Gary Hart: An Early Victory for Obama Leadership

Gary Hart, Chairman of the Center’s sister organization, Council for a Livable World, penned a terrific short piece in HuffPo today on what could be an early victory for Obama: reaching an agreement with Russia to cap the nuclear arsenal of each country at 1000 nuclear weapons.

Every era creates its own legacy. The least worthwhile legacy of the Cold War is nuclear arsenals. They provide no meaningful deterrence to terrorists. No war plans envision their use. They serve no military or diplomatic purpose.

Very soon, against the backdrop of international banking crises and restructuring of soaring social safety net obligations, the new Obama administration must look for meaningful victories that are affordable and that increase security. Of the achievable goals, none could come closer to making the world safer than the reduction and possible eventual elimination of nuclear arsenals.

Arms reduction negotiations were not vigorously pursued during recent years. Strangely, the end of the Cold War made getting rid of nuclear weapons less, rather than more, important. To the skeptics who question whether elimination of the worst weapons of mass destruction can be accomplished, the question has to be asked: Why not?

Within the first Obama term, the U.S. and Russia could readily agree to overall ceilings of 1000 nuclear weapons each. Military commanders on both sides clearly understand this is more than enough to obliterate each other and still have plenty left over to destroy most of the rest of the world. As verification of the destruction of excessive weapons takes place, both sides then have political and moral authority to call upon the Chinese, the French, and the British, and other nuclear states, to begin dismantling their arsenals, and negotiations can continue to reduce overall numbers, step by step, even more drastically.

This is not a military problem. Even the most hard-line strategist admits we don't have any use for our current nuclear arsenals. It is a problem of political will and determination, and leaders who wake up one day and say: Let's do it.

Amen.

Gary Hart: What a Year It Might Be

Gary Hart, Chairman of the Center’s sister organization, Council for a Livable World, wrote a great piece in the Huffington Post yesterday on what 2008 may portend for the nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia, included below.


Even as the new president and administration struggle to restructure and transform the American economy in 2009, consider this possibility: 2009 could be the year when the two former Cold warriors, America and Russia, decide to make dramatic reductions in nuclear weapons and convene an international conference of all nuclear nations to agree to the complete elimination of nuclear weapons from the face of the earth.

By December 2009, the START I treaty will terminate unless renewed. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty must be reviewed by 2010. And a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has been in abeyance for years. These are all relics of the Cold War which, thank God, ended 18 years ago, but there are the framework for more dramatic action.

A year ago four prominent Americans proposed elimination of all nuclear weapons. An international organization has been formed to support this ideal. Both involve conservative figures who, during the Cold War, were not known as leading arms reduction advocates. Clearly, a serious groundswell is forming to collectively embrace a goal few of us ever thought possible -- elimination of the most dangerous instruments of war ever devised by man.

Improvement in the US-Russian relationship is imperative in our own interest. We have many more areas of common interests than we have differences. Climate change, energy security, combating terrorism, pandemic protections, and stopping proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are among these common interests. At the center, however, is the issue of reversing the Cold War competition in nuclear weapons and leading other nations to do likewise.

Some will say "it's the economy, stupid," and thus suggest that nothing else can be done until we recover. But that suggests the United States and its new president can only do one thing at a time. This is flawed thinking. Even while building a new 21st century economy, the Obama administration must look for bold initiatives such as Nuclear Zero that demonstrate we live in a new world and new century featuring entirely new realities and the United States intends to play a new and creative leadership role in it.

This would make 2009 one of the happiest new years of all time.

Second Guessing the Iran NIE

Gary Hart, Chairman of the Center’s sister organization, Council for a Livable World, recently wrote an interesting piece in the Huffington Post comparing Alan Dershowitz’s second guessing of the new NIE on Iran to the Right’s derision of any Cold War intelligence that challenged the notion that “the Russians are coming and they're 30 feet tall." As he sardonically notes, “Intelligence is good when it tells you what you want to hear. Otherwise, it is dangerously flawed if not sinister.” Click here for the full piece.


