Editor's note: Diyana Ishak was a fall researcher at FP. She's blogging from Iran this week, as time allows.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images

Want to get a real sense of a country's people? Go to a beauty salon.

Last weekend, my Iranian friend drove me, her aunt, and her grandmother to a back alley in central Tehran, where we walked into an apartment that had been converted into a makeshift beauty salon.

The place was chock full of Iranian women primping for the New Year. (The most popular services seemed to be full-face threading and blond highlights.) After much unsuccessful cajoling to get my eyebrows tattooed (another popular trend), I opted for a safer package. While I was getting my hair done and my eyebrows threaded, a coiffured lady in her 60s waxed philosophical about the cultural differences between London and Tehran.

In London, she said, one can get away with anything, but not in Tehran. Here, appearances are incredibly important. Every detail of one's self is scrutinized by others.

An intense physical consciousness is quintessentially Persian, my friend later explained to me. It goes beyond appearances to a strong sense of pride in having what Iranians see as their superior culture and history. You could call Iranians the French of the Middle East.

The analogy applies to politics, too. I asked a middle-aged Iranian man I encountered (not in the beauty salon), "How do you feel about what's happening between Iran and the United States?"

With Gaulle-like prickliness, he answered: "Other countries telling Iran not to develop nuclear weapons is bullying. We do not oppose nuclear technology, even though most Iranians do not agree with the regime. But we have an even deeper mistrust for the United States. When it comes down to it, most Iranians would rather side with Iran than with the United States."

The sentiment seems common here. True, many in Iran are not happy with the regime (according to my friend's exaggerated estimate, 100 percent are fed up), and pine for the cultural freedoms and modern outlook they once enjoyed under the Shah. But ever since former President Khatami's foiled attempt at reform, however, many Iranians have calculated that getting involved in politics just isn't worth the trouble. They're keeping their heads down at the moment, but I sense that Iranians believe they can make their great country again someday. They want to do so themselves, though, not via Western meddling.

Pool/AFP/Getty Images

Joseph Cirincione, author of the brand-new book Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons and director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Center for American Progress, has penned a hard-hitting new web exclusive for ForeignPolicy.com:

What once appeared the exception now seems the rule. Officials in U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration are gingerly walking back from claims that North Korea was secretly building a factory to enrich uranium for dozens of atomic bombs. The intelligence, officials now say, was not as solid as they originally trumpeted. It does not seem that the North Korean program is as large or as advanced as claimed or that the country’s leaders are as set on building weapons as officials depicted.

If this sounds familiar, it should. The original claims came during the same period officials were hyping stories of Iraq’s weapons. Once again, the claims involve aluminum tubes. Once again, there was cherry-picking and exaggeration of intelligence. Once again, the policy shaped the intelligence, with enormous national security costs. The story of Iraq is well known; that unnecessary war has cost thousands of lives, billions of dollars, and an immeasurable loss of legitimacy. This time, the administration’s decision to tear up a successful agreement—using a dubious intelligence “finding” as an excuse—propelled the tiny, isolated country to subsequently build and test nuclear weapons, threatening to trigger a new wave of proliferation.

Check it out, and don't miss yesterday's List on the world's most contentious religious sites.

Remember when debates about nuclear deterrence, mutually assured destruction, and ICBMs dominated Western politics? British politicians are enjoying a brief fit of nostalgia as Tony Blair pushes the government to update its old Trident missile system. Labour Party diehards are livid, and another government official just resigned on principle. Meanwhile, Greenpeace protesters are ratcheting up the rhetoric.

The Greenpeace campaigners clambered up the crane next to Big Ben and unfurled a 50ft banner suggesting the prime minister "loved" weapons of mass destruction. Armed with telephones to lobby MPs, the campaigners plan to occupy the spot until the parliamentary debate takes place tomorrow. One of the activists on the crane, Cat Dorey, said: "Trident is a cold war relic designed to destroy Russian cities. If MPs buckle under pressure from Tony Blair and vote to renew it, the repercussions will be felt around the world. We can't oppose proliferation of WMD if we're building them at home."

Parliament will vote on the measure tomorrow, and it is widely expected to pass, but expect some fireworks—and perhaps a few more resignations—in the House of Commons.

Getty Images News

Back in February, the director-general of the Israel Electric Corporation, Uri Ben-Nun, said that the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission is "mulling the construction of a nuclear power plant in Israel."

