One of the main themes senators on the Senate Armed Services Committee committed themselves to today during Chuck Hagel’s confirmation hearing to be the next Secretary of Defense was — not wondering whether Hagel fully supports a diplomatic approach to Iran’s nuclear program, as most Americans do — but rather, whether the former Republican senator is willing to take this nation into another war in the Middle East if necessary.

Senator after senator, both Republican and Democrat, repeatedly sought Hagel’s reassurance that he is committed to starting a war with Iran — as if the last 10 years of a disastrous war in Iraq had never happened.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) was one of those senators. During one series of questions in which Ayotte wondered if Iran was “responsible” enough to deal with, Hagel explained that his priority is diplomacy. “I think it’s always wise to try to talk to people before you get into war,” he said:

AYOTTE: Because here we have a regime that doesn’t respond to in a responsible or sane behavior as a state-sponsor of terrorism and why that would be an appropriate manner for us to address them?

HAGEL: Well first I said engagement and I think we should talk, we actually are indirectly in the P5 plus one, we have been. I think that’s responsible. I think it’s always responsible to try to talk first. North Korea. I don’t consider North Korea a responsible, sane administration but we’re talking to North Korea. We’ve been talking bilaterally to North Korea. We are talking with the party of six to North Korea. I think that’s wise. I think it’s always wise to try to talk to people before you get into war.

Ayotte continued to badger Hagel about his past support for talks with Iran. “I’ve always thought that that’s smarter and wiser” to push countries into international organizations, Hagel said, adding:

HAGEL: Because when they go in to world bodies they have to comply with some semblance of international behavior it doesn’t mean they always will, they won’t, they cheat. But I think we’re smarter to do that. I’ve never thought engagement is weakness. I’ve never thought it was surrender. I never thought it was appeasement. I think it’s clearly in our interests. If that doesn’t work then I think the President’s position and his strategy has been exactly right. Get the United Nations behind you. Get the international sanctions behind you. Keep military options on the table. If the military option is the only option, it’s the only option.

Watch the clip:

“At Hagel hearing,” the Washington Post’s Rajiv Chandrasekaran observed on Twitter, “136 mentions of Israel and 135 of Iran. Only 27 refs to Afghanistan. 2 for Al Qaida. 1 for Mali.” Indeed, the neocons aren’t dead, yet — at least not in the Senate.

(Photo: Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), today called the premise of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict “deeply disturbing,” showing himself and his allies to be extremely out of the mainstream.

The vast majority of the questions that came up throughout the first round of questioning Chuck Hagel in his bid for Secretary of Defense related to Hagel’s stances on Israel and Iran, and his past statements on those issues. Many of those questions involved deliberate distortions of Hagel’s record. Inhofe started off the second round of questioning during the hearing with more of the same, but with the added twist of spurning the past decade of U.S. policy in solving the conflict.

“You made a statement that I strongly disagree with. You said that President Obama has been ‘the strongest Israel supporter since 1948′,” Inhofe said in the lead-off, continuing to criticize Obama for promoting the two-state solution:

INHOFE: But when you see statements coming out of the administration like “the United States believes that negotiations should result in two states with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt,” and they’ve come out with statements saying they believe that the borders with Israel and Palestine should be based on a 1967 border lines, these are statements that I think are very damaging. I can assure you that the leadership in Israel feels those statements are damaging.

Watch:

As Hagel attempted to tell Inhofe, the statements that the Ranking Member read off weren’t new or unique to the Obama administration, nor were they at all controversial. The U.S.’ adoption of the principle of two neighboring states as the final outcome of the conflict dates back to the first term of President George W. Bush. In a 2002 speech, Bush embraced the concept of an Israel and Palestine living peacefully side by side. The resulting “Road Map to Peace,” and several statements of support by the Quartet — composed of the European Union, Russia, United Nations, and U.S. — have been the basis for negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians since.

The concept of “Land for Peace” goes back even further. As part of the end of the Six-Day War in 1967, in which Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the United Nations passed Resolution 242 calling for a withdrawal of Israel to its previous borders. In exchange for this, Israel’s neighbors would declare end their hostility towards the state. That arrangement has yet to come into being but remain a crucial part of the negotiations between the parties. Complicating matters have been the increase of Israeli settlements, particularly under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the inability of the competing Palestinian factions to resolve their differences, causing a halt in talks.

