The Iranian Nuclear Crisis

This December, Iran test-fired an upgraded version of its most advanced missile, capable of carrying nuclear material and hitting Israel as well as parts of Europe. The New York Times reported that American and European intelligence agencies have been collaborating on analysis of an Iranian document that suggest Iran is working on plans for experiments that would perfect the ability to deliver an atom bomb. Just three days ago, Iran brazenly announced it is now enriching uranium at 20% levels, far above what is needed for a nuclear power plant.

Like the final scene of the Godfather, Iraqi leaders opposed to Iranian influence were systematically killed off by anonymous assassins at the end of December, the same time Iran contemptuously marched troops onto previously Iraqi controlled oil wells in disputed border territory. Simultaneously, on the condition of anonymity, an AIEA member nation released a report to the AP about how Iran recently tried to smuggle 1,350 tons of purified uranium ore from Kazakhstan.

Many are quick to point out that we cannot know what would happen if Iran got the nuke. A nuclear bomb may still never go off. They are right, we cannot know what would happen, but we know what could happen. The odds of a nuclear war may not be as large as many lead us to believe. But even if the odds are not likely, when considering the gravity of the consequences – the risk is huge.

The world is more heavily integrated than any point in human history. Our economies are all entangled and stored electronically; we live in a digital world economy sustained simply on the faith of its own stability. Our environment is suffering from our waste and pollution, but such damage would not compare to nuclear explosions.

Previously in human history, a massive war could bring down a region, but trade and assimilation with neighboring nations would eventually revive the region to health. With the increase in the level of destruction that an individual with access to nuclear material can do, combined with the increased levels of globalization, a nuclear bomb anywhere in the world would certainly change life as we know it – and not for the better.

Additionally, those that argue that Iran would never let a nuclear bomb leak out, nevertheless use one themselves, are following the same fallacious premises that are the foundation of modern economics, and also the main reason we’re in the financial circumstance we’re in. Modern economic theory only works under the assumption that 1) People have perfect access to information 2) People will act exclusively out of self-interest and 3) People will make rational decisions.

This same faulty logic is being applied by political strategists, even though the Iran does not quite fit the bill. Iran’s leaders are certainly thinking out of self-interest, but interest for themselves as individuals, not for Iran as a nation. Additionally, considering the levels of religious extremism and the absence of true democracy and free media, it cannot be said that Iranians have perfect access to information or will make rational decisions. The thought processes of their leadership is significantly different than that of our leaders, and we need to take that into account when trying to measure risks.

Iran has proven that it will only admit to details on its nuclear program when caught and has no intention of stopping its nuclear program if the nation’s leaders have a choice. At this point, it might be a circumstance of “too little, too late”, but if it is possible to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, the nation’s leaders must be made to feel that they do not have a choice.

The nation’s leaders have simply continued a pattern of feigned cooperation to buy enough time from the West to reach the point of no return, where the West can no longer prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

The question then becomes, how much time do we have? Not much, according to an IAEA report that Mr. Baradei attempted to block but was leaked to the New York Times. The report suggests that Iran has developed the technology to weaponize nuclear material and has worked on the military technology capable of delivering a nuclear weapon.

This leak, combined with the recent seizure of a massive shipment of arms from Iran to Hezbollah, suggests that the possibility of Israel taking military action is becoming more likely. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that the weapons seizure proved “unequivocally and without a doubt” the existence of the Iran-Syria-Lebanon weapons-trafficking route.

After the P5 + 1 talks (the five permanent security council members and Germany), Iran agreed to allow inspectors into the discovered secret nuclear facility at Qom. However, this concession was not one of goodwill; it came only after the inability to deny the West’s knowledge of the existence of the plant and under threats of harsh international sanctions.

They agreed to investigation by Mohamed El Baradei (the head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency who has been accused of intentionally withholding information that incriminated Iran). Iran also agreed to exporting a significant portion of their low grade uranium to be enriched outside of Iran and returned under supervision as high-grade uranium for use as fuel rods for Iran’s medical research reactor.

But Iran then missed a deadline on accepting the details of the uranium export agreement, and then ultimately declined the agreement altogether. Iran has also delayed investigation into the Qom plant by more than enough time than what would be required to clean up any incriminating evidence. The concessions Iran has made do not reveal a reversal in policy direction or an abandonment of a nuclear weapons program.

This should not be a surprise. The Natanz plant that Iran likewise hid until the West discovered it now carries 8,000 centrifuge enrichment machines, enriching uranium far beyond the levels required for a power plant. The Iranian perspective on commitments and claims to the West could perhaps be best exemplified by recent comments from the Iranian speaker of parliament and former nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, who claimed that staying in or out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty they have already signed really “makes no difference.” What they have told the West was simply political maneuvering and Iran never has had any intention of taking any of their commitments or claims in negotiations seriously.

Many international leaders are beginning to acknowledge the inability to negotiate with Iranian leaders. As British PM Gordon Brown outlined at the G20 summit this September, we need to acknowledge “the level of deception by the Iranian government, and the scale of what we believe is the breach of international commitments…. Confronted by the serial deception of many years, the international community has no choice today, but to draw a line in the sand.”

