Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee today, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, repeated his position that Iran has not yet decided whether to develop a nuclear weapon. Clapper, both in his prepared remarks [PDF] and in an exchange with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), emphasized that sanctions and diplomacy were the best option for stopping Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and that Iran’s decision making is guided by a a rational “cost-benefit approach.”

Graham — who is currently spearheading a resolution limiting President Obama’s policy options on Iran — tried to push Clapper into acknowledging that Iran has decided to pursue a nuclear weapon, but the top U.S. intelligence official failed to agree, leading Graham to disagree with the U.S. intelligence assessment of Iran’s nuclear intentions:

LINDSEY GRAHAM: You have doubt about the Iranian’s intention when it comes to making a nuclear weapon?

JAMES CLAPPER: I do.

GRAHAM: So you’re not sure they’re trying to make a bomb? [...]

CLAPPER: I think they’re keeping themselves in a position to make that decision but there are certain things they have not yet done and have not done for some time. [...]

GRAHAM: I guess my point is that I take a different view. I’m very convinced they’re going down the road of developing a nuclear weapon.

Watch it:

In his prepared testimony, Clapper emphasized that Iran’s decisionmaking could be influenced by outside inducements and pressures, much as any other nation state evaluates its interests and security, saying:

We judge Iran’s nuclear decisionmaking is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which offers the international community opportunities to influence Tehran. Iranian leaders undoubtedly consider Iran’s security, prestige, and influence, as well as the international political and security environment, when making decisions about its nuclear program.

Clapper acknowledged that Iran’s technical advancements strengthen the assessment that Iran has the capability to eventually produce a nuclear weapon, a view which falls in line with the IAEA’s findings that Iran’s nuclear program has potential military dimensions.

Referring to the new U.S. sanctions against the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), Clapper observed that while economic difficulties “probably will not jeopardize the regime,” CBI sanctions “will have a greater impact on Iran than previous U.S. [sanctions].”

Libyan militias are “out of control,” committing widespread human rights abuses and fueling insecurity as Libyans attempt to rebuild state institutions, says a new report by Amnesty International. The report, released a year after the start of the February 2011 uprising, documents the increasingly widespread and serious abuses, including war crimes, committed by Libyan militias.

The report highlights the abuses committed by militias against suspected Qaddafi loyalists. African migrants and refugees have frequently been the target of these revenge attacks. Journalists have reported on the targeting of African migrants by militias over the past year. Yesterday, The Christian Science Monitor’s Dan Murphy, describing a trip to Libya last year, wrote that he saw “African men, wearing rags and without proper shoes, described as ‘mercenaries’ for Qaddafi; that did not seem accurate to me.”

In January and February, Amnesty International visited 11 militia run detention facilities in central and western Libya. Observers found that at 10 of these locations, detainees reported being tortured or ill-treated. In several cases, detainees reported admitting to rape and other crimes they hadn’t committed after undergoing torture.

Amnesty reports that since September, at least 12 detainees held by militias have died after being tortured. Victims of torture reported the use of torture methods once common in Qaddafi’s prison system: electric shocks and beatings with whips, cables, plastic hoses, metal chains, wooden bars and sticks. At a detention center in Misrata, Amnesty observers saw militia members beating and threatening detainees whose release had been ordered. “Thousands” of people remain illegally detained by the militias.

While abuses by Libyan militias have been an ongoing problem since the revolution against Qaddafi’s government began in February 2011, the current government have taken little to no action against the militias even as the country attempts to rebuild its legal and political institutions.

“Militias in Libya are largely out of control and the blanket impunity they enjoy only encourages further abuses and perpetuates instability and insecurity,” said Donatella Rovera, Senior Crisis Response Adviser at Amnesty International. “A year ago Libyans risked their lives to demand justice. Today their hopes are being jeopardized by lawless armed militias who trample human rights with impunity.”

But while the new Libyan government struggles to rebuild institutions and has set a June 23 deadline for the election of a new 200-member national congress, a poll released yesterday found that only 15 percent of Libyans think Libya should have a democratic government in 12 months time while 29 percent said they would prefer a “(single) strong Libyan leader.”

With Chinese vice president and presumed next leader Xi Jinping visiting the United States this week, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney took to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal today to attack President Obama’s China policy. Romney tries to go with the standard “GOP: Strong; Obama: weak” meme that has characterized much of the Republicans’ attacks on Obama’s foreign policy this campaign season. But as Foreign Policy’s Daniel Drezner points out, most of Romney’s op-ed is “pretty silly.”

Romney criticized Obama’s “strategic pivot” to the Asia-Pacific region he announced late last year, calling it “vastly under-resourced:”

Despite his big talk about bolstering our military position in Asia, President Obama’s actions will inevitably weaken it. He plans to cut back on naval shipbuilding, shrink our Air Force, and slash our ground forces.

While Air Force chief of staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said recently that Air Force cut backs won’t “be easy” but “manageable,” those reductions and the overall long-term troop cuts that are part of the new military strategy don’t have anything to do with Obama’s new Asia-Pacific strategy. In fact, the Obama administration is increasing the U.S troop presence in the region and helping to upgrade Taiwan’s F-16 fleet. Moreover, Romney’s claim that Obama “plans to cut back on naval shipbuilding” is false. “The great irony,” CAP’s Lawrence Korb noted back in October, “is that the level of nine [ships], which Obama has proposed, is higher than at any time during the [George W.] Bush administration.”

Aside from the military side of Romney’s baseless attacks, Drezner points out that the former Massachusetts governor omitted the economic and diplomatic components of Obama’s pivot:

Left unmentioned were the diplomatic components (joining the East Asia Summit, interceding on the South China Sea, warming relations with Myanmar, tripartite between the U.S., Australia and India) as well as the economic components (ratifying the FTA with South Korea, signing the framework agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership). This is important, because any U.S. strategy in the Asia-Pacific region has to be a full-spectrum approach, while Romney seems peculiarly obsessed with shipbuilding.

“To be blunt,” Drezner adds, “this China policy reads like it was composed by the Hulk. Maybe this will work in the GOP primary, but Romney and his China advisors should know better.”