Iran Rejects Atomic Bullyragging

By JoeC

On Monday, Iranian envoy Ali Asghar Soltanieh said Iran would not submit to nuclear inspections while other countries refused to even sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty(NPT). He said this in Geneva, Switzerland, at a meeting of representatives of the 190 countries who HAVE signed the NPT, including Iran.

Fact check: There's only about 194 countries in the world.

So, which 4 countries haven't been able to find the time to sign the NPT since it was invented forty years ago to curb the growth of nuclear weapons?


India
There's India, for one. India went nuclear in the 1960s with help from Canada and the United States. It tested its first "peaceful nuclear explosion" in 1974. India probably has over 70 nuclear warheads right now.

Pakistan
There's also Pakistan. In the 1970s, Pakistan began its quest for a nuclear weapon in direct repsonse to India's fascination with owning the big A-bomb. In 1998, the country tested its first nuclear bomb. Pakistan now owns over 30 nuclear warheads.

North Korea
North Korea used to be a member of the Nuclear NPT, but after the United States got huffy with them, they withdrew in 2003. In 2006, Kim Jong conducted a real, if puny, nuclear test. Today North Korea may have up to ten puny little nuclear warheads.

Israel
Israel has not signed the NPT. Israel won't confirm or deny it has a nuclear arsenal. Israel claims that its Negev Nuclear Research Center is a research reactor, even though no scientific reports based on work done there have ever been published. Israel probably tested a nuclear weapon in 1979, and currently has somewhere between 70 and 200 nuclear warheads.

Middle East Double Standards
Looks to me like Ali Asghar Soltanieh's got a good point: Why should Iran undergo inspections to make sure its following the NPR treaty, while an already nuclear Israel continues to pump out more warheads with no oversight, and without even admitting what they're doing?

"The existing double standard shall not be tolerated anymore by non-nuclear-weapon states," Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh says.

On February 22, 2008, Iran got a clean bill of health from its investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran, who has signed the NPT, doesn't have nuclear weapons.

Addendum
Last week, Iran -- the second largest OPEC oil producer -- announced it would cease to trade its oil for U.S. dollars. From here on out, if you want to buy Iran's oil, you'll need to pony up Euros or Japanese yen.

Iran has been threatening to decouple its oil from US dollars for years, and despite much ado over Iran's nonexistent nuclear warhead program, herein, I believe, lies the real reason for the U.S. administration's persistent disinformation campaign to justify an attack on Iran. For, without gold or oil to give the dollar a stable, real-world value, some believe its value will plummet and touch off a season of hyperinflation.