Brown claimed that sanctions would be necessary if no results were achieved during October negotiations, but under American leadership, the negotiations have simply continued to be prolonged. We have been trying to cooperate with Iran for many years, and just recently they have brazenly tested missiles that serve no defensive capability and have been caught attempting to smuggle uranium ore. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me twenty-eight times, and I’m just being willfully blind. The US needs to acknowledge what most of the world already understands – a diplomatic approach with Iran will not work on its own.

That’s not to say the negotiations have been entirely fruitless. They have pressured Russia and China, the two most significant roadblocks to meaningful sanctions against Iran, to acknowledge that further steps may need to be taken. The two nations are unlikely to take those steps themselves, but they now have no justification for standing in the way of the West when we do take those steps. Additionally, Russia seems extremely unlikely to sell the anti-aircraft weaponry it had been considering selling to Iran.

Russia and China probably always knew that negotiations would not bear any fruit from Iran. The current regime simply has an incredibly untrustworthy track record. But confrontation with Iran didn’t seem to be in the self-interest of either nation. Russia benefits politically from the West’s entanglement in the Middle East (i.e. Russia faced minimal backlash for its invasion of Ukraine) and also benefits economically from its trade network and conventional weapons sales to Iran. Similarly, China has over $100 billion in investment contracts in Iran, who also happens to be one of China’s main suppliers of oil. Neither Russia nor China take serious concern that Iran would ever turn their nukes on them.

However, with a more conciliatory American President attempting diplomatic negotiations whose failure clearly lies with the Iranians, Russia and China’s interests in the country are becoming harder to defend.

Additionally, both countries are likely beginning to consider whether non-confrontation really is in their best interest after all. Whether the result is a nuclear war in Iran or the country simply becoming a hegemonic bully, the consequences of Iran obtaining a nuke would be severely economically and politically destabilizing, and no longer seems to outweigh the particular financial interests Russia and China have in Iran.

In a recent diplomatic mission to China, Senior National Security Council officials Dennis Ross and Jeffrey Bader described the consequences of the potential of an Israeli strike and of the Gulf nations (and eventually Asian nations) attempting to acquire nukes after witnessing Iran’s success, and feeling threatened by it. These countries, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have been proposed as solutions to weaning China off of Iranian oil.  China certainly has taken notice that many Arab Middle Eastern states seem more concerned about Iran’s potential nuclear program than they are about the longstanding Israeli nuclear arsenal, and they have publicly chastised Iran since the American diplomatic mission.

Neither China nor Russia will be open to confronting Iran directly themselves, but as one senior Russian diplomat recently explained, “we will not stand aside” if others agree on sanctions. In December, both Russia and China supported a US drafted resolution condemning Iran for its recent behavior. This may not seem like much, but for two countries that were previously the largest barriers to punishing Iran to now publicly castigate the nation is considerable progress. If used wisely, this provides the West more leverage and opens up many opportunities to approach Iran that neither China nor Russia will lead the charge for, but will most likely not actively prevent any more.

So we have attained what cooperation we can from Russia and China, and the whole world seems to acknowledge that Iran cannot be trusted, so why has the US leadership continued to extend negotiations? Between the internal unrest in Iran, growing international consensus and anger in regards to Iran’s nuclear program, and the developing border dispute crisis between Iran and Iraq, it is possible that Ahmadinejad may finally be reaching a point where he sees suspending the nuclear weapons program in his best interest, or at least where obtaining nukes is no longer the highest priority.

Even still, it is unlikely that he won’t try to deceive the West into thinking he is stopping before he actually does. I’m not saying that we should halt negotiations altogether, I’m simply suggesting we should not rely on only one approach to stop a potentially enormous catastrophe, especially if that one approach is diplomatic negotiations alone.

While we have used the potential of an Israeli strike to frighten the Chinese into action, we need to consider the time-sensitive implications of such an event ourselves. Even if Iran were never to use a nuclear bomb, the ability to do so would create such a brain drain of Isreali elite fleeing the country, that the nation would likely face economic collapse amidst very hostile neighbors. We should not expect Israel to stand quietly by while Iran’s leader openly calls for its destruction, actively sends weapons to terrorist organizations that use those weapons against Israeli citizens, has the ability to weaponize nuclear material and is actively working to create nuclear material in facilities they try to keep secret.

America might be tempted to let Israel handle its dirty work, but it seems that a military strike on its own may not put a complete stop to Iran’s nuclear weaponization. While it may extend the timeline the West has to prevent Iran’s attainment of a nuclear weapon, a military strike would at best set the program back a few years. And with Iran’s increasing defensive capabilities and its distance from Israel, many strategists doubt Israel’s ability to carry out an effective surprise attack at all.

The West must do everything in its power to push Iranian leaders into abandoning their nuclear ambitions. One strategy alone is not likely to succeed, but a multi-dimensional approach that includes support of Iranian domestic opposition, economically debilitating trade sanctions, increased cooperation from Russia and China, and the serious threat of actual military action will be far more likely to succeed then the current passive approach the American administration is taking.

One of the many strategies that should be implemented is harsher sanctions. Russia, pleased by the abandonment of the US anti-missile shield and angered by the Qom revelation, is unlikely to veto new Security Council sanctions, and China is unlikely to hold out on its own. In fact, both Security Council countries that had been the major opponents to UN sanctions have publicly admonished Tehran more consistently over the past few months.

