Top News Iran’s Top Leader Faults Rouhani for Crisis, Saying He Crossed ‘Red Lines’ New York Times Why Is the U.S. Wary of a Declaration to End the Korean War? New York Times Iran unveils ‘Bright Conqueror’ missile Defense News Space Force and midterms share stage as Trump signs Pentagon policy bill Defense News East Asia Why Is the U.S. Wary of a Declaration to End the Korean War? New York Times8/13/18 As a reward for its broader foray into diplomacy, North Korea wants a formal and official declared end to the decades-long Korean War that settled into an uneasy truce in 1953. South Korea wants this, too. But the United States, which first sent military forces to the Korean Peninsula in 1950 and still keeps 28,500 troops there, is not ready to agree to a peace declaration. Middle East Iran’s Top Leader Faults Rouhani for Crisis, Saying He Crossed ‘Red Lines’ New York Times8/13/18 Iran’s supreme leader made his sharpest criticism yet of his country’s president on Monday, faulting him for having crossed “red lines” in nuclear negotiations with the United States and other failures that have created an economic crisis. The remarks by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, compounded the pressure on Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, who is contending with economic protests, anger over endemic corruption, the threat of possible armed conflict with the United States and calls from Iran’s hard-line factions for resignations in his government. Iran unveils ‘Bright Conqueror’ missile Defense News8/13/18 Iran unveiled the latest generation of its Fateh ballistic missile on Monday. Iranian Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Amir Hatami said the indigenously designed munition was an “agile, radar-evading and tactical missile with pinpoint accuracy,” semiofficial Tasnim News Agency reported. It has reportedly been successfully test fired. Iraq to respect dollar ban but not all U.S. sanctions on Iran Reuters8/13/18 Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi stepped back from his commitment to abide by new U.S. sanctions on Iran on Monday, saying his government would only respect the dollar ban in transactions with Iran. “I did not say we abide by the sanctions, I said we abide by not using dollars in transactions. We have no other choice,” Abadi told a news conference in Baghdad. Russia/FSU/Europe Moscow ready to discuss its newest strategic weapons with U.S.: RIA Reuters8/14/18 Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Tuesday Moscow was ready to discuss its newest strategic weapons with the United States even though they were not part of the INF arms control treaty, Russian state news agency RIA reported. The arms control agreement, known as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, was signed in the late 1980s between the Soviet Union and the United States. U.S. Nuclear Policy Space Force and midterms share stage as Trump signs Pentagon policy bill Defense News8/13/18 U.S. President Donald Trump signed the $716 billion defense policy bill for fiscal 2019 into law at the Army’s Fort Drum in New York on Monday — making personal pitches for Republican candidates and his controversial Space Force proposal. At a giant ceremony in an aircraft hangar, Trump called out specifics in the National Defense Authorization Act, such as the setting of military pay raise at 2.6 percent starting next January, its additions of 15,600 more troops to the armed services’ overall end strength, and a laundry list of added aircraft and ship purchases above what the White House requested. Opinion and Analysis Trump did not solve the North Korea problem in Singapore — in fact, the threat has only grown NBC NewsRyan Hass 8/12/18 Rather than boasting of his wonderful relationship with Kim and declaring the problem solved, now is the time for Trump to refocus efforts on the specific steps North Korea urgently must take to show its seriousness to denuclearize, and the incentives the United States and others would be prepared to provide in return. If North Korea proves non-responsive, the Trump administration must be prepared to freeze the negotiation process and revert to pre-Singapore efforts to intensify pressure on the Kim regime — even though doing so is unlikely to yield the same international unity as before. Now more than ever, Trump needs to test Kim’s intentions, not indulge his ambitions. Special Interest TV and the Bomb Bulletin of the Atomic ScientistsReba Wissner 8/13/18 While we tend to think of mid-century television as an escapist medium, it frequently included contemporary political issues in the narrative. No television topics were more pervasive—and influential—than nuclear weapons (“the Bomb”) and nuclear fear.