Great: US Throws in the Towel Over Nuclear Weapons Proliferation

With no sense of irony the times has two stories about North Korea and Iran, both ominous in nature and terrifying in their implication. First the Obama admin is going beyond meeting with Iran without pre-condition, we are the ones who are going to give up demands for the right to meet with them. The original argument was no meeting while Iran enriches, but now we will meet with them even while they continue to lay groundwork for an atomic weapon. First a few facts:

Iran has been breaking the law in regards to development.
The Iranian nuclear program that can only exist for weapons.
The Iranian program goes back to 1989, here is a dose of reality from the journal:

Iran's nuclear program dates back to 1989, when the Russian government agreed to complete the reactor at Bushehr. It was a year of optimism in the West: The Iran-Iraq War ended the summer before and, with the death of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini, leadership passed to Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, both considered moderates.

At the beginning of the year, George H.W. Bush offered an olive branch to Tehran, declaring in his inaugural address, "Good will begets good will. Good faith can be a spiral that endlessly moves on." The mood grew more euphoric in Europe. In 1992, the German government, ever eager for new business opportunities and arguing that trade could moderate the Islamic Republic, launched its own engagement initiative.

It didn't work. While U.S. and European policy makers draw distinctions between reformers and hard-liners in the Islamic Republic, the difference between the two is style, not substance. Both remain committed to Iran's nuclear program. Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, for example, called for a Dialogue of Civilizations. The European Union (EU) took the bait and, between 2000 and 2005, nearly tripled trade with Iran.

It was a ruse. Iranian officials were as insincere as European diplomats were greedy, gullible or both. Iranian officials now acknowledge that Tehran invested the benefits reaped into its nuclear program.

From the Times Today:

The proposals, exchanged in confidential strategy sessions with European allies, would press Tehran to open up its nuclear program gradually to wide-ranging inspection. But the proposals would also allow Iran to continue enriching uranium for some period during the talks. That would be a sharp break from the approach taken by the Bush administration, which had demanded that Iran halt its enrichment activities, at least briefly to initiate negotiations.

The proposals under consideration would go somewhat beyond President Obama’s promise, during the presidential campaign, to open negotiations with Iran “without preconditions.” Officials involved in the discussion said they were being fashioned to draw Iran into nuclear talks that it had so far shunned.

A review of Iran policy that Mr. Obama ordered after taking office is still under way, and aides say it is not clear how long he would be willing to allow Iran to continue its fuel production, and at what pace. But European officials said there was general agreement that Iran would not accept the kind of immediate shutdown of its facilities that the Bush administration had demanded.

Scary stuff, and even more disturbing is the level of acceptance by so many of Irans Atomic ambitions. More despicable is the reaction of Chief Arms Inspector Dr. ElBaradei, who after an anti-Bush rant offered us this nugget of wisdom:

Now, he contended, Mr. Obama has little choice but to accept the reality that Iran has “built 5,500 centrifuges,” nearly enough to make two weapons’ worth of uranium each year. “You have to design an approach that is sensitive to Iran’s pride,” said Dr. ElBaradei, who has long argued in favor of allowing Iran to continue with a small, face-saving capacity to enrich nuclear fuel, under strict inspection.

Pride? Face saving? These guys want a bomb to either use it, sell the know how, and at the very least bully their neighbors. We are in some very dangerous waters here and these guys have given up even the pre-tense of stopping the Weapons Program. I believe that many on the left and in elite circles are more concerned about the political fall out of a weapons program then the consequences of a terror state with nuclear weapons.

In other wonderful news North Korea is planning on restarting its own program, (The one they admit to that is)

North Korea vowed Tuesday to restore the nuclear facilities that it had been disabling and boycott international talks on its nuclear weapons program to protest against the U.N. Security Council’s reaction to its recent rocket launching.

(CNN) -- North Korea's foreign ministry said the country will quit talks aimed at disarming the country of nuclear weapons and strengthen nuclear capabilities, state-run media reported Tuesday.

The statement, issued via North Korean state-run media KCNA, listed reasons that the country will pull out of the so-called six-party talks.

Watchdog Given the boot:

"Now that the six-party talks have turned into a platform for infringing upon the sovereignty of the (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) and seeking to force the DPRK to disarm itself and bring down the system in it, the DPRK will never participate in the talks any longer, nor it will be bound to any agreement of the six-party talks," KCNA said.

Now they threaten war:

(CNN) -- North Korea said Saturday any sanctions or pressure applied against it following its rocket launch earlier this month will be considered a "declaration of war."

Feel the Peace
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- The Iranian president on Saturday hailed the nation as "one of the strongest in the region" during a celebration to mark Army Day, according to the semi-official Mehr News Agency: