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As Donald Trump’s first three weeks in office come to a close, critics are pointing out that his iconic slogan, “Make America Great Again” is starting to look more and more like an attempt to bring American society back to the 1950s. What most people haven’t realized yet is that his vision of turning back the clock also applies to America’s nuclear arsenal. Just this past week, CQ Roll Call  reported  that a blue-ribbon Pentagon panel urged the Trump administration to make the U.S. arsenal more capable of fighting a “‘limited’ atomic war.” According to the report, “The Defense Science Board … urges the president to consider altering existing and planned U.S. armaments to achieve a greater number of lower-yield weapons that could provide a ‘tailored nuclear option for limited use.’” The strategy behind limited nuclear use sounds deceptively simple. You need to escalate a conflict just  enough  to end it. As the theory goes, using low-yield nuclear weapons aga...

International Atomic Energy Agency chief, Yukiya Amano, attends a panel discussion at the World Government Summit 2017 in Dubai on February 14, 2017. (Photo by AFP) The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has once again confirmed that Iran is implementing the landmark nuclear agreement it signed with the P5+1 group of countries in 2015. “Implementation is very important and that requires efforts by all and ... we have a very robust verification tool,” IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano told reporters on the sidelines of a summit in Dubai on Tuesday. “There is nothing political that will change our implementation," he added. Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council - the United States, France, Britain, Russia and China plus Germany - started implementing the nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) - on January 16, 2016. Officials and diplomats from Iran, the EU, and the P5+1 group of co...

A senior Iranian lawmaker says any move by US President Donald Trump to leak confidential documents on the landmark 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries would be harmful to the UN nuclear agency and not Iran. "If Trump wants to publish confidential documents between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it will in fact constitute a violation of the agency's obligations, because the agency has been committed not to make Iran's confidential nuclear information and documents available to any country, including the US," Chairman of the Iranian Parliament's Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy Alaeddin Boroujerdi said on Sunday. He added that such a move by the US would pose challenges to the IAEA as an international body. During the US election campaign, reports circulated indicating that Trump would reveal certain documents on Iran's nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCP...

Spokesman of Pakistan's Foreign Ministry Nafees Zakaria speaks at a press conference in Islamabad on September 29, 2016. (Photo by AFP) A senior Pakistani official says India has accumulated a stockpile of nuclear weapons which threatens to undermine the balance of power in the troubled South Asian region. Pakistan’s foreign office spokesman, Nafees Zakaria, said during his weekly briefing on Thursday that India has built a “secret nuclear city” where a stockpile of nuclear weapons has been accumulated, Pakistan's English-language newspaper  Dawn  reported. The spokesman added that India has been conducting tests on intercontinental missiles, adding that such acts are impacting the existing balance of power in the region. Zakaria also stressed that the Indian government should reciprocate the steps taken by Pakistan for peace in the region.   “Pakistan remains committed to the principles of peaceful existence with all of its neighbo...