Mini update

Once more I have too little free time for a 'proper' entry, so instead I'm going to post a list of articles I'd like to write something about, but don't have enough time to do so...

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Article from Friday's Washington Post: Condi Rice asks for money to pressure Iran's government, undermine religious rule.

Article from Friday's IHT, on Hamas funding. For more recent developments, see here and here.

TOL Article: Georgia once more gets all of its gas from Russia. Probably because it's a lot cheaper than getting it from Iran or Azerbaijan.

Washington Post article from yesterday: US State Department counter-proliferation civil servants who don't toe the line get "shuffled".

Reuters article from yesterday: Iran-Russia talks in Moscow show a predictable lack of progress.

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Well I hope you enjoy those. I should be able to blog properly in early March...

Babbi - update

Penny's leaving the hospital today, with the babbi, who shall be called... Manny Tal.

Manny is short for Emmanuel, while Tal means 'dew' in Hebrew. In Czech it means melted.

Iran - Long Term

There's been a lot more bother about Iran, which restarted its nuclear experimenting at full steam, but to get a better feel for the long-term implications I'd like to direct you towards these links:

CEIP Proliferation News
Pessimistic article on the inevitability of Iran's nuclear programme
Kenneth Waltz: The Spread of Nuclear Weapons, More May Be Better

So, if you read Kofi Annan's latest comments on strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime (reported by the CEIP), and have been keeping up to date on Iran's actions and posturing on its nuclear programme and the UN Security Council, you may be wondering if there's even a slight chance of Iran being persuaded not to develop nuclear weapons. The international community seems somewhat at a loss, and although there's a growing consensus that some action needs to be taken, it still looks like the only possible results will be some form of relatively mild sanctions, geared to try to avoid harming Iran's poorest civilians.

From here you may consider the possibility of military action - there's certainly a fair amount of that kind of thinking going on. But, for reasons I've laid out before (military difficulties) plus the lack of international and domestic support for such acts against Middle-Eastern countries after Iraq, that seems unlikely. Such posturing from hardliners, mainly in the US and UK, could even be dismissed as empty threats, given the more realistic prospect of sanctions, which would probably be tried first, and which would probably last for at least a few years before military options would be suggested again. Remember that Iran is still far from perfecting the process to produce enough weapons grade material for a bomb.

So all that's left is to consider a world a decade or more from now with a nuclear-armed Iran, which has some handy ballistic missiles. By this time Iran would probably be severely aggrieved at the West's sanctions and meddling in its affairs, but would they go ahead and use the bomb? This is where Waltz's nuclear optimism comes in. Even an Islamic theocratic state like Iran's cares enough for its own survival not to use, or even to overtly threaten such devastation on other states. And yes, the stability of bipolarity is gone, but the balancing of nuclear-armed states by others still remains - in this case Iran is balanced conventionally by its regional neighbours, and in nuclear terms by the USA and Israel. This same effect occurs whether you see international relations in Waltz's realist terms (balances of power) or in social constructivist terms (norms dictating against the use of nuclear weapons). It gets messed up somewhat when you include organizational theory, or pluralism, as proposed in this case by Scott D Sagan, who points out that, well, cock-ups happen, often because actors within states, like individual government departments and armed forces, have competing interests which could easily lead to nuclear weapons being used in error. Fingers crossed.

Second pic

I've been busy editing a bunch of articles, abstracts, and book reviews for publication, so I've barely been following the news. Here's another pic of the babbi.

Waaaaa!

Born sometime after 2 a.m. (GMT), 9th February, looking remarkably like Penny and Howard. No name yet, and since 'step-nephew' is a bit formal, for the moment I'll think of him as 'the babbi', as suggested by me dad.

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On coming into my office today I was confronted with a package all the way from Cara Lyn in California, containing not one, but two 18oz jars of Jif, and a birthday card. Wow! I have the best friends. Thanks CL!

Push!

Step-sis Penny's gone into labour in London. Soon-to-be gran Karen's at the bedside, probably with her fingers in her ears.

Best wishes from Prague!

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(Image used with kind permission from http://www.thebricktestament.com/)