All of this highlights just how far outside of the mainstream Hagel’s attackers are when it comes to Israel. Hagel, who has himself proven to be pro-Israel, would carry out the policies of President Obama once confirmed. Those policies have the backing of the international community and have been endorsed by such conservative stalwarts as the Heritage Foundation.

The confirmation hearing of former Sen. Chuck Hagel to take on the role of Secretary of Defense — already sure to be testy — heated up with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) pointedly asking Hagel to justify his stance on the Iraq War.

McCain, an ardent supporter of the Iraq War from the start, began his questioning of Hagel by asking about the latter’s past statements regarding the so-called “surge” of forces into Iraq in 2007. Hagel, by then a vocal critic of the war, came out strongly against adding additional troops to the conflict soon after the policy’s announcement — just like President Obama, Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had — calling it “the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam.”

Hagel didn’t back away from previous statements, saying “Senator, I stand by them, because I made them.” When McCain continued to push Hagel, refusing to allow him to offer a nuanced response to the question of the surge, the Nebraska Republican shot back, noting that the surge tactic took place in the wider context of the most “dangerous decision since Vietnam”:

MCCAIN: Are you going to answer the question? Were you right or wrong? That’s a straightforward question. Answer whether you are right or wrong and then you are free to elaborate.

HAGEL: I’m not going to give you a yes or no answer.

MCCAIN: Let the record show he refuses to answer the question. Please go ahead.

[...]

HAGEL: I’m not going to give you a yes or no. It’s far more complicated than that. I will defer that judgment to history. As to the comment I made about the most dangerous foreign policy decision since Vietnam, that was about not just the surge, but the overall war of choice going into Iraq. That particular decision made on the surge, but more to the point, our war in Iraq, I think was the most fundamentally bad, dangerous decision since Vietnam.

Watch their exchange here:

“Aside from the cost that occurred to blood and treasure, what that did to take our focus off of Afghanistan, which in fact was the original and real focus of the national threat to this country. Iraq was not. I always tried to frame all of the different issues before I made a decision on anything,” Hagel continued. Hagel’s response is a continuation of his previous assertions that the war in Iraq is one of the “great blunders” of American history.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) picked up on Hagel’s critique in his questioning, referring to Iraq as a war that never should have taken place. “I always ask the question is this going to be worth the sacrifice, because there will be sacrifice,” Hagel said in response. “In the surge in Iraq, we lost almost 1200 dead Americans and thousands of wounded. Was it required? Was it necessary?” Over four thousand Americans total lost their lives during the Iraq War.
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Chuck Hagel dismissed Sen. James Inhofe’s (R-OK) question today during Hagel’s confirmation hearing that Iran supposedly supports the former Republican senator’s bid to become the next Secretary of Defense.

“Why do you think that the Iranian foreign ministry so strongly supports your nomination for Secretary of Defense?” Inhofe asked. “I have a difficult enough time with American politics and Senator I have no idea but thank you,” Hagel said:

INHOFE: I have one last question I would like to ask and that is given that Iran, the people, I’m quoting right now from Iran, people of the Middle East, the Muslim region and the Northern region — North Africa, people of these regions hate America from the bottom of their heart. It further said, Israel is a cancerous tumor in the heart of the Islamic world. It further said, Iran’s warriors are ready and willing to wipe Israel off the map. The question I’d like to ask you and you can answer for the record if you’d like is, why do you think that the Iranian foreign ministry so strongly supports your nomination for Secretary of Defense?

HAGEL: I have a difficult enough time with American politics and Senator I have no idea but thank you. But I’ll be glad to respond further for the record.

Watch the clip:

Why would Inhofe ask such a question? As part of their smear campaign to try to derail Hagel’s nomination, the neocons promoted a report with a headline “Hagel nomination cheers Iran,” with the seeming implication that if Iran likes it, it must be bad. But in their statement, the Iranians in fact chastised the U.S., saying they hope “Washington becomes respectful of the rights of nations” if Hagel becomes Defense Secretary.

