> Right. And the story is that, during the 80s, the US laid the heaviest
> sanctions on Pakistan that we laid on any country in the world for trying
> to develop a bomb. We not only withheld aid, we actually took money from
> them. (They paid for F-16s which we not only refused deliver, we refused
> to give them their $250 mln back -- no small thing for a country as poor
> as Pakistan.)
US ignored Pakistan's acquisition of nukes during 80s, since the Soviets were in Afghanistan. Compared to what Iraq had to grow through in 1990s, measures against Pakistan were mild. When did the Pressler amendment become effective? I think it was during Bush I administration in 1989 or 1990 that Bush could no longer certify to the US Congress that Pakistan was not a nuclear weapon state. What did Reagan administration do about Pak nukes?
> Conversely, during the 80s, the US had the most lenient attitude towards
> Iraq of any country in the world when it came to prohibited weapons -- we
> actually supplied them with chemical weapons and protected them from UN
> sanction when they used them (for the blunt reason that if Iraq hadn't
> used them, Iran would have conquered it).
US approach to the proliferation of nukes is subordinate to its overall foreign policy postures and tactics. If you are a US ally, you can do what you want. Other states' approach is no different, so the US is not an exception in this regard.
> And Iraq didn't get a bomb not because of our policy, because of accidents
> that had nothing to do with our policy, and because of Israel's
> intervention at Osirak. (It was also the Israeli assasination of Gerald
> Bull that prevented Iraq from getting the supergun which, in conjuction
> with chemcial shell, might also have changed the strategic balance.)
You mean the US would have tolerated one or more Arab states with nukes in Israel's proximity?
> > Surely Iraqis have been harshly dealt with while Israel and Pakistan
> > have got away with their nukes?
> You're mixing time periods here. Iraq was harshly dealt with after its
> nuke program was already destroyed by the war
That makes it even worse. US did nothing while Pakistan developed nukes. US took mild actions against Pakistan, after it was already a NWS.
> Part of why thinking changed in the mid 1970s and controls tightened up
> was precisely because the 1973 oil price hike seemed to create countries
> that might have enough money to be able to be to do it without hitting the
> wall. And whose arch-enemy had one.
How is this consistent with your claim that the US wasn't opposed to Iraqi Nuclear Weapons programme in 80s?
> Essentially you want to univeralize the key condition of the grand
> bargains: security guarantees for everyone country that gives them up,
> couple with inspections which, with new equipment, would be definitive.
When would the US and other NWSs eliminate their stockpiles?
> As for Israel, its bombs do nothing for it and it would be better off
> without them. It didn't it stop it from being attacked in 1967 or 1973.
> The reason no one has invaded them since not because of their bombs but
> because Camp David took Egypt out of the equation. That plus their
> conventional superiority.
That hardly justifies the discriminatory US policy in the West Asia.
> So the underlying strategic realities plus the much much greater
> possibilities of surveillance now compared to 40 years ago could make a
> non-proliferation regime possible. But clearly the distance between the
> present reality and that goal is large. We need a leap historical of
> consciousness. And we're heading in the exactly wrong direction.
> One more reason to get rid of the madmen.
What is Kerry's position on North Korean nukes?
Ulhas
> Michael