Today, former President Bill Clinton delivered the keynote speech at an event hosted by the Center for American Progress Action Fund commemorating and reflecting on the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing and what we can learn from it today. This week, the Arizona legislature passed the “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act,” a bill which will probably end up establishing the toughest set of state immigration laws in the country. In his speech, Clinton explained that the Oklahoma City Bombing occurred in an environment of widespread insecurity and disorientation and that similar sentiments underlie Arizona’s response to the problem of illegal immigration:

Now, we have the highest percentage of Americans who have been out of work for six months or more than we’ve had in decades. This is disorientating and people are looking for anchors to make life simple and understandable and digestable again and sometimes with the idea that they need to go back to an idyllic time that never existed. That’s a big part of the explanation for this anti-immigration law that Arizona just passed or the idea that we out to bring back Confederate month in Virginia without saying anything about slavery. [...]

I’m not defending the specifics of any of these, I’m just telling you this is what’s going on: there’s an enormous psychological disorientation today and that’s also the way it was in the early nineties.

Watch it:

Arizona has often been referred to as “ground zero” of the nation’s immigration fight. It is home to Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who instructs his officers to arrest someone for being an undocumented immigrant based solely on their “speech,” “clothing,” and “erratic behavior.” It’s the state where a nine-year-old girl and her father were shot and killed by anti-immigrant Minuteman vigilantes this past summer. It’s also the place where the brutal murder of prominent rancher Robert Krentz leads politicians to publicly blur the line between dangerous drug cartel operatives and undocumented workers looking for nothing but a better life — all in the absence of any proof regarding the killer’s country of origin, immigration status, or motive.

Arizona is only a microcosm of the nation as a whole. Over the past few years, what started as a debate on immigration policy has spiraled into unrestrained immigrant bashing, finger-pointing, and insults. In an atmosphere of federal stalemate and inaction, state and local governments have over-compensated with a flurry of anti-immigration laws. Clinton got at the point that most Americans who support such policies aren’t “bad people,” but that their reaction is in some ways a natural response to the economic and demographic changes the country has experienced this decade. Speaking in broader terms beyond immigration, Clinton warned that “we must not forget that when that happens we have to pay special care…we can’t let the debate veer so far into hatred that we lose focus of our common humanity.”

The “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act” would allow police to arrest anyone who is in this country illegally and charge them with trespass, require police to attempt to determine the immigration status of anyone they encounter, outlaw the hiring of day laborers off the street, and prohibit anyone from knowingly transporting an undocumented immigrant for any reason. Today, Courthouse News Service pointed out that the bill goes as far as to fine those who allegedly seek work through a “gesture or a nod.” The bill is still awaiting the signature of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ), who hasn’t commented on it other than saying she has “a strong and consistent track record of supporting responsible immigration-enforcement measures.”

In response to what was widely considered a highly successful summit to combat nuclear terrorism, the right is in a scramble to say something negative about it. Conservative pundits are now arguing that the summit was a failure because it did not magically solve the Iran situation, a subject that the summit never intended to address. But in making this argument, the right has exposed its naive and negligent approach toward the most urgent and dangerous threat in the post Cold War era: nuclear terrorism.

Charles Krauthammer derisively mocked the summit in a column today in the Washington Post:

What was this great convocation about? To prevent the spread of nuclear material into the hands of terrorists. A worthy goal, no doubt. Unfortunately, the two greatest such threats were not even on the agenda. The first is Iran…Nor on the agenda was Pakistan’s plutonium production… So what was the major breakthrough announced by Obama at the end of the two-day conference? That Ukraine, Chile, Mexico and Canada will be getting rid of various amounts of enriched uranium. What a relief.

Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) added that there had been “no meaningful progress in dealing with nuclear terrorism threats or the ticking clock represented by Iran’s nuclear weapons program.” And Mona Charen of the National Review wrote:

The administration assembled an elaborate tableau to feign progress on nuclear proliferation while patently failing to grapple with the most obvious, ominous, and imminent threat — Iran.

State-sponsored nuclear terrorism is a major concern, but it is not the most likely source of nuclear terrorism as the right myopically suggest. Nuclear terrorism is frighteningly more straightforward than conservatives seem to fathom. Al Qaeda doesn’t need Iran to get a nuke, all they need to find is a “Nick the Greek.” Nuclear materials are floating around on the black market, especially in the former eastern bloc. Groups, like Al Qaeda, have sought to obtain these materials, and if they were acquired, they could easily smuggle it into the US where a small team could construct a crude Hiroshima-like bomb.

In an attempt to brush away the important bilateral achievements at the summit – such as the deals with Russia, the Ukraine, Mexico, Canada, and Chile – as well as the significant final communique – the right fails to realize that vulnerable nuclear or radiological materials anywhere – whether in the eastern bloc, South America, or your local medical center, all represent potential targets for thieves looking to make a buck on the black market. Yet, in a Fox News interview this week Krauthammer asserted that the summit was “all about changing the subject.” This summit wasn’t changing the subject, this IS the subject.

Part of the reason why nuclear terrorism remains firmly in the right’s blind spot, is because securing loose nuclear materials cannot be done unilaterally. Instead, it requires a multilateral effort by countries to do more to eliminate or lock down nuclear materials. As David Hoffman said this “is not rocket science,” but it does require US leadership.

Despite the windfall of global support after 9-11, the Bush administration never made this topic a global priority. As a result of this negligence, during the past decade, the threat has grown, leading a former Ambassador to warn that a nuclear attack “is possible, plausible, and over time probable.”