This week, Ahmadinejad proudly revealed the Iranian ability to enhance uranium to nearly 20%, more than five times the concentration we had previously believed they had reached. In reaction, the US, Britain and France all called for tougher sanctions as soon as possible, but that’s beginning to seem like the boy who cried wolf. Without significant pressure from the American leadership, such sanctions will never get passed.

Additionally, while traditional UN sanctions would prove extremely helpful to put significant economic pressure on Iran, other creative forms of economic punishment could be taken as well.

For example, the US has restricted banks from funneling Iranian money through the American banking system, but many banks have continued to do so. Last January, the US levied the largest penalty ever to a bank for secretly channeling Sudanese and Iranian money through the American financial system. Lloyds TSB has been forced to forfeit $350 million, providing strong disincentives to other financial organizations to assist Iran with such financial activity.

Over the past few months, many other major financial powers have criticized Iran and called for preventative action, including Great Britain where Lloyds still holds Iranian money. America should encourage these countries to enforce similar economic sanctions and advise them on how to implement the intricate details of such sanctions.

After a recent research study, the California Department of Insurance discovered that about 340 insurance companies licensed to do business in California had about $6 billion invested indirectly in business involving Iran’s nuclear, defense and energy industries. As a result, the state passed a law that will take effect April 1^st, preventing insurance companies to consider any investments that even indirectly touch Iran as counting towards their surpluses or reserves, making the investments far riskier. Such measures should be passed in other States and in other sectors, as well as encouraged abroad.

We should continue to push for UN cooperation, but we should not wait for it. House Resolution 2194 (The Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act) has passed the House but not yet the Senate. This would expand American sanctions against Iran by forcing petroleum companies to choose whether to do business with Iran or the US. Despite their massive oil reserves, Iran still imports their petroleum as they do not have the complicated petroleum refinement technology they need. Luckily, neither Russia nor China have mastered that technology yet either. While some smaller companies will clearly choose to work with a less competitive market in Iran, the biggest companies will most likely choose to work with the larger and more powerful market in the US.The approach of forcing businesses to choose between the American market and the Iranian market is a powerful one and could prove incredibly debilitating to an already economically faltering Iranian government.

The prospect of facing economic collapse may force the Iranian leadership to rethink their priorities. Time is running out, and other countries should be encouraged to pass similar sanctions. America should also consider passing such sanctions in other industries outside of the petroleum industry.

The carrot of dropped sanctions must be made tangible and meaningful to Iran, but should be buttressed by something stronger that the Iranian leaders can point to as progress rather than the resolution of a problem they created. One such option would be the provision of an oil pipeline to Central Europe, whose profits would prove far larger than an Iranian nuclear program, and whose existence would also significantly counter Russia’s growing dominance in the region.

But a carrot without a stick is worthless. Financial incentives need to be paired with the credible threat of actual military action. The West has threatened a military strike, with French President Nicholas Sarkozy going so far as to explain that two options exist: An Iranian nuclear bomb or the bombing of Iran. But with the US entangled in Afghanistan and Iraq (where Iran continuously funds domestic conflict and destabilizes peace efforts), Iran does not take these threats seriously. While Iran practices war games in the Strait of Hormuz, America simply states that there is a military option, without giving Iran much cause to fear such an option would ever be enacted to prevent its nuclear weaponization.

A bipartisan American report suggests that the US begin overtly planning for a military strike. As former Air Force General Charles Wald (who helped draft the report) explains, the Iranians “frankly don’t believe that we would do anything against them.”  This drains us of all of our leverage. We may be too overextended to handle a third conflict right now, but behaving as such only emboldens Iran.

Additionally, there are more military options than full-scale war. An air strike against the Isfahan, Arak and Natanz nuclear reactors would set back Iran significantly, perhaps for enough time to reconsider its priorities as its economic and political circumstances continue to change.

Another strategy should be to capitalize on the public dissension and the fear that has caused the Iranian leadership to refocus on their own political survival. During recent riots, the Iranian President and the Clerics were likely panicked at the prospect of losing power over the people, knowing full well the instability of totalitarian rule when civilian dissatisfaction becomes widespread and public. The harsh Iranian crackdown on domestic opposition should be interpreted as a sign of weakness and desperation, not as one of strength and power.

While a military strike may only delay Iran’s nuclear weaponization by a couple years, a military strike may become necessary if Iran gets to the point where we need to buy that time. However, a military strike would likely prove to be a setback in terms of Iran’s domestic dissent.

The Iranian regime recovered from deep internal tensions and public dissatisfaction with its governance when Saddam Hussein attacked in 1980. Historically, even the most unstable and repressive regimes experience a massive outpouring of domestic support when attacked by a foreign nation, such as when Germany attacked Russia at the height of Stalin’s repression.

After Ahmadinejad’s fraudulent reelection this summer, the Iranian population has been more vocal about their dissent. Iran has responded with beatings and other methods of coercion and fear, certainly affecting the number of unsatisfied Iranians willing to risk public protest, but the protests have continued and the dissension among the population is evident and destabilizing for the Iranian leadership. One recent protest saw Iranians calling on Obama to side with them over Ahmadinejad.

