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Joshua at OFK must be one of the few intelligible pundits on the planet who still seriously takes the CIA at its word. From Total Wonkerr: «Too bad there isn't some international agency with the capacity to provide an independent assessment of this sort of thing…»

Well, perhaps ACW can give us some technical details?

Despite early press reports that the fuel channels atop the Al Kibar reactor core were identical to Yongbyon, I and others — including Geoff Forden, Cheryl Rofer and Richard Wendland — see some pretty significant differences that suggest Al Kibar might have been quite a bit smaller than its North Korean cousin.

To be clear, I don't doubt that Al Kibar was a reactor and, although I think the evidence of North Korean involvement is less impressive than early press reports suggested, that's my working hypothesis too.

But I don't understand the claim that Al Kibar is a copy of Yongbyon in the strict sense — in particular, I don't understand how the IC concluded that Al Kibar is the same size as Yongbyon.

Noah Schachtman is still calling it a 'mystery'.

So, there's something to wait for. If, that is, you don't just believe the CIA!

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There has already been much discussion about the remaining mysteries surrounding the Syrian plutonium-generation reactor. My own guess (and it is just a guess) is that the Syrian reactor was the fruit of a three-way partnership composed of Iran, Syria, and North Korea. Iran provided the money, idea, and leadership. Iran ordered Syria to provide the site and some of the labor. North Korea provided the expertise, for which Iran paid (directly or indirectly) in cash.

But where Westhawk is even more helpful is the other half of his post: , the NPT system is broken, so he asks, «What will replace the broken NPT-IAEA system?» I would argue that the system is fundamentally sound, if only nuclear powers with intelligence assets would share information and let the IAEA do its job.

The challenge of proliferation control lies not in the lack of proven techniques but in the absence of moral suasion and sustained diplomacy by the world leaders. The American government subsidized the spread of nuclear knowledge through the Atoms for Peace program to counter Soviet influence, and at virtually every critical juncture since then successive administrations have set aside long-term proliferation goals in favor of short-term strategic priorities. (Catherine Collins and Douglas Frantz, The Nuclear Jihadist: The True Story of the Man Who Sold the World's Most Dangerous Secrets, and How We Could Have Stopped Him, p. 1844, Palm e-book)

Collins and Frantz advocate the following proposals to fix the system:

• a moratorium on enriched uranium;
• revision of the NPT, including eliminating the right to opt-out and a UN commitment to sanction violators;
• the reduction of nuclear arsenals and a moratorium on the creation of a new generation of weapons;
• restrictions on sales of nuclear technology;
• monitoring of civilian nuclear industries;
• intelligence-sharing

With the exception of sanctions, which are generally a worse remedy than the problems they seek to cure, this is a sane international nuclear policy