It may be surprising that Israel has never built a civilian nuclear power plant, since it has long been assumed to have a sophisticated nuclear weapons program. All other countries with advanced nuclear weapons programs also have substantial civilian nuclear power programs. Add Israel's uniquely pressing need for energy independence and the question becomes even more puzzling: Why hasn't this already happened?

Geopolitics, mostly. According to a report by Stratfor, a private intelligence firm, "Israel has flirted with nuclear power three times, beginning in 1976, but security concerns and the international environment have thus far prevented such a project's completion." For example, nuclear materials have been hard for Israel to acquire (since it has not signed the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty) and a hostile neighbor could have attacked the plant.

The international environment has changed, though. Nuclear power is becoming more attractive worldwide because it does not generate greenhouse gases. While some Gulf States had been calling for a "nuclear-free zone" in the region, now Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates have expressed interest in developing nuclear power. And Israel's military preeminence in the region makes an attack on any nuclear power plant much less likely today.

Most important for Israel, though, is the recent U.S.-India deal on nuclear cooperation. India, like Israel, never signed the NPT but has nuclear weapons. They, too, had difficulty buying nuclear fuel abroad, but the new deal will allow the United States to sell nuclear materials to India for its civilian program. This may open the door for Israel in the future.

While Israel won't be building civilian nuclear reactors tomorrow, Stratfor is probably right that these changes "make an Israeli civilian nuclear power program more likely than ever before."

VERHAEGEN/AFP

Reports about Iran's nuclear program have been almost uniformly negative lately, and with good reason—Iran has continued to pursue enrichment in defiance of the U.N. Security Council. But as diplomatic rhetoric heats up, it is easy to forget just how difficult building a nuclear capability can be, whether for weapons or for electricity.

Thursday's International Atomic Energy Agency report (pdf) on Iran's nuclear activities is quite depressing. It highlights many areas where, in addition to defying the Security Council, Iran has been dragging its feet or refusing to comply with IAEA requests. For instance, Iran has "declined to agree at this stage" to remote monitoring at the Natanz enrichment plant, a safeguard the IAEA deems crucial. Iran's lack of cooperation doesn't necessarily imply nefarious intent—Iran says it needs clarification of the "legal basis" for remote monitoring, and has accepted "interim safeguards" instead—but to many, it certainly looks like Iran is hiding a weapons program.

However, the report also highlights the slow, incremental nature of nuclear technology development. Remember the Iranian centrifuges that blew up? Any number of things could have gone wrong: Human fingerprints can unbalance a centrifuge enough for it to break down, and problems with the tiny ball bearings they spin on can derail an entire project. The IAEA report confirms that the Iranians are moving carefully and slowly; they still probably have fewer than 500 centrifuges running, though they say they have almost finished installing another 300 or so. Iran has long maintained that it will install 3,000 centrifuges by March, a goal it will not meet if it continues at its previous rate.

This should not take attention away from Iran's blatant defiance of the U.N. Security Council and the IAEA, but—for now—there is some time to pursue options before Iran is even capable of building a nuclear bomb.

Editor's note: For more technical details, see Eric's post at Noah Shachtman's new blog, Danger Room.

Many analysts have characterized the recent deal with North Korea as not much different from the "Agreed Framework"—the 1994 agreement that successfully froze North Korea's plutonium-based nuclear program for 8 years. But what do they mean? Below is a quick side-by-side comparison of major points of the Agreed Framework and Tuesday's agreement, "Initial Actions for the Implementation of the Joint Statement."

If the steps listed above occur successfully, and North Korea declares all nuclear programs and disables all existing facilities, the United States and its allies will also provide assistance up to "the equivalent of 1 million" tons of heavy fuel oil.

Now, some context. First, North Korea desperately wants a security guarantee from the United States. While the prospect of attacking North Korea seems far-fetched to many Americans, the DPRK fears just such an attack. The United States promised to eventually provide a formal security guarantee in the 1994 Agreed Framework, but along with several other parts of the agreement, it never materialized.

In this 2007 "Initial Actions" document, there are no explicit security assurances per se. Instead, the United States will reassure the nervous North Koreans through talks "aimed at resolving pending bilateral issues." However, in the 2005 Joint Statement the latest agreement aims to implement, the United States did affirm that it "ha[d] no intention to attack or invade the DPRK with nuclear or conventional weapons" (emphasis added). This is still far from the explicit, formal guarantee North Korea wants, but it seems to be working for now.

