> For now, I'd like to note that if Iraq were to
> acquire nukes, Saddam would be able to carry out his professed goal of
> redrawing the map of the ME without fear of intervention. I cannot see how
> any politically sane person could dismiss such a risk.
>
> -- Luke
>
Let's see, israel which has nukes is busy trying to redraw the map of the Middle East (minus Palestinians.) Shrub who has nukes is trying to redraw the map of the Middle East, spreading "democracy" at the end of 3000 cruise missles. If Iraq had nukes, what is one more explosive spud in this vile stewpot? I see none of this leading to greater democracy and human rights and I definitely do not see nukes as the key variable to achieve those ends.
That said, although I am NOT ready to ditch the foundations of the current "non-proliferation" regime, I concur that it has serious problems, one of which is one-sided and selective enforcement.
For one example, consider Israel, a non-signatory to the NPT. ("Egypt's gonna get one too, just to use on You know who. Israel's getting tense, wants one in self-defense. 'THe Lord is our shepard' says the Psalm, but just in case we gotta have the bomb.") Israel has no fissile materials resources of its own, and the ones they acquired have been through the fig leaf of "peaceful purposes." At some point of course it became clear that Isreael's use of fissile material was not for "peaceful purposes." and at that point, someone should have been subject to sanctions for providing the materials. Yet not a peep in the current crisis about Israel's nukes even though arguably any neighbor could cite the UN-recognized need for self-defense to justify matching Israel's development for deterrence purposes..
For another example, consider the US, who is nominally if not in consistent practice a signatory to NPT. Not only is the US not disarming, one of the stated end goals of the non-proliferation regime, it is also busy undermining the treaty by developing bunker buster nukes and by undermining other generations of international treaty regime. Inded, despite the braying about Iraq, I would assume that the Bush administration hates NPT as much as they (and Clinton) hate Comprehensive Text ban, as much as they hate ABM Kyoto and the International Criminal Court.
Under that assumption, the focus on Iraq has as much to do with oil and other Middle East issues as with Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). I suspect Shrub in fact really doesn't care whether North Korea, a desparately ppor regime hoving near total economic collapse, has nukes. I think he sees one scenario where North Korea collapses and becomes part of South Korea. Then the nukes either belong to our buddy South Korea or get dismantled. Or Japan and South Korea both get excuses to match North Korea in the name of deterrence. And no one gets to ask about the big liabilities of neighboring coutries lobbing nukes around in close proximity to each other.
Under this worldview, I see the people of the world as the equivalent of the cops in a neighborhood occupied by gangster terrorists, possibly outgunned, at huge risk of being dragged into the conflict by all of the warring parities, hopefully guided and constrained by some body of law and system of justice, and under no obligation to do anything that feeds any of the various kinds of gangsters.
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