So it shows then that the neocons will stoop to any level — including promoting Iranian propaganda — to attack Hagel and Inhofe appeared happy to validate that tactic today.

Fox News host Sean Hannity is so adamant that waterboarding is not torture that he once offered to be waterboarded at a charity event and donate the proceeds to soldiers’ families. Four years later, a yet-to-be-waterboarded Hannity did not take kindly to being called out about it on his own radio show.

On April 22, 2009, Charles Grodin appeared on Hannity’s Fox News show and asked Hannity, if he doesn’t believe waterboarding is torture, would he agree to be waterboarded. “Sure,” Hannity said. “I’ll do it for charity. I’ll let you do it. I’ll do it for the troops’ families.” But four years later, Hannity has yet to follow through on his offer.

When ThinkProgress brought up the matter at the beginning of an appearance on his radio show on Wednesday, Hannity’s displeasure was palpable. “I’m not getting into your five-year-old issue,” Hannity grumbled. We pressed on when he was planning to hold the event, the Fox host lost it. “Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me. I get to ask the questions on the program,” Hannity said:

SCOTT KEYES: Before we get started I wanted to say one quick thing. Back in April 2009, you’d made a very generous offer. To prove that it’s not torture, you agreed on your television show to be waterboarded for charity and to donate the proceeds to the troops’ families.

HANNITY: I said Charles Grodin could do it.

KEYES: Now I know you’re an honorable guy Sean, when are you planning to hold the event?

HANNITY: You’re obviously taping this. I’m not getting into your five-year-old issue. Here I am bringing you on the program and give you an opportunity to give your pretty radical left-wing point of view, that’s kind of the way you treat me. But that’s all right.

KEYES: Sean, I’m just curious because you don’t think this is torture.

HANNITY: Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me. I get to ask the questions on the program.

Listen to it:

Hannity gave no indication that he was planning to follow through on his promise to be waterboarded for charity.

Immediately following the show, Hannity was so incensed that he personally called ThinkProgress to complain. He accused ThinkProgress of being “fixated” on the matter, baffled that we brought up an issue that he said hasn’t been news for years. After we respectfully disagreed and explained that it was disingenuous for him to offer to be waterboarded in order to prove that it’s not torture, only not to follow through on the offer, Hannity sighed, “what you’re doing here is really stupid.” He insisted, though, that it wasn’t a sensitive subject.

Waterboarding is still an extremely important, and undercovered, story today. It still exists, it’s still torture, and the only American who’s been sentenced to prison over the matter is a former CIA agent and vocal torture opponent who spoke out about the practice. Waterboarding is now part of the mainstream with the help of defenders like Hannity who insist that it’s not actually torture.

NewsHounds and Reddit have kept a running tally of how long it’s been since Hannity first offered to be waterboarded for charity. January 30 marked 1,379 days since Hannity reneged on the promise.

Secretary of Defense nominee Chuck Hagel takes to the witness table shortly to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Some of Hagel’s harshest detractors sit on the panel, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and James Inhofe (R-OK), so it’s sure to be filled with several misleading statements that distort Hagel’s record. Here’s a few things to bear in mind while watching the hearings take place:

1. Hagel has been a strong supporter of Israel

One of the most frequent attacks against Hagel is that he is somehow “anti-Semitic” or hostile towards the state of Israel. In fact, Hagel has maintains a strong pro-Israel record. The smears against Hagel by neoconservatives have been heavily challenged and debunked over the past several weeks. Among Hagel’s supporters include a multitude of past military officials and bipartisan, as well as Israeli government officials and think tanks.

2. Hagel’s Iran policy lines up squarely with the President’s

Hagel has also taken heat for criticizing frantic drumbeats for war with Iran by neoconservatives, and his belief that unilateral sanctions against Iran are less effective than multilateral sanctions. Conservatives have also gleefully pointed to Iranian propaganda that welcomed Hagel’s nomination as a sign he should be disqualified. But Hagel has repeatedly stated that “all options remain on the table” when confronting Iran over its nuclear program, the same position as the current administration. In a lengthy set of pre-hearing questions, Hagel made clear his stance on the matter. “If confirmed, I will focus intently on ensuring that U.S. military is in fact prepared for any contingency,” he said his response.

