Claudia Rosett

The Amazing Coincidences of Iran's Javad Zarif

-Forbes.com On Wednesday, in the Red Sea, Israeli commandos intercepted a freighter carrying a secret cargo of munitions loaded in Iran and hidden under bags of cement. The weaponry included dozens of Syrian-made M-302 rockets which Israeli authorities say were bound for terrorists in Gaza, and from there would have been capable of striking almost anywhere in Israel, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

College Campus Gives Iran Nuke Thug Hero’s Welcome

NRO VIENNA — Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister and chief nuclear negotiator, did not take questions from the international press while in Vienna last month for nuclear talks. But he did take time to Skype with an American audience at the University of Denver, where in the 1980s he earned an M.A. and PhD in International Studies.

Iran Nuclear Charades in Vienna

Forbes VIENNA — Were sheer diplomatic toil a guarantee of success in the Iran nuclear talks, then the latest round, held this week in the Austrian capital, might count as an achievement.

Pivoting Right Past North Korea

Forbes.com President Obama in his State of the Union address on Tuesday gave scant time to foreign policy, and just one long sentence to the Asia-Pacific--object of his foreign policy pivot in 2011, and a region on which he said the U.S. "will continue to focus." To illustrate that focus, he gave just one specific example: typhoon relief last year to the Philippines, where American Marines and civilian aid workers were greeted with words such as "God bless America."

"Peace" and Prejudice at the United Nations

Claiming concerns about harming the Middle East “peace process,” the United Nations cultural agency has abruptly postponed an exhibition on Jewish ties to the Holy Land. This display was scheduled to open Jan. 20 at the Paris headquarters of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). But after 22 Arab states sent a letter protesting this plan, UNESCO put out a press release last Friday saying the exhibition would be delayed, “to avoid confrontation and politicization.”

Technology for Tyrants Courtesy of the U.N.

It's well over a year since the United Nations intellectual property agency got caught undermining the U.N.’s own sanctions—shipping U.S.-origin computers and related high-tech equipment to North Korea and Iran. In classic U.N. fashion, the World Intellectual Property Organization, known as WIPO, stiffed congressional inquiries and arranged its own narrow and “independent” investigation of itself. Thanks to U.N. privileges and immunities, WIPO was ultimately judged by the U.N. to have stayed within the letter, if not the spirit, of U.N. sanctions. WIPO’s director general, Francis Gurry, maintained that WIPO had done nothing wrong, but decreed that to dispel any lingering doubt, WIPO would stop sending high-tech hardware to any of its 186 member states.

The Perils of North Korea's Kim Jong Un

-- Forbes.com It’s been a landmark year for North Korea’s third-generation tyrant, Kim Jong Un, who inherited power two years ago with the death of his father, Kim Jong Il. Young Kim kicked off 2013 with a nuclear test, in February. He is closing out the year with a political purge that made world headlines last week with the denunciation, humiliation and execution of his uncle by marriage, the second most powerful man in North Korea, Jang Song Thaek.

Nobel Peace Charade

Forbes.com Surely the Norwegian Nobel Committee meant well in awarding this year’s Peace Prize to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). But for all the courage of OPCW inspectors now working in Syria, this award is like giving the mob a medal for gun control. Not only is the OPCW ill configured to rid the globe of chemical weapons; in practice it serves as a clubhouse conferring a false stamp of legitimacy on such alleged violators as Russia and Iran.

Iran’s Sequel to North Korea’s Nuclear Playbook

This article was originally published in Forbes. As world powers prepare for nuclear talks with Iran next week in Geneva, U.S. negotiators and their cohorts would do well to review the history of nuclear deals with another rogue state: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. As Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reminded the United Nations last week, North Korea offers Iran a prime example of how a rogue state can parlay nuclear climbdown deals into time and opportunity to cheat — reaping benefits while still working toward nuclear weapons. In 2005, North Korea agreed to a widely hailed diplomatic deal to give up its nuclear weapons program in exchange for aid and other concessions. A year later, North Korea conducted its first nuclear test.