While the willingness to publicly profess dissension decreases with each brutal government reaction, the actual dissatisfaction of the Iranian population with their own government does not decrease, and if anything seems to continue to grow.

Riots exploded again in Tehran in late December, with anywhere from eight to fifteen people killed and hundreds arrested. The murdered included Ali Mousavi, the nephew of the Hossein Mousavi, the main opposition leader in Iran. Tens of thousands of pro-reform protestors turned into rioters as they clashed with Iranian security forces, throwing stones at police and setting cars on fire. Although the protests were originally directed at Ahmadenijad after his fraudulent election in June, they have begun to seem more directed at the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khameni, a significant shift.

The opposition hopes to increase the divide between Ahmadenijad and the regime’s second most powerful cleric, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. If they continue to succeed in spreading the public protests, they hope to pressure Khameni into forcing Ahmadenijad to compromise with the more moderate Rafsanjani. Unfortunately, this time, Iranian security forces moved swiftly to repress the riots, brutally attacking protestors on the streets, shutting down subway stations, and arresting family and top aides of opposition leaders Mousavi and Khatami. In January, the conservative Iranian Judiciary sentenced two protestors two death by hanging for political crimes.

Just yesterday, protests erupted yet again, and we should expect more harsh crack-downs by the government and violent clashes between protestors and security forces. As opposed to the December protest, the main opposition leaders are openly backing these protests, convinced that they must capitalize on the growing momentum.

We cannot allow the Iranians opposed to the current regime to lose hope. The domestic opposition has been far more open and apparent than the opposition discussed regarding the local Iraqis prior to the American invasion of Iraq. The Iranian public is far more literate, educated and vocal, often displaying signs in English as if to show the world the importance and determination of their message.

The West needs to capitalize on this dissatisfaction. We probably have no real idea what our government is doing to support internal dissent; blatant and direct assistance may only weaken the domestic support for the Iranian opposition, so our leaders will be more likely to provide such support quietly. But that does not mean that as American citizens we should avoid publicly encouraging our political leaders to pursue a multi-pronged approach that includes supporting internal dissension in Iran, which proves destabilizing for its current government.

The Iranian government sees foreign involvement in domestic affairs as a major threat, as illustrated when the semi-official pro-government Fars News Agency reported that protestors took to the streets in recent riots when they “followed the call of foreign media.” History has shown that dictators have often been overthrown by domestic opponents when gaining significant support of foreign patrons, such as with Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, the Polish Communists, or the South African Apartheid. The Iranian leadership knows this, and judging by the show trials in Iran where the defendants have “admitted” involvement in an American plot to overthrow the government, the leadership seems frankly paranoid about this threat.

The Iranian leaders do not display this same sort of paranoia in regards to their nuclear program. They seem considerably more fearful of defeat by domestic opponents empowered by America than by America’s actual willingness to attack Iran directly to prevent its nuclearization. While their focus has been accurately directed at their real weakness, our focus has not been.

Iran’s primary goal in the past few months has been to reestablish stability and control. Our primary goal with Iran has been to prevent its nuclear weaponization, but it should have been to maintain and assist the internal threats to the government’s stability, and in turn prevent the nation’s nuclear weaponization.

Between the failures and the successes of our government’s clandestine support for domestic opposition in the former Soviet Union, we should know how to implement effective rebellion support tactics. Whereas some diplomats were concerned that sanctions would rally the Iranian people behind their government, sanctions may provide the domestic opposition another opportunity to prove the current regime’s failure while simultaneously weakening the already politically and economically unstable Iranian government.

It may not require a massive revolution to prevent Iran from going nuclear, but the serious loss of domestic stability and control and a movement even heading in the direction of a revolution may be enough for the government to change its priorities and focus on the immediate need of political survival. Such refocusing would require diverting resources from its nuclear program and minimizing foreign involvement.

Again, that isn’t to say that sanctions and support for domestic opposition will prevent Iran from attaining a nuke, but in combination with serious consideration and threat of a military option and increased involvement with Iran’s more traditional supporters and trade partners, the odds of Iran continuing their current trajectory towards nuclear militarization are far lower than continuing with negotiations alone.

Sources:

Al Jazeera – Reformist Held After Iran Riots: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/200961445310869719.html

Atlantic-Community.Org – Iran’s Fabricated Elections: http://www.atlantic-community.org/index/Open_Think_Tank_Article/Iran%27s_Fabricated_Elections:_The_US_and_EU_Must_React

BBC News – Brown on Iran’s Serial Deception: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8275101.stm

CNN World – Iran Opposition Leader’s Nephew  Buried After Riots: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/12/30/iran.moussavi.burial/

The Economist – Nuclear Proliferation: An Iranian Nuclear Bomb or the Bombing of Iran: http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15016192

The Economist – Iran Misses Yet Another Deadline: http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14732577

The Economist – Israel is Not Alone in Confronting Iran:

http://www.economist.com/theworldin/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14742438

The Economis – Iran: Fearless or Foolhardy:

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_ID=15514993&fsrc=nlw|wwp|02-11-2010|politics_this_week

