Nuclear hypocrisy: Joe Conason

Nuclear hypocrisy
To avoid war, Bush should engage in direct negotiations with Iran -- and restore America's commitment to its own disarmament.

By Joe Conason

Oct. 19, 2007 | Trying to understand what is on George W. Bush's mind when he opens his mouth is often a fruitless exercise, but his latest statement concerning Iran, nuclear weapons and World War III was troubling as well as opaque. Just what did the president mean when he uttered those apocalyptic remarks on Wednesday?

"We've got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel," he blathered. "So I've told people that, if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

Sorry, but the Iranian leadership and many other unsavory figures around the world cannot be prevented from "having the knowledge" needed to build a nuclear weapon, since, as Matthew Yglesias has noted, the scientific and engineering information is commonly available.

What the Iranians don't have yet is the industrial capacity to make enough weapons-grade enriched uranium for that purpose and then to transform that material into a bomb. What they do have, unfortunately, is the means to achieve that end eventually -- and thanks in part to the irresponsible policies of the Bush administration, they also have both a motive and an excuse.

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