The Washington Times has a pretty nutty editorial on Iran today based upon a speech given by J. Michael Waller. Who is Waller? In addition to being a professor at the Institute for World Politics, he’s also the “Vice President for Information Operations” at the Center for Security Policy, the think tank run by leading neocon goofball Frank Gaffney.

The editorial passes along a number of Waller’s assertions about the state of Iranian politics, such as his claim that, after the “proper preparation,” a new Iranian revolution “could happen in a matter of days” with U.S. help:

Mr. Waller says he thinks the United States could facilitate an uprising in Tehran with comparatively little effort. Washington could help the opposition communicate with inexpensive prepaid cell phones and proxy Internet servers and supply Flip video cameras and other means of recording and publicizing the course of the rebellion. Voice of America’s Persian News Network could focus reports on regime misdeeds and spread inspirational accounts of insiders turning against the power structure in hopes that others might join them. Tehran’s state-controlled media regularly ignore such stories, so VOA would report, and the Iranian people would decide.

Most important, the United States could supply strong moral support. A critical factor keeping Iranians from making a decisive move against the theocracy’s religious leadership is a sense of doubt that America would back their play. A clear signal to Iranian dissidents that Washington would support a revolt would go a long way toward making it happen.

So, according to Waller, not only would overthrowing the Iranian regime be a cakewalk, it’s actually the lack of U.S. support that’s preventing this quick and easy revolution. These are bold claims. One might expect them to be backed up by evidence. One would be disappointed. (You can understand the propaganda strategy, though: If a new revolution doesn’t come, it will be Barack Obama’s fault.)

The Washington Times has editorialized at various times in favor of bombing Iran. Given that bombing Iran would be a great way to end Iran’s democratic opposition movement, does the Times’ support for that movement now indicate they no longer support bombing Iran? They should clarify.

While I find Waller’s diagnosis of the current state of play in Iran pretty daft — it’s pretty clear that the Iranian regime is experiencing a crisis of legitimacy, but such regimes have unfortunately been able to grind on for decades, and nothing I’ve seen, read, nor heard indicates that this one is about to fall — I do agree that providing moral support and facilitating the Iranian opposition’s access to communications technology are things the U.S. government needs to be thinking about much more creatively.

For a more serious discussion of the current state of affairs in Iran, including recommendations for U.S. options in the face of Iran’s shifting domestic political environment, check out this new report (pdf) jointly issued by the Century Foundation’s InsideIran project and National Security Network. Or watch a video of yesterday’s panel discussion of the report (moderated by your humble blogger) at the Center for American Progress.

In an amazing column today, Charles Krauthammer – the great sage of neoconservatism – exposed the far-right’s shockingly naive and negligent approach toward the most urgent and dangerous threat in the post Cold War era: nuclear terrorism.

Krauthammer sarcastically dismisses the widely praised Nuclear Security Summit:

What was this great convocation about? To prevent the spread of nuclear material into the hands of terrorists. A worthy goal, no doubt. Unfortunately, the two greatest such threats were not even on the agenda. The first is Iran, which is frantically enriching uranium to make a bomb, and which our own State Department identifies as the greatest exporter of terrorism in the world. Nor on the agenda was Pakistan’s plutonium production, which is adding to the world’s stockpile of fissile material every day… So what was the major breakthrough announced by Obama at the end of the two-day conference? That Ukraine, Chile, Mexico and Canada will be getting rid of various amounts of enriched uranium. What a relief.

There are a few things to unpack.

First, Krauthammer doesn’t understand the threat of nuclear terrorism. To Krauthammer, and to the neoconservative right, the threat of nuclear terrorism is almost exclusively seen as coming from a “state sponsor.” As a result, he can’t comprehend what the summit was about, or what it achieved, because to Krauthammer all nuclear terror discussion basically begin and end with Iran, not the mundane task of securing loose nuclear materials.

But the most significant nuclear terror threat does not emanate from a state giving nuclear weapons to a terror group. Nuclear terrorism is frighteningly more straightforward than conservatives seem to get. Al Qaeda doesn’t need Iran to get a nuke, the need to find a “Nick the Greek.”

Nuclear materials are floating around on the black market, especially in the former eastern bloc. Criminal elements have bought off guards acquired materials and then sought to sell them. Once nuclear materials are acquired, you just box it up and ship it to the US – likely in kitty litter, which further prevents detectors from catching it. Once at the destination, it gets a little more complicated, but a few capable people with a decent science background and an internet connection could fairly easily acquire the materials to build a Hiroshima-like device, which then could be exploded at a city of their chosing.

Yet, in a Fox News interview this week Krauthammer asserted that the summit was “all about changing the subject.” This summit wasn’t changing the subject, this IS the subject.

Secondly, Krauthammer’s column exposes that the neoconservative right has no idea how to address the problem of nuclear terrorism. Part of the reason why nuclear terrorism remains firmly in the right’s blind spot, is because securing loose nuclear materials cannot be done unilaterally. Instead, it requires multilateralism.

It requires getting countries to do more to eliminate or lock down nuclear materials. As David Hoffman said this “is not rocket science.” This is also why Graham Allison called nuclear terror the “ultimate preventable catastrophe.” Yet despite the windfall of global support after 9-11 the Bush administration never made this topic a global priority or led a concerted global effort to solve this problem. Instead, it festered and grew more likely, according to a bipartisan commission.
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