, until Obama managed to phone him for the first conversation between heads of state of the two countries since the Iranian storming of the U.S. embassy in 1979. Rouhani has certainly wowed Western elites with his mellifluous voice, quiet demeanor and denials of wanting a bomb. The media, who ignore the circumstances of Rouhani's three-decade trajectory to power, gush that he is suddenly a "moderate" and "Western educated."...

The United States-Russian deal for the destruction of Syria's huge chemical weapons stocks caused Israelis to breathe an audible sigh of relief. Many expected that a U.S. strike would push either Syria or its ally Hezbollah tio retaliate by attacking Israel. Over the past few weeks, thousands of Israelis, not known for their patience, spent hours waiting in line for government-issued gas masks. Yet the deal also increases pressure on Israel to get rid of its chemical and, even more troubling to the Jewish state, its nuclear stockpile. If Syria must get rid of its chemical weapons, the reasoning goes,...

Virtually every major project under the National Nuclear Security Administration’s oversight is behind schedule and over budget—the result, watchdogs and government auditors say, of years of lax accountability and nearly automatic annual budget increases for the agency responsible for maintaining the nation’s nuclear stockpile. The NNSA has racked up $16 billion in cost overruns on 10 major projects that are a combined 38 years behind schedule, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reports. Other projects have been canceled or suspended, despite hundreds of millions of dollars already spent, because they grew too bloated. …

Exactly 30 years ago, when early warning systems indicated the Soviet Union was under nuclear attack by the United States, air defence officer Stanislav Petrov went by gut instinct and decided the alarm was false. It was a decision that saved the human race – and ended his career. Place: Serpukhov-15, a ballistic missile early warning command and control post south of Moscow. Time: Just after midnight, September 26, 1983. Officers of the elite Soviet Air Defence Force are about to begin their night shift at the top secret installation. Their commander, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, 44, pushes back in...

Satellite imagery suggests that North Korea has restarted a research reactor capable of producing plutonium for weapons at its Yongbyon nuclear complex, a U.S. research institute said on Wednesday. U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies said a satellite image from August 31 shows white steam rising from a building near the hall that houses the plutonium production reactor's steam turbines and electric generators. "The white coloration and volume are consistent with steam being vented because the electrical generating system is about to come online, indicating that the reactor is in or nearing operation," said the Washington-based...

War Hawks are getting so desperate that they are using fear tactics in order to motivate constituents to support the war in Syria. Syria and Iran maybe allies, but Sen. Lindsay Graham's analysis of their connection is simplistic and misguided. According to the senator, if the US does not intervene in Syria, Iran will not take the US seriously and will have a nuclear weapon by the end of 2014. If Iran gets nuclear weapons, such weapons will end up in the hands of terrorists. He ended his analysis by describing the fear-inducing-if-unrealistic situation of a nuclear bomb dropping on...

President Obama stopped Israel from launching an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities a year ago, according to the then head of Israel’s National Security Council, Gen. Giora Eiland. Gen. Eiland spoke with Israeli journalist Rotem Sella, a former former senior writer for the daily Ma’ariv, at the Daily Capitalist blog on the “Mida” online news site. Some quickly-translated extracts from Sella’s report are below: Exclusive: Prime – Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was about to order an attack on Iran in September 2012, but canceled the operation in response to U.S. pressure, the former head of Israel’s National Security Council said last...

Weaponry: As the commander in chief calls for a one-third reduction in our nuclear arsenal, Russia builds new midrange missile banned under a 1987 arms treaty. How's that "reset" button working out, Mr. President? Trust but verify, said the president who won the Cold War. Ronald Reagan's "peace through strength" philosophy has been replaced with the "peace through parchment" strategy of Barack Obama. It emphasizes flexibility, not resolve, and relies on pacts such as the New Start Treaty and the pressing of imaginary reset buttons. Russia's playing host to Edward Snowden, arguably a traitor with secrets to share with Moscow...

The photo of President Obama and Russian boss Vladimir Putin sitting glum-faced at the G8 summit sparked talk of a new Cold War. Let’s hope not, because we would lose this time. Looking at them, I had one thought: In a showdown, my money is on Putin. In fact, whether negotiating over Syria or arm-wrestling, I want a Putin on our side. He knows his country’s national interests and is prepared to pursue them. We, on the other hand, have a president who increasingly lives over the rainbow. World disorder is growing by the day, and Obama seems not to...

In four months as secretary of state, John Kerry has certainly promised great things. Now he has to deliver. In the Middle East, he has raised hopes his solo diplomatic effort can produce a historic breakthrough ending six decades of Arab-Israeli conflict.(continued)

Several A-listers are banding together to beg President Barack Obama to keep his word about seeking a world [free] of nuclear weapons. Apparently, they've been cycling through the Superman movies to ready themselves for Man of Steel and stumbled upon Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Actors Michael Douglas, Matt Damon, Naomi Watts, Morgan Freeman, Robert De Niro, Martin Sheen and Alec Baldwin, among others, appear in a new video for Global Zero urging the president to address the issue at next week’s G-8 summit.... Freeman and Sheen conclude, “For if we believe that the spread of nuclear weapons is...