Govtrak – Iran Refined Petroleum Act:  http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-2194

The Guardian – Lloyds forfeits $350m for disguising origins of funds from Iran and Sudan:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/10/lloyds-forfeits-350m-to-us

MSNBC – Report: Iran Seeking to Smuggle Raw Uranium: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34622227/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/

Newsweek – Zakaria: Containing a Nuclear Iran – http://www.newsweek.com/id/216702/page/1

Meacham – The Chance of Nuclear Armageddon – http://www.newsweek.com/id/216701

Israeli Ambassador Reiterates Stance about “All Options” – http://www.newsweek.com/id/216718

Israel seizes massive weapons cache sent from Iran to Hezbollah -http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1256799097285

Iranian Protests – http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091104/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran

New York Post – Iran Riots Deadly: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/iran_riots_deadly_4N1IbFP6d3WIO10wuaH56I

The New York Times – U.S. and Allies Warn Over Nuclear ‘Deception’:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/26/world/middleeast/26nuke.html

San Luis Obispo Tribune – California Seeks Full Divestment of Insurers from Iran: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/financial/story/1022488.html

The Scoop – Foreign Policy Initiative Roundup: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0912/S00494.htm

Stratfor – Iran: The Regime Considers the Path Ahead: http://www.stratfor.com/memberships/151317/analysis/20091228_iran_regime_considers_path_ahead

Stratfor – Iran: Clashes in Tehran and an Ominous Outlook: http://www.stratfor.com/memberships/151255/analysis/20091227_iran_clashes_tehran_and_ominous_outlook

Stratfor – Watching Iran for a Breaking Point: http://www.stratfor.com/memberships/151155/analysis/20091223_intelligence_guidance_special_edition_watching_iran_breakpoint

Stratfor: Russia, Iran and The Biden Speech – http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20091026_russia_iran_and_biden_speech?utm_source=GWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=091026&utm_content=readmore

The Sun – 8 Dead in Iran Riot: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2785699/Five-dead-as-Iran-riots-against-government.html

Times Online – Iran starts processing nuclear fuel towards weapons-grade strength:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7020198.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1

Times Online – Nuclear Cheating: The West must press home its advantage after catching Iran red-handed – http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article6861005.ece

The Washington Post – The US Should Target Iran’s Instability: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/29/AR2009092902931.html

The Washington Post – China’s Backing on Iran Followed Dire Predictions: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/25/AR2009112504112.html?hpid=topnews

The Controversial Brain Boosters

A growing section of the population are increasingly using drugs they are not prescribed for non-recreational purposes. Many of these drugs were created to treat ADD, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, or other health issues that affect the mind.  While these drugs may help people deal with their inability to focus, remember, or discern truths, they can also improve the mental abilities of the healthy as well.

For example, Modafinil, the active compound in drugs like Provigil, keeps people alert and focused and is often used to “improve concentration,”  generally allowing the average person to hold an extra digit in the working memory.

Some researchers are suggesting that these cognition-enhancing prescription drugs have the potential to significantly change the future of human society. “Think of millions of workers in India or China cognitively enhanced with neuropharmaceuticals.   Will the United States be able to place these drugs off-limit and still compete?” probes one neuroscientist.

The drugs have the ability to activate neurotransmitters, chemicals that naturally exist in our brain to facilitate electrical movement between neurons and other cells in our brain or body. That movement is what allows different parts of our brain to communicate and cooperate, or think. The drugs encourage our neurotransmitters to more actively serve as traffic conductors, changing the switch for electrical circuits in our brains from the “off” to the “on” position.  As scientists discover more about neuronal circuits , neurotransmitters and how the brain manages attention, these drugs will become ever more powerful, nuanced and precise.

While some drugs enhance attention and focus, a more recent development has been memory enhancing drugs, for which the powerful baby boomer generation have been placing a high and growing demand.   If a drug could boost the transformation of short-term memory to long-term memory, it could help humans absorb and retain information with considerably less practice and commitment of time.

Other drugs, called psychotropies, could provide similar creativity boosting side effects as existing illegal drugs (i.e. marijuana and LSD). Psychotropies could do so in a more controlled manner, but research of such drugs have been slower to come down the pipeline.

Of course, every drug has potentially negative side effects. Some have concerns that memory boosting drugs may take energy away from your ability to focus on short-term needs and or impede your ability to quickly utilize your “working memory.”  Others worry that such drugs could make moments that should not be worth focusing on unforgettable and hence haunting.

Additionally, social issues arise from the likelihood that only the already wealthy will be able to afford cognition and performance-enhancing drugs, further widening the gap between themselves and those who cannot afford such an drug.

Transhumanists such as Nick Bostrom, the director of the University of Oxford Future of Humanity Institute,  predict that the use of brain boosting drugs is inevitable.  Transhumanists promote voluntary, ethical use of technology to create humans with biological capacities enhanced far beyond the people of today. As Dr. Bostrom puts it, “the current medical system is built around preventing, diagnosing, curing or alleviating disease. This doesn’t leave enough resources for developing those mind-expanding, mind-tweaking drugs.” Others, like The Economist, argue that if no significant side effects are found, improving our cognitive abilities should be viewed as a positive thing.  Whether promoting progress productivity and development of the human mind or warning against the unforeseeable consequences and social divisions that brain boosters may cause, most everyone agrees that the ability to improve brain performance with substances is here, and will most likely continue to grow.