Second, North Korea will only "shut down and seal" its primary nuclear facility at Yongbyon; the rest of its nuclear program will not even be frozen. Any other steps—involving, say, its existing weapons or other, secret facilities—are presumably contingent upon the United States and its allies meeting the terms laid forth so far. As Robert Gallucci noted, this agreement is an encouraging step on both sides. Even so, the road to complete and verifiable disarmament in North Korea will be long and arduous.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) usually makes headlines for its leadership on nonproliferation issues, so it is easy to forget that its primary mission is actually to promote the peaceful uses of atomic energy. The IAEA runs roughly 800 "technical aid" projects around the world, many of which involve transferring knowledge that would be helpful in making nuclear weapons.

Enter Iran. The limited sanctions imposed by the Security Council in December focused on blocking cooperation in nuclear programs that could lead to weapons. Accordingly, the IAEA has reportedly "suspended" almost half of its technical cooperation programs with Iran.

These reports are misleading, though. The status of "almost half” (22) of the programs was changed today, but not all are suspended completely. According to the IAEA report (pdf), Iran is participating in 55 technical cooperation programs. Ten of those are exclusively for medical, agricultural, safety, food, or humanitarian purposes and will be allowed to continue. Ten are very sensitive and will be suspended entirely. The other 12 can continue only on a case-by-case basis. That is, upon Iran's request, an individual "project activity" can be assessed by the IAEA to determine whether it can proceed. Essentially, the Iranians must prove that activities under those projects are benign in order for them to proceed. All of the suspensions are temporary, pending a full vote of the IAEA Board of Governors on March 5. So Iran has yet another chance to change some minds in the interim.

Having spent another refreshing night in the flesh-eating bacteria wing of the Davos Dermatological and Allergy Clinic, I have arrived at the Congress Hall refreshed if a little bit worried about the first signs of a strange rash. (Not really. And I am sure the place has not been a clinic for months.  There are signs all over announcing that it is not only a hotel, but a Grand Hotel. I harbor a bit of a sense that were I to peel the signs away it would say "biohazard" underneath, but why tempt fate?)

Even more frightening, one of the themes that came up several times yesterday was nuclear terrorism. A very senior Wall Street banker with whom I spoke said the session he attended on the subject made him want to run screaming into the night. One panelist on that session was the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shaukat Aziz, who had early in the day been on the terrorism panel I chaired. In both sessions, he displayed both articulate aplomb and a deft ability to sidestep any question that he felt was uncomfortable.

JOEL SAGET/AFP

"Everything is fine with Pakistan's nuclear facilities, everything is safe," he assured unconvinced observers. One such man, a former foreign minister who now heads a well-respected NGO, noted to me (in the men's room of the Congress Hall, where polite urinal chit-chat inevitably turns to WMD proliferation) that he emphatically disagreed, asserting that "Pakistan is the most dangerous country in the world." It's a refrain I have heard several times in the past few days, as the precariousness of the broader Middle East situation reminds observers that Pakistan's nuclear stockpile is only a coup away from falling into the hands of radical elements who might well be allied with al Qaeda. (more after the jump)

While the early Davoisie arrivals were sipping their carbon-neutral San Pellegrino and munching on organic canapés, another conference was taking place elsewhere in the world. No, it wasn't the World Social Forum, a.k.a the anti-Davos assembly being held in Nairobi, Kenya. It was another sort of thing entirely: a seventh annual high-level Israeli security meeting in the Mediterranean resort town of Herzliya. Judging by the sound bytes I'm reading, you could call it the Bomb Iran conference. U.S. government officials as high as Gordon England and Nick Burns were in attendance. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was also there, as were his rivals John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. Romney went for a strained historical analogy:

I believe that Iran's leaders and ambitions represent the greatest threat to the world since the fall of the Soviet Union and before that Nazi Germany."

Expect more of this over-the-top rhetoric  from both sides of the aisle. What to do about Iran is going to dominate the American debate from now until 2008, and beyond. In President Bush's speech last night, he stressed again the consequences of failure in Iraq, warning that a U.S. defeat could embolden a dangerous Iran. So it's timely that for this week's Seven Questions, FP spoke with Dr. Ali Ansari, an expert on Iran at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, about the Bush administration's policy toward that country (Iran, not Scotland). Check it out.

See also this week's List: Regime Change. It may surprise you to know that Iran makes the list of countries with tottering leaders.