Iran, the U.N.‘s New Authority On Nuclear Disarmament

This article was originally published in Forbes. With Iran pushing toward nuclear breakout ability at home, while peddling what some have dubbed “charm” abroad, there were plenty of odd moments as Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani swept through the United Nations in New York last week. But for raw cynicism onstage, it’s hard to top his starring appearance Sept. 26th at the U.N.’s first ever High Level Meeting of the General Assembly on Nuclear Disarmament.

Syria’s Pals at the Chemical Weapons Convention

With Russia on his side, Syria’s President Bashar Assad has now agreed to sign on to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which is meant to eliminate chemical weapons from the world once and for all. Having thrown this bone to the White House, which has accused him of killing at least 1,429 people last month with poison gas, perhaps Assad feels safer. But should we?

Next on Syria: Leading From Russia?

This article was originally published in Forbes. Having failed to obtain a United Nations resolution on Syria, or assemble a robust coalition of the willing, or provide the American public with any clear strategy surrounding his plans for a limited strike, President Obama is no longer leading from behind. Instead, he’ll soon be leading from Russia– where later this week, following a day in Sweden, he plans to attend an economic summit of the Group of 20, Thursday and Friday in St. Petersburg.

North Korean-Syrian Chemistry: The Weapons Connections

Forbes Is North Korea complicit in the use of chemical weapons in Syria? For a host of reasons, this question ought to be high priority for the United Nations chemical weapons experts who finally arrived in Syria this past weekend to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use in the conflict raging there for more than two years now.

Have Tehran’s Tankers Hijacked the Tanzanian Flag?

This article was originally published in Forbes When President Obama visited Tanzania last week, he praised the East African country as a place with which he feels a “special connection.” A glitch he did not mention is that Tanzania has developed a special connection of its own — to Iran’s main oil tanker fleet. Since turning up last year as a leading flag of convenience for sanctioned Iranian ships, Tanzania just can’t seem to cut itself loose.

Al Jazeera at the Newseum

The Weekly Standard Bankrolled by the oil and gas wealth of Qatar, now hiring 800 staff members and opening 12 news bureaus across the United States, Al Jazeera will soon be coming to a television near you. From its Doha headquarters, the media empire of Qatar’s royal family is launching a new channel dubbed Al Jazeera America, devoted to in-depth coverage of the United States. When it goes live later this year, its flagship primetime show, America Tonight, will be broadcast from a studio in Washington’s Newseum—a high-tech museum of news and journalism with the self-described mission of “educating the public about the value of a free press in a free society.”

The Tiananmen Reckoning

This article was originally published in Forbes magazine. It’s 24 years since China’s government crushed the mass uprising we remember by the name of Tiananmen Square. I was there, reporting then for the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. Having witnessed the events of the bloody night leading to the grim dawn of June 4, 1989, in and around Tiananmen, I raced back to my hotel room to phone my editor in New York and file the story. When I had finished detailing what I had seen — the burning barricades, the soldiers firing into the crowds, the armored personnel carriers and tanks rolling into Tiananmen — he asked the big question: What does it mean?

Fight the blackmail

Yet again, North Korea is playing hostage politics with America — sentencing a US citizen in its custody, Kenneth Bae, to 15 years at hard labor. It’s time we stopped giving in to this extortion.

Let the French Pay for UNESCO

--National Review Here comes the next chapter in perverse U.S. priorities at the United Nations. While the federal government has been pleading that it is too broke to provide White House tours or pay air-traffic controllers, the State Department is itching to fork over more than $233 million to a United Nations agency in Paris — despite U.S. laws preventing them from doing so.

The Pyongyang-Tehran Proliferation Playbook

Forbes.com Clearly the dangers posed by North Korea reside not only in its arsenal, but in the precedents Pyongyang keeps setting for just how much a rogue regime can get away with in this era of receding American power. As North Korea hones its missile reach and nuclear abilities — while threatening to incinerate Seoul,Washington and U.S. bases in the Pacific — it appears the limits of such behavior have yet to be discovered. That spectacularly dangerous message is surely being read with interest by other anti-American regimes, especially by North Korea’s chief partner in proliferation, Iran.

At the U.N., Iran Is a Powerhouse, Not a Pariah

Wall Street Journal President Obama likes to describes Iran as "isolated." But there is nothing lonely about Iran's berth at the United Nations, where in the corridors and on the boards of powerful agencies, the Islamic Republic has been cultivating its own mini-empire.