For more information: Discover Magazine’s “Are Smart Drugs the Answer to Bad Moods and a Bad Economy“, The Economist’s “Cognitive Enhancement: All on the Mind“

Mexico’s Drug War: Distribution Methods, Violence, and Attempted Solutions

Cops approach a citizen beaten in the violent streets of drug-war-torn border city of Juarez.

 

Mexico’s drug war has spiralled from bad to worse over the past couple years. Gun battles in public that claim the lives of bystanders have become commonplace along many of the towns that border Mexico and the U.S..  The result has been a bloody battle that has left more than 7,000 Mexicans murdered since the start of last year. 

“Mexico’s drug plague is a product of both its authoritarian past and its new democratic present. When it ruled Mexico as an elective dictatorship, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) accommodated but regulated the drug cartels. But after the PRI lost the presidency in 2000 and its quasi-control of the cartels broke down, those groups split into more vicious gangs like the Zetas, a band of former army commandos who now head the Gulf Cartel.” 

The movement of drugs through Mexico to the U.S. is both complex and methodical.  Drug supply arrives in bulk from Soutern Central America and Latin America until it gets broken up into smaller packages in cartel territory along the border.

 

Drug supply arrives in bulk from Soutern Central America and Latin America until it gets broken up into smaller packages in cartel territory along the border.

In Southern Mexico, drug traffickers move the drugs North in bulk, but as the drugs make it further North and cross the border, the shipments are broken down into smaller parcels to hedge against police interdiction and to prepare the drugs for users. Like any supply chain, as packages become smaller and approach the retail-level, more human capital is required and the number of gang members increase in concentration as you move closer to Mexico’s Northern border.  As a result of the nature of this supply chain, one might consider movement of drugs South of the border as trafficking, and the movement along and across the border as distribution.

Drugs and people move from South to North, while money and weapons move from North to South. In a heated “Darwinian” environment, the cartels have become more creative in their methods and they constantly change routes to keep from establishing a preventable pattern for crime enforcers.

“Putting pressure on the people who are active in the border drug trade has so far only inspired others to innovate and adapt to the challenging environment.” Drugs have been smuggled using all of the following methods:

• Tunneling under border fences into safe houses on the U.S. side.
• Traversing the desert on foot with 50-pound packs of narcotics. (Dirt bikes, ATVs and pack mules are also used.)
• Driving across the border by fording the Rio Grande, using ramps to get over fences, cutting through fences or driving through open areas.
• Using densely vegetated portions of the riverbank as dead drops.
• Floating narcotics across isolated stretches of the river.
• Flying small aircraft near the ground to avoid radar.
• Concealing narcotics in private vehicles, personal possessions and in or on the bodies of persons who are crossing legally at ports of entry.
• Bribing border officials in order to pass through checkpoints.
• Hiding narcotics on cross-border trains.
• Hiding narcotics in tractor trailers carrying otherwise legitimate loads.
• Using boats along the Gulf coast.
• Using human “mules” to smuggle narcotics aboard commercial aircraft in their luggage or bodies.
• Shipping narcotics via mail or parcel service.

“Once the narcotics are moved into the United States, drug distributors use networks of safe houses, which are sometimes operated by people with direct connections to the Mexican cartels, sometimes by local or regional gang members, and sometimes by individual entrepreneurs. North of the border, distributors still must maneuver around checkpoints, either by avoiding them or by bribing the officials who work there. While these checkpoints certainly result in seizures, they can only slow or reroute the flow of drugs. Hub cities like Atlanta service a large region of smaller drug dealers who act as individual couriers in delivering small amounts of narcotics to their customers.”

The Mexican cartels don’t have the human capital to distribute the drugs across America without help. Before pricing out the drugs, they must weigh the costs of bribes, use of risky low-level smugglers, and cooperation with domestic gangs for distribution purposes. Generally, these gangs do not make their sole source of income through the drug trade, and while they often have even familial connections to the Mexican cartels, they remain independent entities that also profit off of property crime, racketeering, kidnapping illegal immigrants and demanding ransom from their families, and traditional American gang methods. More than one kidnapping a day occured in Pheonix, Arizona during 2008 from the gangs also connected to drug distribution.

Generally smaller in size but more numerous, U.S. gangs cooperate with the Mexican Cartels to distribute the drugs once they cross the border.

No single gang has gained a monopoly on the American side of the border, and few have consolidated full reign over territory the size that the Mexican Cartels have South of the border.  As a result, the cartels have to work with multiple U.S. gangs, who distribute for multiple cartels as well.  A complex underground business relationship develops based upon reliability and price.

While the Cartels don’t have any direct control over the U.S. gangs, they very commonly train and use American assassins with no other crime organization affiliation to check in and enforce honesty from the American gangs.

The Mexican police have battled the drug cartels for years, but only recently has the government reluctantly come to the undeniable conclusion that their police institutions are overrun by corruption and cronies to the cartels.  As a result, Mexican President Felipe Calderon has called in the army to fight the drug war the police were incapable of ending.