The world has moved closer to doomsday, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:

We stand at the brink of a second nuclear age. Not since the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has the world faced such perilous choices. North Korea’s recent test of a nuclear weapon, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, a renewed U.S. emphasis on the military utility of nuclear weapons, the failure to adequately secure nuclear materials, and the continued presence of some 26,000 nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia are symptomatic of a larger failure to solve the problems posed by the most destructive technology on Earth.

As in past deliberations, we have examined other human-made threats to civilization. We have concluded that the dangers posed by climate change are nearly as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons. The effects may be less dramatic in the short term than the destruction that could be wrought by nuclear explosions, but over the next three to four decades climate change could cause drastic harm to the habitats upon which human societies depend for survival.

As a result, the Bulletin has moved its iconic Doomsday Clock two ticks clockwise, to 5 minutes before midnight. Midnight, of course, being when we all die.

The clock was started in 1947 by the organization as a way to dramatize the dangers in the nuclear arms race. It debuted at 11:53, and has been adjusted 18 times. Total annihilation was deemed closest in 1953 following the detonation of the first thermonuclear explosives; after the Soviet Union's fall in 1991, mankind was a full 17 minutes away from destruction.

The Bulletin may be losing some historical perspective here. It's hard to believe that we're actually closer to Armageddon now than we were for more than half of the Cold War. And as scary as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Il may be, the world is actually a more peaceful place than it ever has been.

MICHAEL KAPPELER/AFP/Getty Images

Finland and other pro-Turkey European countries are scrambling to salvage the Muslim country's flagging bid join the European Union. The stumbling block? Cyprus. If the Greek Cypriots remain inflexible, Turkey doesn't back down, and the EU ultimately says no, will Turks turn away from Europe? What does Turkey think about Iran and the bomb? Will Turkey seek its own nuclear weapon? Which is a greater threat to Turkish democracy: the military or the Islamists?

To answer these and other questions, FP spoke with Mensur Akgun, an expert on Turkish foreign policy.

The site may be chugging along today, but the content doesn't stop at FP.

We've got a new piece from Debra Decker, research associate at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Decker argues that since it's easier than ever for terrorists to acquire nuclear material (the focus of the cover story in our most recent issue), the world needs a new strategy of deterrence. What could help keep the right ingredients out of the wrong hands? Giving bombs birth certificates.

If there was any doubt about how Sunni Arab states see Iranian nuclear ambitions, it was cleared up by a declaration by the Gulf Cooperation Council that they intend to pursue nuclear power.

It is not a threat," said Prince Saud al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister. "It is an announcement so that there will be no misinterpretation for what we are doing."

The timing of the announcement, coming as it does on the heels of the Baker-Hamilton report, would indicate otherwise. The Baker report urges the administration to engage Iran to secure its support on Iraq, but punts on the nuclear issue.

Saudi Arabia is already quite nervous about having a Shiite Iraq controlled by the Iranians right on its borders. Its largest oilfield, Ghawar, is close to the Iraqi border and lies beneath a sizable and increasingly restive Shia population. Bahrain, another oil-producing state, is majority Shiite but is ruled by a Sunni minority. The precarious position of these Sunni regimes has them freaking out about growing Iranian influence in the region.

The message is that the gulf countries will develop their own nuclear program if Iran is rewarded with the terms of the Baker-Hamilton report," said Abdelaziz O. Sager, chairman of the Gulf Research Center in Dubai, who is familiar with the nuclear initiative. "They are trying to say that if the Iranian program continues, you will force us to become nuclear capable too."

This is not an empty threat. Saudi Arabia, for example, has been considering nuclear weapons for at least a decade. Their quest became more fervent in the aftermath of the Iraqi invasion and Iran's nuclear shenanigans. The Saudis certainly have the cash. And they already have the missiles, courtesy of China, and have flirted with using Pakistani know-how to develop the payload.

Tehran's nuclear ambitions spook the Saudis more than the Israeli bomb ever has. After all, Iran has supported Shiite terrorists operating in Saudi Arabia (it was blamed by some for the 1996 Khobar Tower Bombing) and spares no effort to embarrass Saudi Arabia for its close relationship with the U.S. As Mark Levenstein put it in a earlier posting chez Passport: "we need to stop Iran's enrichment program cold lest nuclear power plants start sprouting up in the Middle East like mushrooms after a storm." But it's easier said than done.