The administration hard-sells reactor exports while shrugging off proliferation concerns.In Washington, learning comes hard. Officials may know when to back off when they’ve crossed wires with Congress, but in most cases, and in less time than you’d think, they’re back at it again. Take the State Department’s rush three years ago to seal a civilian nuclear deal with Vietnam. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the U.S. had initialed a draft agreement in July of 2010. It featured nuclear-nonproliferation provisions far looser than what Congress wanted. When the Hill found out, it threw a fit, the White House withdrew...

A BBC Persian journalist wrote Tuesday on the Twitter social media website that three explosions had been heard in western Tehran, in an area where Iran carries out missile research and storage. It was not immediately clear if there were injuries or damage in the incident. In January, both Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency denied reports that a blast had hit the Fordow underground uranium enrichment center near Qom. A mysterious and massive explosion rocked a military arms depot near Tehran in November 2011, killing 17 Revolutionary Guards Corps officers and wounding 17 others. Iranian officials said the...

I was watching TV this evening and started to flip cable channels when I saw a streaming on MSNBC on our forces finding castor beans. The following is a part of what their website said about it. NBC News’ Jim Miklaszewski that within just the past week, U.S. investigators had found two shipping containers filled with millions of much more recent documents relating to chemical and biological weapons. One of the documents, from 2001, was titled “Document burial and U.N. activities in Iraq,” the sources said. It gave detailed instructions on how to hide materials and deceive U.N. weapons inspectors,...

IF KIM JONG UN thinks he can shake down Washington by threatening nuclear apocalypse, President Obama says, the belligerent North Korean dictator has another think coming. "Since I came into office, the one thing I was clear about was: We're not going to reward this provocative behavior," Obama told NBC's Savannah Guthrie in an interview last week. "You don't get to bang your spoon on the table and somehow you get your way." No rewards for Pyongyang's criminal regime or its bloody-minded young tyrant. Everyone clear on that? Well, maybe not everyone. Speaking to reporters in Tokyo the day before...

We may not agree with Kim Jong-un, but caricaturing him as a little dancing fool with the crazy hairstyle is plain prejudice. It's a happy truism. Scratch a politically correct liberal, and you'll find a human being. And it appears that racism is the default state of being for humans. Don't ask me why. Perhaps when the Catholics tell us we are all born in sin, this is the sin they mean? Take North Korea, and the current hoo-ha about its threat to launch missiles against the US. It seems that some people think it's okay to caricature Kim Jong-un...

"The puppet group of south Korea is resorting to smear propaganda campaign to seek its comfort by forcing others into death like itself," KCNA said today. Warning of impending nuclear war, the chilling rant by the state run news agency continued: "The arrows indicating the merciless retaliatory strikes have already been drawn directing at the U.S. mainland, U.S. military bases in the Pacific and all other bases where the U.S. imperialist aggression forces station. "The powerful strike means of the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK have been put in their places and the coordinates of targets put into the...

Calling international efforts to stop North Korea from building atomic weapons a “miserable failure,” a prominent South Korean lawmaker today called for the deployment of tactical US nuclear weapons in the South and suggested that his country think about developing their own nuclear deterrent. The call by M.J. Chung, a seven-term member of the Korean National Assembly and former presidential candidate, comes amid the biggest spike of tensions on the Korean peninsula in recent years. Among other threats, the new young leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, has threated to target Guam and Hawaii, and turn Seoul, South Korea’s capital,...

THERE ARE MANY MORE IMAGES AT THE SITE Full Title: Ultra-Fast Nuclear Detonation Picture While the image above is the stereotypical picture of a nuclear explosion, in reality by the time the classic mushroom cloud has formed all the interesting detail is long over. The following images, borrowed from several sources, show the eerie and complex patterns atomic detonations create immediately after they are triggered. Most of the following images were taken using Rapatronic cameras, ultra-high speed, single-frame cameras developed in the 1940s by Dr. Harold Edgerton. The duration of the exposure is typically 10 nanoseconds (0.00000001 of a second....

SEOUL — The North Korean army said Thursday it had final approval to launch "merciless" military strikes on the United States, involving the possible use of "cutting-edge" nuclear weapons. In a statement published by the official KCNA news agency, the General Staff of the Korean People's Army (KPA) said it was formally informing Washington that reckless US threats would be "smashed by... cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear strike means". "The merciless operation of (our) revolutionary armed forces in this regard has been finally examined and ratified," the statement said.