The majority of drugs that make into the U.S. leave from the border town of Juarez, where violence mushroomed last year when three different cartels battled over the territory. Since then, Mayor Reyes has agreed to allow 5,000 of Calderon’s army troops and 2,000 federal cops to take over the battlefield, and the murder rate has dropped from 10 a day to 5 in the entire month of March.

Mexico’s admission that it’s police force needs to be cleaned up and revamped came along with an admission by the U.S. – President Obama recently conceded that the demand that feeds the drug industry comes from within our borders and consequently makes our nation equally responsible for the crisis. The administration has promised increased cooperation, sending 500 new federal agents to the border, appointing a new border-policy czar (Alan Bersin), and expanding drug courts and mandated rehab programs.

Federal cops and the Mexican military have largely taken over crime enforcement responsibilities along Mexico's Northern border.

 Last year, Congress approved a $1.5 billion aid package known as “The Merida Initiative” to help the Mexican government battle the cartels. However, critics claim the initiative focuses too much on a military solution, providing helicopters, equipment and technology. Very little focus has been put on the police force, which many argue needs to be revamped, not ignored, if a long-term solution that prevents organized crime is to succeed.

 The El Paso city council is asking for more, formally requesting Washington consider the legalization of marijuana. Formerly, such a method would not even be considered, but worsening circumstances has made some realize that the legalization could deal a crippling blow to the cartels, whose cash flow is estimated at more than $25 billion a year.  ”The U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs in March heard prominent drug researchers argue that cannabis should be sold legally and taxed like tobacco. Ernesto Zedillo and César Gaviria, former Presidents of Mexico and Colombia, respectively, have said the same. And Mexico’s Congress is again debating decriminalization of marijuana use, after backing off the issue a few years ago under intense pressure from the Bush Administration.”

 

El Paso County Sherriff Richard Wiles is pushing for Washington to renew the assault-weapons ban that Congress allowed to expire in 2004, claiming legal access to powerful weapons in the US has moved South and reset the balance between the Mexican government and cartels.

 

Much still needs to be done. While the military has made progress, in a sad admission of the cartel’s power, this February the Juarez Police Chief stepped down after gangs made good on a shocking threat to murder a police officer every 48 hours until he stepped down, including the director of police operations.

 

Hopefully, with increased cooperation between the Mexican and U.S. governments and a more comprehensive approach being taken in tackling the crisis, the Mexican government may retake control from the cartels. It isn’t likely to happen any time soon.

 

For More:  TIME’s coverage, Stratfor’s Coverage on the Drug Trade and Distribution Methods

Bringing Back The Dinosaurs

Who needs dino DNA? A few tweaks to a chick embryo may be all it takes to grow a chickenosaur (left) that resembles an early raptor (right).

 

A new field of research has emerged from the sysnthesis of molecular, developmental, and evolutionary biology called evolutionary developmental biology, or “evo devo” for short.

Hans Larsson, a paleontologist from McGill University, is building upon this background in hopes of exploring and identifying the  connections surrounding major evolutionary changes. “He is interested in reactivating dormant genes or changing the regulation of active genes in embryos to bring back ancestral traits that have been lost.”

Scientists have never been able to test their hypotheses on how anatomical changes have developed for certain species. Only recently has a methodology for such research become practical.  “The trick is to run the tape of evolution over again: to intervene in the development of a chicken embryo, for instance, to reverse evolution, rolling back the clock to manifest earlier patterns of gene expression.”

This method could be used to test evolutionary changes such as the loss of a tail from the Jurassic forefathers of the chicken. The method has already been used to induce chicken embryos to develop teeth simply through gene manipulation.

Jack Horner, scientist and author of How to Build a Dinosaur, suggests using this method to not just test evolutionary changes,  but to recreate the former ancestors of certain species entirely so that we can examine evolution on a macroscopic scale. In essense, Horner is suggesting we manipulate embryos of existing species to recreate organisms of ancestral yet extinct species.

In cases like the absence of a tail in chickens, inserting new genes into an embryo may not even be necessary.  Researchers suspect the genes still exist but lay dormant and unused. Adjusting growth factors and other chemicals that affect gene activation and development during the embryonic stage may be the key to recreating traits species have developed out of.

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High Time for Legalizing Marijuana

With drug laws being revamped across the nation, politicians are begininng to acknowledge the irrationality of our drug laws (which in some states have the same minimum sentence as second-degree murder). States from California to Massachusettes have enacted various forms of decriminalizing marijuana, and a significant section of the American public has been pushing for more attention to the potential of legalizing marijuana.

In a recent forum, President Obama swiftly rejected the potential for legalizing the drug, but Time Magazine editorial writer Joe Klein argues this may have been a practical decision as any other answer would have swayed attention away from the economic stimulus plan Obama is currently promoting.

Klein argues that there are many convincing reasons for drug-reform. “We spend $68 billion per year on corrections, and one-third of those being corrected are serving time for nonviolent drug crimes. We spend about $150 billion on policing and courts, and 47.5% of all arrests are marijuana-related. That is an awful lot of money, most of it nonfederal, that could be spent on better schools or infrastructure — or simply returned to the public.”

