.....China has attended all these confabs in its apparently successful efforts to stake out an advantageous and independent position on nuclear weapons policy and the Iran crisis - and counter Russian attempts to create a new, anti-China security condominium in alliance with the United States.
......America's most nagging NPT headache probably isn't America's glacial disarmament process, or even Iran: it's Israel. Israel's undeclared arsenal of nuclear warheads has always been an irritant in US's Middle Eastern diplomacy and its efforts to block Iran's nuclear program.
The double standards dilemma has been most acute for Obama, who has designed his geopolitical strategy (and collected a Nobel Peace Prize) around the idea of reducing the threat of nuclear weapons....
Embarrassingly, from an NPT perspective, Israel doesn't compare favorably with Iran at all.
Iran is a signatory to the NPT and an active if unhappy and not particularly candid participant in the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) safeguards program. Its current inventory of nuclear material amounts to less than 2 tons of radioactive dirt, perhaps 11 pounds of uranium enriched to just below the 20% threshold (equivalent to less than 3 pounds of HEU if fully enriched), and 0 pounds of bomb grade material.
Israel is not a signatory to the NPT. It joined the IAEA, but does not participate in any safeguards program, apparently regarding its membership primarily as a useful opportunity to pitch negative intel concerning Islamic nuclear ambitions over the Department of Safeguard's transom. It maintains an undeclared arsenal of at least 200 warheads - perhaps as many as 400. (3)
To build this arsenal, Israel evaded export controls, allegedly diverting heavy water supplied by Norway for peaceful uses to its weapons program and illegally obtaining US krytons (high speed switches) for use in its nuclear weapons program. (4)
And Israel has proliferated. It provided technical assistance and more to the apartheid regime of South Africa that resulted in the construction of six nuclear warheads that could be dropped by bomber on South Africa's many regional antagonists. It was alleged but never officially confirmed that the Israeli government had also agreed to supply six specially fitted ballistic missiles to carry the warheads, and that South Africa's sole nuclear test was a joint South African/Israeli affair. (5)
Israel is not a signatory to the NPT. It joined the IAEA, but does not participate in any safeguards program, apparently regarding its membership primarily as a useful opportunity to pitch negative intel concerning Islamic nuclear ambitions over the Department of Safeguard's transom. It maintains an undeclared arsenal of at least 200 warheads - perhaps as many as 400. (3)
To build this arsenal, Israel evaded export controls, allegedly diverting heavy water supplied by Norway for peaceful uses to its weapons program and illegally obtaining US krytons (high speed switches) for use in its nuclear weapons program. (4)
And Israel has proliferated. It provided technical assistance and more to the apartheid regime of South Africa that resulted in the construction of six nuclear warheads that could be dropped by bomber on South Africa's many regional antagonists. It was alleged but never officially confirmed that the Israeli government had also agreed to supply six specially fitted ballistic missiles to carry the warheads, and that South Africa's sole nuclear test was a joint South African/Israeli affair. (5)
.... Full story
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