3. Hagel backs recent changes to the make up of the Armed Services

Hagel has come out strongly in favor of the lifting of the ban on the service of gay and lesbian citizens in the military and has pledged to continue to implement the lift of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” While he drew scorn for his deeming a Clinton apointee “openly aggressively gay,” Hagel has since apologized and the apology has been accepted. Hagel also backs the recent shift signed into effect by current Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta that lifts the ban on women serving in combat.

4. Hagel believes in a future nuclear-free world…just not today.

Chuck Hagel has also been attacked for his affiliation with a group known as Global Zero, which seeks a future free of nuclear weapons. Hagel has been attacked recently with claims that he favors fully scrapping the nuclear arsenal of the United States unilaterally. The truth is that Hagel shares the thought of President Obama that the United States can reduce its nuclear stockpile while still providing an effective deterrent, and co-authored legislation with then Sen. Obama to halt nuclear proliferation. Their vision for a world without nuclear weapons was also held by radical peacenik President Ronald Reagan.

5. Hagel would be the first Vietnam veteran to serve as Secretary of Defense

Should he be confirmed, Hagel would be the first veteran of the Vietnam-era to lead the civilian side of the armed forces. His views towards the use of force were molded during that conflict, along with recently confirmed Secretary of State John Kerry. As such, he has proved hesitant to commit United States forces into conflicts where American goals and interests are unclear. This view was a strong part of his vocal criticism of the Iraq War launched under the Bush administration.

A top European expert on Turkey said that any peace deal between the Turkish government and Kurdish militants won’t do much to end the deteriorating situation of press freedom in the country.

Various human rights groups have criticized the Turkish government’s crackdown on journalists in recent years. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) issued a report last October condemning Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his government for its campaign of muzzling and jailing journalists, saying that “Turkey’s press freedom situation has reached a crisis point.”

According to the report, Turkey has in recent years jailed more journalists than China and Iran. Seventy percent of those journalists in Turkish jails, however, are Kurds charged with aiding the Kurdistan Workers Party’s (PKK) insurgent campaign against the Turkish state (many others are in prison on charges related to the so-called “Ergenekon” case, a supposed plot by secularists to overthrow Erdogan’s Islamist-leaning government). CPJ says that the definition of terrorism in Turkey’s anti-terror laws “is overly broad and vague, allowing zealous prosecutors and judges to imprison journalists sympathetic to the Kurdish cause as though they were members of a terror group.”

A Turkish newspaper reported this week that the PKK will announce next month that its fighters will disarm and withdraw from Turkish soil in a confidence building measure aimed at ending the 28-year-old conflict. But with a PKK peace deal potentially on the horizon, Carnegie Europe scholar Marc Pierini, former EU ambassador and head of delegation to Turkey from 2006 to 2011, told ThinkProgress that despite the Kurdish issue playing a primary roll in Turkey’s troubles with press freedom, peace with PKK will not mean that the issue will go away.

“The majority of the arithmetic of the issue goes away in terms of freeing jailed journalists,” he said. “But that’s not all. The key underlying factors to the deteriorating situation of press freedom in Turkey are, one, the Kurdish issue, two, media ownership, and three, I would say the political culture around journalists.”

“Because the political culture [in Turkey] is so vivid,” said Pierini, who participated in a Center for American Progress event on Tuesday examining President Obama’s relations with Turkey during his second term, journalists and government officials “go after people instead of discussing issues. That has to change.”

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Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) on Tuesday became the first Republican to express his definite support of Secretary of Defense-nominee Chuck Hagel. Cochran, the ranking member on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, made his stance known yesterday through a spokesman.

Hagel’s nomination came under attack weeks before the official announcement, weathering several rounds of misleading smears. Several Republicans have already expressed their intent to vote against their former colleague, with one threatening to place a hold on his nomination. Despite that, Hagel enjoys bipartisan support from many former military and security officials.

The Senate this afternoon overwhelmingly voted in favor of approving John Kerry’s nomination to become Secretary of State, with only three Senators — Ted Cruz (R-TX), John Cornyn (R-TX), and James Inhofe (R-OK) — voting against their colleague. Earlier today, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee moved forward Kerry to the full Senate unanimously, reflecting the relative ease that Kerry has had in ascending to Obama’s second term cabinet.

Kerry has spent the last twenty-eight years in the Senate representing Massachusetts, all of them serving on the Foreign Relations committee, the last four as Chairman. The closeness in foreign policy vision that he shares with the Obama administration made Kerry one of the most likely choices to take the reins of State for the next four years. The ties between the two during Kerry’s chairman ship was close enough that former Sen. Gary Hart once called Kerry effectively “the congressional secretary of state.”

Kerry is the first of the President’s nominees to be confirmed following his inaugural. Kerry and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been speaking “almost daily” to prepare him to move into the 7th floor office in Foggy Bottom. Secretary Clinton will be stepping down following her last day on the job, Friday, Feb. 1.

Starting then, Kerry will have a full diplomatic plate, including pending negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, managing a rising China, limiting fallout from the Arab Spring in the Middle East, and advancing international action on climate change. In meeting these challenges, Kerry will find himself working closely with his replacement as Chairman on the Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ).

Kerry’s pending resignation of his Senate seat will prompt a decision among the people of Massachusetts regarding his successor. Retired Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) has made no secret of his desire to be named as interim Senator by Gov. Deval Patrick (D). No matter who temporarily fills the seat, a special election will be held in June, following an April primary. Former Sen. Scott Brown is thought to be the most likely Republican candidate, while Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) has received the support of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and other key Massachusetts Democrats.

Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) today said China and the Philippines should settle a dispute via a measure enshrined in the Law of the Sea treaty, a treaty that his Senate colleagues killed last year.

China has been engaged in territorial disputes with several of its neighbors — including Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam — over ownership of several small island chains and their potential natural resources for years now. The Obama administration has been seeking to broker a diplomatic solution to the conflict, urging negotiation through various forums.

Taking that advice to heart, the Philippines has filed an arbitration claim against China at International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea, in an effort to gain a binding decision on the matter. Congressman Royce, currently traveling as part of a delegation to the Philippines, added his voice to the plea that China participate in the proceedings:

“It is best that China joins the process so that we can move forward under international law,” the California Republican told The Associated Press after meeting Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario and other diplomats in Manila.

“We want to calm the tensions,” Royce said. “We want this approached from the standpoint of diplomacy, and that is what we are conveying because in that way we don’t create crisis which roils the markets or creates uncertainty.”

Royce’s position is perfectly sensible and speaks to the importance of the role that arbitration plays in solving international disputes before they reach the point of violence. The United States, however, would be unable to avail itself of the Tribunal’s arbitration to get itself out of similar maritime quarrels. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which forms the authority of the Tribunal, has yet to be ratified by the U.S. Senate, despite being signed in 1994.

UNCLOS came closer than it ever has to acheiving the two-thirds vote necessary to come into effect during the last Congress. Support for treaty poured in from almost all sides — including in testimony from representatives of big business such as the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, members of the military, and five former Republican Secretaries of States — urging ratification.

The treaty still died at the hands of Republicans in the Senate, who seemed to take the word of conspiracy theorists over American interests. It may eventually come that the U.S. will require aid similar to the Philippines in working with China, aid that UNCLOS won’t be able to provide.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is still searching for the silver bullet, that one piece of testimony that will prove once and for all that the Obama administration lied during the aftermath of the Benghazi attack.

Appearing on Fox News last night, Graham made clear that he was unsatisfied with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s testimony last week, saying, “I haven’t forgotten about Benghazi. Hillary Clinton got away with murder, in my view.” Graham’s quest for the truth has now led him to current Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

Panetta, who has not testified before Congress about the role he played during the Sept. 11 attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in the Libya city, is due to step down from his position at the Pentagon in the coming weeks. Graham now insists that Panetta would have to provide answers on what happened that night to the Armed Services Committee, on which Graham is a member. What’s more, as he told Fox News host Greta Van Sustren, Graham now intends to place a hold on Panetta’s proposed replacement, Chuck Hagel, until he gets the answers he wants:

VAN SUSTEREN: Is Secretary Panetta going to testify?

