“No good decision was ever made in a swivel chair.” – Gen. Patton
When you take a look at the threat level from rogue nations – N. Korea and Iran – it is alarming that the current administration would even humor the idea of backing down on its nuclear presence. However, the same energy that carried health care reform will, and has already begun to see the ill effects of current talks with nations like Russia.
As Iran prepares for an upcoming conference on nuclear disarmament, N. Korea is openly committed to furthering their nuclear status. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that they have “between one and six nuclear weapons.” In the same speech, Clinton says that “We will not unilaterally disarm. We will maintain our nuclear deterrent.” A mixed signal within the administration as Obama seems hard pressed to formulate a new nuclear weapons policy that would, in some eyes, disarm America. It is no secret that the current stockpile of nuclear weapons in America is old and technologically outdated.
”The United States is trying to say, ‘Look, let’s keep the bargain where all of the rest of the world agrees not to get nuclear weapons and to work with us to keep nuclear weapons from terrorists and other states, because we are keeping our side of the bargain. We are doing everything we can to reduce the role of nuclear weapons and reduce the number of nuclear weapons.’”
That may be what is said, but what is being heard is another story. What it says to countries like Iran and N. Korea is that we don’t want you to have nukes, and while we will still maintain our outdated weapons at a lesser level, you in turn will agree that you will not further your acquiescence of nuclear weapons. While it is easy to make accusations with a statement like that, it is in some ways beginning to take shape in that manner.
Our side of the bargainis demonstrated with the nuclear talks with Russia, in the hopes that they would take the side of the U.S. in sanctions against Iran. However, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sees things differently. Although he agreed that nations should not “turn a blind eye” to Iran’s nuclear defiance, he indicated that Russia would not support sanctions that would punish Iran’s people or encourage regime change. He told reporters in Prague, where he and Obama signed an arms control agreement on nuclear weapons, that: “Let me put it straightforward. I have outlined our limits for such sanctions.”
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s outright defiance toward sanctions, has created what some are calling diplomatic foot-dragging, while he continues to take a strong stance on the direction and purpose as to Iran’s nuclear efforts. But, only time will tell after Tehran holds it’s international conference of nuclear disarmament on April 17th and 18th, where it is said that Iran “does not consider legitimate the possession of nuclear weapons and other [forms of] weapons of mass destruction by any country,” and adding that Tehran believed in a world free of such weapons.
With noise like that coming out of Tehran, it is hard to understand their stance when they make statements that, “If America makes a crazy move, its interests will be endangered by Iran’s allies around the globe.”