Not only could money be saved through legalization, money could also be made; a 10% retail tax on marijuana would yield $1.4 billion in California alone. Although there are justifiable arguments against legalization, both moral and medical, the benefits seem to outweigh the cons when it comes to legalizing marijuana.

Fore More: Click Here

Time Magazine’s Coverage of New York’s Drug Laws

What Anesthesia May Tell Us About Consciousness

Waking from anesthesia is not like waking from a dream.  It often feels “as if the surgeons had simply cut out a few hours of [your] life and joined together the loose ends.” Even in sleep, we maintain a state of semi-consciousness.  Under anesthesia, however, our consciousness seems to dissapear.

How anesthesia works really remains a mystery.  Different tests for consciousness often provide different results – one method may determine a patient to be conscious while another deems the patient unconscious.  This leads us to ask if it is even possible to measure consciousness in the way we measure more concretely scientific states such as temperature.

Some research suggests that consciousness is triggered by the thalamus, a cluster of neurons in the very center of the brain.  Other research, however, suggests that consciousness relies upon the network of neurons that allows for communication between different areas of the brain. “Sensory signals travel through a mass transit system made up of long branches of neurons that crisscross the brain… [under anesthesia] individual parts of the cortex can still respond to a stimulus, but the brain can’t move these signals around to other parts to create a single unified experience.”

Giulio Tononi, a nueroscientist at The University of Wisconsin, suggests that anesthesia’s dampening of the neural network and mass transit system that allows different parts of our brain to cooperate indicates that it is that particular ability which defines consciousness on the scientific level. While philosophers may dispute his definition, Tononi argues that “consciousness is the brain’s ability to be in a complex state.”

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The Danger of the Next-Generation Antibiotic

 

An electron micrograph of bacteriophages attached to a bacterial cell

 

New research has aimed to manipulate viruses to kill bacteria cells, serving as a next-generation antibiotic called bacteriophages. However, two scientists from NYU warned in a recent research paper that this methodology could create a superbug that would prove hazardous to our health in a way disease has not impacted the Western World in recent times. 

The bacteriophages could cause bacteria species to ”literally bypass a billion years of evolution in a single event” by transfering genes across bacterial species.  The researchers illustrated in their paper how genes can be transferred from one dangerous bacterial cell into another if both came into contact with bacteriophages.  Additionally, plasmids (which carry antibiotic resistance) could also be transferred.

For More: Discover Magazine’s Coverage

Original Research Paper

The Threat To Your Privacy

 

With the litany of new web applications aimed at managing your reputation and “sharing” pictures and information, far more information is available about individuals online that has historically been the case.

But whatever purpose posted information may have been intended for, it normally finds another use as well.

Historically, most web-related piracy concerns have focused on companies, such as Google. But the privacy of its customer’s data serves the self-interest of Google, who only allows computers instead of humans to see user-specific data.

With the camera-phone, every individual becomes a documentary filmmaker.  Combined with the Internet, the technology makes any public activity potentially permanently public, posted online by a “friend” or bystander for the rest of the world to see. 

Most likely, a new etiquette will develop of how to post things while being respectful towards others involved (in hopes of reciprocity).  Such social issues will most likely become increasingly digital and increasingly commonplace over the next year.

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Team Obama’s Anti-Israel Turn

 

John Bolton claims that Obama's Special Envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell will employ a strategy that will ultimately legitimize Hamas, hence legitimizing the terror tactics they use.

 

Former US Ambassador to the UN, conservative leader John Bolton argues that Obama’s strategy with the Middle East seems focused on an established fallacy – one that assumes that resolving the “Arab-Israeli” conflict will resolve the broader tensions in the region and enable all other regional strategic goals to fall in line.

Bolton claims that Obama’s strategy and appointment of George Mitchell as special envoy to the Middle East with the sole focus of resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict suggests that significant pressure will be put on both sides to reach an agreement quickly. However, Israel is far more likely to be influenced by such pressure and will probably be pushed into meeting with Hamas and Hezbollah without any actual concenssions from the terrorist groups. This will not only legitimize terrorist tactics and ensure their continued use, it will distract the US from the more time-sensitive issues surrounding Iran.

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The Best Art Shows and Architecture of 2008

 

Gustave Courbet's paintings at the Metropolitan Museum this year displayed images of panache with forceful realism

The "William Eggleston: Democratic Camera" art show at the Whitney reminds the viewer why Eggleston is considered "one of the great Romantic originals of camerawork."

Nari Ward's "Diamond Gym" was on display at the inaugural New Orleans Biennial, an art show that displayed work from eighty-one artists at around thirty ad-hoc locations found around the battered city. "Diamond Gym" was installed at a former church.

"The steel lattice surrounding the Beijing National Stadium looks like a gigantic sculpture, but most of the beams are structural, not decorative."

Renzo Piano's California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco boasts an "elegant steel-and-glass building" that "supports an undulating, fully planted green roof."

Walter Sedovic's restoration of the Moorish Eldridge Street Synagogue has given new life to the building as both a museum and a functioning synagogue on the Lower East Side of New York City.

Olafur Eliasson’s extraordinary New York Waterfalls Project mixes urban modernity with the beauty of nature.

For More: The Best Art Shows of 2008

The Best Architecture of 2008