GRAHAM: Well, I’m not going to — I’m going to block Hagel from going forward until he does.

VAN SUSTEREN: So you’re going to block him.

GRAHAM: Absolutely. Why would we not want to understand what happened during the attack itself? How could our secretary — what happened for seven hours? Why were there no military assets available on September the 11th.

Watch Graham’s threat here:

This is the second threat of a hold — an informal threat to filibuster a nomination or bill — that Graham has placed upon a new member of the Obama national security team over Benghazi. Earlier this month, Graham pledged to hold up the confirmation of White House Counterterrorism Director John O. Brennan — or anyone — to be the new CIA Director until he finds out who edited the infamous unclassified “talking points” on Benghazi. Graham was also key to scuttling a potential Susan Rice nomination to be Secretary of State in relation to Libya.

Graham’s dogged pursuit of “the truth” is undercut by the fact that many of the questions he’s asking have already been answered. Panetta and other administrations officials have repeatedly stated that due to the attack coming in two waves, and the distance between Libya and Sigonella Air Base in Italy, the U.S. was unable to send military forces to respond. Likewise, the question of the editing of Susan Rice’s Sept. 16 Sunday show statements has been previously identified as the result of an interagency process, in which the CIA itself removed references to Al Qaeda.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is sticking with his belief that the Obama administration is covering up a vast conspiracy of arms smuggling out of Benghazi, Libya to jihadi rebels in Syria, despite a lack of evidence.

At the sometimes heated Senate hearings into the causes of the attack last Wednesday, Paul surprised many by using his time to ask Secretary of State Hillary Clinton whether the United States was shipping Libyan arms to Turkey. “To Turkey? I will have to take that question for the record. Nobody has ever raised that with me,” Clinton replied at the time.

That answer seems not to have satisfied Paul, who took his concerns to the World Net Daily website in an exclusive interview:

In an interview with WND, the senator said his “suspicion, although I don’t have any proof, is that guns were being smuggled out of Libya, through Turkey and into Syria.”

“And that may be what the CIA annex was doing there,” Paul said, “and the coverup was an attempt to massage and get over this issue without getting into the gun trade.”

Known for being a hub of the “birther” conspiracy against President Barack Obama, among other choice theories, WND is a natural choice to publish Paul’s baseless concerns. WND also was the source of a unverified report late last week that an explosion at an Iranian nuclear plant was being completely covered up. The Obama administration was forced to respond to that claim yesterday, with White House Press Secretary Jay Carney saying, “We have no information to confirm the allegations in the report and we do not believe the report is credible.”

While the New York Times has previously reported that U.S. agents are on the ground in the countries neighboring Syria to help investigate the recipients of arms from Gulf state allies, the charges that Paul are making are different. Instead, the theory Paul is peddling says that the CIA annex in Benghazi was involved in not only rounding up loose arms following the fall of Moamar Qaddafi, but secretly smuggling them to rebel forces in Syria. In the theory, the reason Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed in the attack, was in Benghazi on Sept. 11 was to help facilitate the movement of these arms.

Israeli intelligence officials now believe that Iran would be unable to produce a nuclear weapon until 2015 at the earliest, up-ending previous assessments of its nuclear program, according to a report from McClatchy.

The report counters prior claims that Iran is nearing a point in its nuclear program where it would be able to race toward developing nuclear weapons should it choose. It has been previously determined by both U.S. and Israeli officials that Iran has made no decision yet to move towards developing such weapons. A previous assessment that Iran would have the potential capability to develop nuclear arms by late 2012 was first pushed back when the IAEA reported that Iran converted large amounts of its 20 percent enriched uranium into a form difficult to enrich further, thus decreasing its overall stockpile.

According to interviews conducted with Israeli military and intelligence officials, and briefings given over the last two months, that capability is now at least two years away, with some placing their estimates as far back as “winter of 2016″:

“Previous assessments were built on a set of data that has since shifted,” said one Israeli intelligence officer, who spoke to McClatchy only on the condition that he not be identified. He said that in addition to a series of “mishaps” that interrupted work at Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iranian officials appeared to have slowed the program on their own.