Council Board Member Jim Walsh also had a great piece in the Boston Globe in which he asks and answers whether, given the intelligence community's recent failures, the Iran NIE is credible. In outlining why he believes the NIE on Iran is on target, Walsh argues:

First, the idea that Iran suspended nuclear weapons activities in fall 2003 is consistent with how countries typically behave. Throughout the nuclear age, governments have been reluctant to carry on clandestine nuclear programs when inspectors are on the ground. Saddam Hussein, for example, shut down his WMD programs in the early 1990s, because he feared inspectors might uncover his efforts. In fall 2003, Iran was under intense scrutiny regarding its nuclear program. As a consequence, Tehran agreed to join an upgraded inspections regime called the Additional Protocol. From an Iranian perspective, it would have been foolhardy to invite inspectors in only to get caught with an active program.

Second, it is consistent with what we know about Iran. This new intelligence estimate reverses a 2005 conclusion that Tehran was determined to get the bomb no matter what. That earlier conclusion always seemed at odds with the history of Iran's nuclear efforts, which could be called inconsistent at best. Though Tehran showed an interest in nuclear technology under the shah and again beginning in the mid-1980s, the program was slow to make progress, even though it was receiving help from Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan's secret nuclear network. For a country that was "determined" to become a nuclear weapons state, Iran was taking its time.

Third, the fact that this intelligence estimate contradicts a previous report is itself a healthy development. When graduate students at MIT present their research, I often ask if they were surprised by anything. I always worry about the ones who say they found exactly what they expected. A good intelligence process is one that is open to being wrong and not afraid to report it.

Finally, this intelligence estimate offers its new conclusions despite the political consequences. The vice president and those of like mind are probably pretty upset right now. And the president, who can still make a case against enrichment in Iran, nevertheless finds himself on the defensive about his past statements. As for policy, the intelligence estimate makes it less likely that the United States will use military force, which is good, but that it may also have the effect of taking the pressure off or even emboldening Iran, which is bad.

Click here for the full piece.

Gary Hart Comments on the Sixth Anniversary of 9/11

Gary Hart, Chairman of the Center’s sister organization, Council for a Livable World, wrote a trenchant piece in the Huffington Post yesterday, discussing the status of America six years after 9/11.

Six years ago three thousand Americans lost their lives. They need not have. Their deaths could have been prevented. Their lives could have been saved.

The Bush administration was warned months before 9/11 that terrorists were going to attack America. They did nothing. They have yet to be held accountable for the preventable loss of American lives. Yet the administration blames its critics for not understanding the terrorist threat.

The perpetrator of those American deaths is still at large and the war to eliminate those who harbored him threatens to drag on inconclusively for many years. Instead, administration operatives, with the approval of their masters, find it convenient to use him to create fear, and therefore justify their positions of power.

Click here to continue reading Hart's full commentary.

Gary Hart Weighs in on Obama-Clinton Spat

Sen. Gary Hart, Chairman of Council for a Livable World (the Center’s sister organization), weighed in on the Obama-Clinton spat on the Huffington Post recently.

(Click here for a recap of the recent debate over Obama’s comments and here for the Center’s thoughts on it.)

A veteran of both national security issues and presidential politics, Hart begins…

Should presidents, or for that matter presidential candidates, be open, honest, and straightforward about how they would conduct foreign and defense policy or should they reserve space for what in the Cold and post-Cold War worlds have come to be known as covert operations?

He later continues,

As something of a veteran, seasoned or unseasoned, of the covert world of the 20th century and as one who peeked far enough into the 21st to see terrorists coming, this is a question Americans and their candidates should seriously address. Those who have the advantage of living in the world of black and white find this question, as with many others, easy to answer. The whites say that all our actions should be transparent. The blacks say do whatever is expedient at the moment and presume no one will notice. The rest of us, as usual, see the global village in patters of plaid and shades of gray.

Intrigued? Click here to read Hart’s complete post.