Maybe at the time they believed us when we said we’d disarm, scout’s honour. Maybe they were afraid we’d get pissed if they didn’t bend over. Maybe they simply figured it was no thang to sign it because they didn’t imagine they’d ever get into a position where they could get nuclear tech and it was free goodwill points. How should I know ?
Don’t even try. The invasion of Iraq was set to go regardless of facts the moment W stepped into the Oval Office and you know it.
Israel attacked Iraq’s Osirak reactor in the 80s despite the fact that it had never been and would have been impossible to use in a military capacity. It had been specifically designed that way. Israel more recently very presumably hacked into Iran’s civilian nuclear program and disabled it, as well as very presumably assassinated key members of Iran’s nuclear energy program.
Since Israel is quite evidently going to try and mess with any hint of nucleariness in the region anyway, from the Iranian standpoint they might as well try and get real nukes while they’re at it. Once they get them, Israel will be forced to cease their fuckery and the civilian energy program can keep on keeping on. What’s the alternative ? Just shrug and not modernize their electric grid ?
Errr… we build nukes and support terrorist groups too, you know. Not the same ones, obviously. At least I hope not, that would be awkward.
Like I said, we get rid of old crap once in a while. But it doesn’t matter because we re-use the fissile matter in new crap. US total nuclear stockpiles have remained more or less stagnant since the late 80s. And of course are still quite enough to turn the entire world into a dustbowl a dozen times over.
As for the cite, would a wiki one suffice ?
[QUOTE=Wiki article on the NNPT]
Second pillar: disarmament
Article VI of the NPT represents the only binding commitment in a multilateral treaty to the goal of disarmament by the nuclear-weapon States. The NPT’s preamble contains language affirming the desire of treaty signatories to ease international tension and strengthen international trust so as to create someday the conditions for a halt to the production of nuclear weapons, and treaty on general and complete disarmament that liquidates, in particular, nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles from national arsenals.
The wording of the NPT’s Article VI arguably imposes only a vague obligation on all NPT signatories to move in the general direction of nuclear and total disarmament, saying, “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament.”[11] Under this interpretation, Article VI does not strictly require all signatories to actually conclude a disarmament treaty. Rather, it only requires them “to negotiate in good faith.”[12]
On the other hand, some governments, especially non-nuclear-weapon states belonging to the Non-Aligned Movement, have interpreted Article VI’s language as being anything but vague. In their view, Article VI constitutes a formal and specific obligation on the NPT-recognized nuclear-weapon states to disarm themselves of nuclear weapons, and argue that these states have failed to meet their obligation.[citation needed] The International Court of Justice (ICJ), in its advisory opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, issued 8 July 1996, unanimously interprets the text of Article VI as implying that
“There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”
The ICJ opinion notes that this obligation involves all NPT parties (not just the nuclear weapon states) and does not suggest a specific time frame for nuclear disarmament.[13]
Critics of the NPT-recognized nuclear-weapon states[who?] sometimes argue that what they view as the failure of the NPT-recognized nuclear weapon states to disarm themselves of nuclear weapons, especially in the post–Cold War era, has angered some non-nuclear-weapon NPT signatories of the NPT. Such failure, these critics add, provides justification for the non-nuclear-weapon signatories to quit the NPT and develop their own nuclear arsenals.[citation needed]
Other observers have suggested that the linkage between proliferation and disarmament may also work the other way, i.e., that the failure to resolve proliferation threats in Iran and North Korea, for instance, will cripple the prospects for disarmament.[citation needed] No current nuclear weapons state, the argument goes, would seriously consider eliminating its last nuclear weapons without high confidence that other countries would not acquire them. Some observers have even suggested that the very progress of disarmament by the superpowers—which has led to the elimination of thousands of weapons and delivery systems[14]—could eventually make the possession of nuclear weapons more attractive by increasing the perceived strategic value of a small arsenal. As one U.S. official and NPT expert warned in 2007, “logic suggests that as the number of nuclear weapons decreases, the ‘marginal utility’ of a nuclear weapon as an instrument of military power increases. At the extreme, which it is precisely disarmament’s hope to create, the strategic utility of even one or two nuclear weapons would be huge.”[15]
[/QUOTE]
Ah yes. “Well, maybe, I dunno about what we do but THEY SHOULDN’T DO IT, PERIOD”. Compelling.
If they are developing the things in secret, how do you know ?
Had Saddam simply opened up his purported WMD stockpiles and purported weapons manufacturing facilities to FULL UN INSPECTION AND COMPLIANCE WITH THE TREATIES HE SIGNED AFTER THE FIRST GULF WAR, he’d still be sitting pretty with his foot firmly on the throats of the Iraqi people, as the gods intended. Sadly, for him and for hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (instead of the tens of thousands that would have suffered under his continued boot in the ass) he didn’t. Thems-da-breaks. Iran could learn something from that and avoid all of this by simply honoring their treaty obligations and allowing full transparency with UN inspectors. Or not, and risk war.