“We can’t attribute the delays in Iran’s nuclear program to accidents and sabotage alone,” he said. “There has not been the run towards a nuclear bomb that some people feared. There is a deliberate slowing on their end.”

Israeli officials also noted a widening gap between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statements in public and the intelligence reports that he is receiving. Netanyahu has repeatedly insisted that Iran was nearing the crossing of a “red-line” in its nuclear program, a point at which an Israeli attack to prevent the acquisition of a nuclear breakout capability would be inevitable. Speaking before the United Nations in September, Netanyahu warned the General Assembly that the such a threshold would likely be crossed in Spring or Summer 2013.

Instead, an official in Israel’s Foreign Ministry is quoted insisting that the international sanctions placed upon Iran are, in fact, working. “Iran is progressing carefully, and we think that is because of international pressure led by the U.S.,” the official told McClatchy. That assessment lines up with the opinion of Israel’s Ambassador to the U.N. Ron Prosor, who in 2012 said, “[International sanctions are] much more effective than people think and it might change, hopefully it might change behavior patterns if we continue with it.”

This isn’t the first time the Prime Minister has been at odds with his security apparatus over the level of immediate threat that Iran poses to the country. In 2010, Netanyahu and then Defense Minister Ehud Barak attempted to set the military on high alert to attack Iran “within hours if necessary.” That order was shot down by then-intelligence head Meir Dagan and the Israeli army chief Gabi Ashkenazi. Likewise, there are a multitude of current and former Israeli officials on the record as being opposed to strikes on Iran in the near-term.

Netanyahu is currently forming a government after his party’s lackluster performance in last week’s elections. While domestic issues dominated the run-up to the polls, Netanyahu’s Likud-Beiteinu party was perceived as holding a more militaristic line on Iran.

Earlier today, news broke that Iran claims to have successfully launched a monkey into space and retrieved it. While the event has been greeted with some mockery, the launch, if it indeed took place, may have been conducted against international law.

Iran’s simian traveler was reportedly launched in an “indigenous bio-capsule” to a height of over 75 miles before being recovered on its landing, according to the Fars state news agency. The launch is being billed by Iran as the prelude to sending humans into space, which they aim to achieve in the next five to eight years. Experts, however, remain skeptical that Iran currently possesses the technology required to send a living thing into space, let alone orbit.

The news of the supposed launch was not well received in Western capitals, however. When asked about “extraterrestrial primates” at today’s State Department press briefing, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland made clear that she could neither confirm nor deny that such a launch had taken place. If it had, though, Iran would be in violation of previous United Nations resolutions:

NULAND: Our concern with Iran’s development of space launch vehicle technologies are obviously well known. Any space launch vehicle capable of placing an object in orbit is directly relevant to the development of long-range ballistic missiles, as well as [satellite launch vehicle] technologies, and they’re all virtually identical and interchangeable. Just to remind, U.N. Security Council 1929 prohibits Iran from undertaking “any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using ballistic missile technology.”

The resolution in question, passed in 2010 by the U.N. Security Council, contained the most comprehensive international sanctions package on the Islamic Republic to date over its continuing uranium enrichment. Among the clauses in the text of the resolution the full ban on development and testing of ballistic technology cited by Nuland.

Today’s response by the United States to the possible space launch echoes that of then-State Department spokesman Sean McCormack in 2008. “The kinds of technologies and capabilities that are needed in order to launch a space vehicle for orbit are the same kinds of capabilities and technologies that one would employ for a long-range ballistic missile,” McCormack said at the time. Adding to concern about Iran’s claim is the announcement on Iran’s PressTV today that new short, intermediate, and long-range missiles will be revealed early next month.

If confirmed, Iran’s launch today could result in further action by the Security Council, much as was recently taken against North Korea. The Council last week approved a resolution tightening existing sanctions on North Korea following a “satellite launch” in Dec. 2012 that Council members said was actually a test of ballistic missile technology. “This resolution demonstrates to North Korea that there are unanimous and significant consequences for its flagrant violation of its obligations under previous resolutions,” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice said after the resolution’s passage. The U.S. Mission to the U.N. was unable to immediately respond to inquiries about whether similar measures are being considered against Iran.

