Former Bush administration ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton said today on Fox News that the killing of an Iranian scientist and sanctions against Iran constitute only “half-measures” in the quest to stunt Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Though he conflates them, the two tactics aimed at slowing Iran’s nuclear progress are actually very different. One set of activities — sanctions — are overt and have international legitimacy. The measures against Iran’s nuclear and missile programs pushed through the U.N. Security Council by the Obama administration are among the few tactics which have been shown to slow Iran’s progress.

Covert work can be broken up into several different tacks as well. While assassinations are considered clearly illegal under international humanitarian law, other activities fall in murkier territory (take, for example, the Stuxnet computer virus unleashed on Iranian nuclear facilities reportedly by Israel and the U.S.). That’s probably why U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came out today and disavowed the attack on an Iranian nuclear scientist. A State Department statement added: “The United States strongly condemns this act of violence and categorically denies any involvement in the killing.”

Openly contemptuous of international law and a longtime proponent of war with Iran, Bolton’s only objection to the killing of Iranian scientists seems to be that it’s not enough for him:

BOLTON: Well, I think all of these efforts are doomed to failure and in fact the consequence of increasing the sanctions is simply to persuade Iran to finish — to get on with the business of finishing its nuclear weapon, putting it in the position of North Korea which we know has exploded two nuclear devices, which makes it a lot less likely — in fact, probably makes it impossible to believe we would attack North Korea because of the fear of nuclear retaliation.

So I think this is going to a very, very difficult year and I think, honestly, that half-measures like assassinations or sanctions are only going to produce the crisis more quickly. The better way to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons is to attack its nuclear weapons program directly, break their control over the nuclear fuel cycle.

Watch the video:

What Bolton won’t tell you here is that sanctions, as mentioned before, have actually helped slow Iran’s nuclear progress — not accelerate it. A strike would merely delay the program, probably by no more than three years. Furthermore, a Israeli thinktank’s simulation exercise found that a Iranian nuclear test explosion does not, as Bolton claims, preclude a strike to delay further progress toward a viable, operational nuclear weapon.

The 10-year anniversary of the arrival of the first detainees at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, offers few opportunities for celebration. The prison has been described as “arguably the most expensive prison on earth” and human rights activists have voiced concerns about detainees’ lack of access to the U.S. court system and a steady stream of reports of abuse and torture. The 10-year history of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp can best be evaluated through the human and economic costs imposed on both the U.S. taxpayers and detainees. Here are some relevant numbers:

10 years since the first 20 detainees arrived at Guantánamo Bay’s Camp X-Ray

1 year, 11 months, 21 days since President Barack Obama’s deadline to close Gitmo

779 detainees incarcerated at Guantánamo Bay since 2002

600 detainees have been released

242 detainees at Gitmo when Obama took office

171 detainees still held at Guantánamo Bay

89 detainees still held after being cleared for release

92 percent of prisoners were never al Qaeda fighters according to the U.S. government

86 percent of detainees were turned over after payment of a bounty

13 years old, the age of the youngest detainee

89 years old, the age of the oldest detainee

8 detainee deaths since 2002

6 detainee deaths by suicide

3 alleged detainee homicides from “dry boarding”

$139 million per year to keep the Guantánamo Bay prison open

$800,000 per year to house each detainee

6 detainees convicted by military commissions

6 detainees currently charged by military commission prosecutor

0 detainees released in the past year

ThinkProgress intern Fatima Najiy contributed to this post.

Activists have already reported that the Syrian regime was deceiving Arab League observers dispatched to monitor the ongoing crackdown against anti-government demonstrators. Yesterday saw another voice accusing the Syrian regime of president Bashar al-Assad of deceiving monitors and continuing its crackdown under their noses: an Arab League monitor who quit his assignment and left the country.

Anwer Malek said on Al Jazeera television that Assad’s government was committing “war crimes,” deceiving observes, stocking demonstrations with loyalists and resuming attacks on protesters as soon as observers left a given area. “Therefore,” he said, “I’ve decided to withdraw from this mission.” While the Arab League didn’t comment, the Associated Press reported that Malek, who was listed as an observer, hails from Tunisia and works for the Arab Committee for Human Rights in Paris.

According to a translation dubbed over Malek’s Arabic on Al Jazeera English, the former observer said:

The mission was a farce, and the observers have been fooled. The regime orchestrated it, fabricated most of what we saw to stop the Arab League [from] taking action against the regime. What I saw was a humanitarian disaster. The regime is not just committing one war crime, but a series of crimes against its people.

The regime didn’t meet any of our requests. In fact, they were trying to deceive us and steer us away from what was really happening towards insignificant things. They didn’t withdraw their tanks from the streets; they just hid them and then redeployed them after we left. The snipers are everywhere shooting at civilians. People are being kidnapped. Prisoners are being tortured, and no one is being released. …

I’ve seen snipers on top of buildings. On one, there were even army officers in front fo the building while snipers were on the roof. Some of our team preferred to maintain good relations with the regime and deny that there are snipers.

Watch the video:

Malek said the regime had “gained a lot of time” to carry out its “plan,” and said the regime sent “spies and intelligence officers” to travel with their team as “drivers and minders.” He said: “As soon as we left an area, they attacked people.”