While telling Iran not to make Nukes, U.S. still develops more

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_3613966

Even as he was telling Iran not to produce nuclear weapons, President Bush was urging Congress to pay for a new nuclear weapon designed to destroy underground military facilities.

Although the nuclear "bunker-buster" is still on the drawing board, Iran can be expected to charge the United States with atomic hypocrisy during this war of words.

No less than a conservative Republican from Ohio, Rep. David L. Hobson, has thwarted Bush's push for the bunker-buster for the past two years. Hobson chairs a House subcommittee that appropriates money for the nuclear weapons complex. He persuaded the House not to spend a cent for research on the bunker-buster. The Senate followed.

What worries him most about this weapon, Hobson has said, "is that some idiot might try to use it."

Reason 1 is that our unilateral and illegal invasion of Iraq made it clear that the non-nuclear powers cannot rely on international institutions to protect them from predatory super powers: they are on their own. Reason 1 is implicit in the NPT framework, not explicit.

Reason 2 is that the NPT explicitly calls for nuclear disarmament by the nuclear nations. We have not only failed to move this process forward, we are moving it backwards with our unilateral abolition of the ABM treaty and our decision to restart our nuclear weapons development program and our frequent announcements of our intention to use tactical nukes on a first strike basis.

Iran has every right to build a nuclear deterrent. Unless and until we restore sanity to Washington and London, proliferation will be a world reality.