Several Republican Senators voicing their concern about Secretary of Defense-nominee Chuck Hagel’s stance on nuclear weapons appear to be doing so without knowing much about what Hagel truly believes about nuclear weapons.

Last week, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, citing Hagel’s ties with the group Global Zero — which advocates for a world free from nuclear weapons — as part of his opposition to the former Senator’s nomination. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), the newly minted ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, brought up the same point in his questioning of Secretary of State-nominee Sen. John Kerry.

“Typically, there’s a tension. The Defense Department presses for weaponry and making sure that our country is safe,” Corker said at the time. “The State Department presses for nuclear arms agreements and reductions. And so in the event this person is confirmed, that balance is not going to be there.”

Those worries were echoed this morning by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), the Senate Minority Whip, appearing on Fox News. Among a laundry list of issues, Cornyn singled out Hagel’s stance on nuclear weapons as being disqualifying:

CORNYN: [...] His embrace of these naive ideas like a nuclear free world which you know is fine to say ‘I hope and I wish and I pray that it would be that way’ but it’s not realistic and it’s naive particularly among the person who is supposed to represent American national security and keep the peace.

Cornyn and Barrasso’s stance on nuclear weapons is not particularly surprising. Cornyn helped lead the charge against the passage of the New START treaty along with John Kyl, his immediate predecessor as Whip. Sens. Cornyn and Barrasso both voted against the nuclear arms reduction deal, with Sen. Corker joining 70 of his colleagues to ratify the bilateral treaty with Russia.

Hagel’s actual positions on the matter can be deduced ahead of his confirmation hearing on Thursday. The Pentagon recently published a paper outlining several “myths” related to Hagel that it sought to correct. Responding to claims that Hagel seeks to weaken the U.S, the paper noted that as Senator from Nebraska “where headquarters of U.S. Strategic Command is located, [Hagel] developed a keen understanding of the critical importance of fielding a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent.”

Several of Hagel’s Global Zero colleagues — including Amb. Richard Burt, Gen. (Ret.) James E. Cartwright, Amb. Thomas Pickering and Gen. (Ret.) John J. Sheehan — today issued a statement defending the former senator’s signing onto a report from the group. In their statement, they challenge the claim that their report called for deep, immediate, unilateral cuts to the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Instead, the report concludes, “Only a broad multilateral approach can effectively address the multitude of serious nuclear dangers found in other parts of the world.” Likewise, the report, as well as several letters and op-eds signed onto by Hagel, calls for maintaining at present a stockpile of hundreds of nuclear weapons, more than capable of providing deterrence towards other nuclear states.

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Chuck Hagel received two new high profile endorsements on Sunday for his bid to be the next Secretary of Defense. Retired Air Force General Michael Hayden and retired Army General Stanley McChrystal said on CNN’s State of the Union that Hagel is a good choice to take over for outgoing Pentagon chief Leon Panetta.

Hayden, former National Security Agency head during the Bush administration and CIA Director in both the Bush and Obama administrations, said Hagel is someone “you could talk to” and “have an honest dialogue” with. When host Candy Crowley asked the former generals if they see “any red flags” that would disqualify Hagel, McChrystal, most recently the top allied commander in Afghanistan, said “no” while Hayden said, “not at all.”

CROWLEY: From what you know of Chuck Hagel…what sort of reception would he get from the military.

HAYDEN: I think he will be fine. I know Senator Hagel. He was on my oversight committee when I was in the intelligence community. He was a member, and this is not a universal condition, he was a member that you could talk to, have an honest dialogue, not necessarily disagree but on a personal basis, have a candid exchange of views. You could always speak with him and frankly given my time in uniform, that’s a tremendous attribute. So I actually think this will work out well.

Watch the clip:

The “neocon smear machine” and other well-financed right-wing groups are trying to derail Hagel’s Defense Secretary bid but the former Republican senator from Nebraska has received widespread, bipartisan support from former top foreign affairs and defense officials in recent weeks and key senators have said they would vote to confirm Hagel.