More nuclear hypocrisy

In today’s NY Times, op ed contributors George Perkovich, ‘director of the nonproliferation program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’, and Pierre Goldschmidt, ‘former deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency’, opine.

The vital security objective all along has been to prevent Iran from acquiring the capacity to make nuclear weapons fuel. ..Thus, Iran’s interlocutors should clarify now that the positive incentives the world wishes to negotiate with Iran will be withdrawn if it does not immediately accede to the binding Security Council demand for suspension.

It’s embarrassing for me even to have to make obvious points like this, but clearly the editors over at the NY Times need reminding.

1. So far, Iran’s reward for ratifying and complying with the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty has been baseless accusations and sabre rattling from the US.
2. The US is the one country that has actually used nuclear weapons.  It has used them on exclusively civilian targets.  Not once, but twice.
3. The US has articulated an intention to crush any country it perceives as threatening its military ‘full spectrum dominance’.
4. The US is itself in violation of its NNPT commitments to reduce its arsenal and has not suffered so much as a harsh word as punishment.
5. The US has withdrawn from or violated other significant treaties intended (or at least purported to intend) to reduce threats from WMD.
6. Iran borders on a rogue nuclear armed state, Pakistan, that has not signed the NNPT.
7. Another non NNPT and nuclear armed state, Israel, is also explicitly threatening attacks on Iran.
8. Yet a third non NNPT and nuclear armed state, India, has recently entered into favourable nuclear cooperation arrangements with the US.
9. North Korea has enjoyed a significant reduction in threats from the US since it became clear that it was close to testing its own nuclear weapons.
10. With so many obvious benefits accruing to the world’s nuclear outlaws and so few to compliance with treaty commitments, it’d take a lot of carrots to convince me to go along with the US’s completely unreasonable demands, if I was Iran.

That said, fission is a dead end.  All the ordinary people in the world need to band together and get the nuclear bullies to disarm and safely dispose of their nuclear toys immediately and cooperate on developing the cold fusion and other sustainable energy technologies that can provide our energy without exacerbating global warming…