The Shaheen-1 missile has a range of about 400 miles (650 kilometers), while the second Ghaznavi missile could hit targets at a distance of 180 miles (290 kilometers), an army statement said. Both can carry conventional and nuclear warheads.

In this respect, the UNSC or other nations do not have the right to force zero enrichment on NPT members — that is an abrogation of the NPT. They can only try to force compliance.

They may well fail if they insist on calling some nations “spoliers” while taking other non-NPT members under their wing: India and Israel come to mind. And after the recent China-Pak deal we can add Pakistan to the list.

Let’s be clear who are the real spoilers: US, China, India, Israel and Pakistan.

I beg to differ. Twenty years ago, it would have been hard to imagine the recent war on Gaza happening (although, admittedly, Egypt’s dictatorship was/is a co-conspirator.) It would have been hard to imagine an Israeli government as radical as this one, with members openly advocating ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. That’s a change in my book.

“The big change in Egypt’s neighborhood has been attempts by Iraq, Libya, Iran and Syria to acquire capabilities to make nuclear weapons.”

Yes, but not in the way you think. Iran has resisted western pressure and successfully developed a nuclear program. Mubarak’s constituents will ask him, “why can’t Egypt do the same?”

Your blog very nicely reviews the next layer, where Cairo, “methinks, doth protest too much” by suddenly discovering Israel’s long-standing nuclear monopoly in the context of Iran’s rise. I think you have a point – Cairo’s policy of supporting Israeli repression of Gaza gives the lie to its calls for pressuring nuclear rogue Israel. So Cairo seems, if I read you correctly, to be playing a tricky game of supporting Tehran for the moment but for ultimately hostile purposes.

A third layer of the onion is being peeled back a bit at the NPT review conference. Ahmadinejad scored some direct hits. Americans may sleep through them all, but the rest of the world is likely to be listening. For example, in his speech, he fairly questioned “whether granting extraordinary authority in the IAEA to the nuclear weapon States and entrusting them with the critical issue of nuclear disarmament is appropriate.” Meanwhile, the immature behavior of the American delegation in walking out and the hypocritical expression of interest in a nuclear-free Mideast but only after resolving the Palestinian issue (what does that have to do with nuclear arms???) only underscored the pathetic nature of American nuclear diplomacy, at least as it appears publicly. The third layer, to get to the point, amounts to this: as Cairo now publicly criticizes Israel and echoes Tehran’s position and Ahmadinejad comes across as the moderate, does this build any real momentum in the non-Western world (e.g., Ankara, Brazilia, Tokyo, Beijing, Moscow and on the Muslim street as well) toward stronger support of Tehran?

And there are surely more layers, which I have no faith that any official organization will contemplate with an open mind because they all require the violation of too many political taboos. Given both the intrinsic importance of nuclear proliferation and the ways it intersects with the Western confrontation with activist Islam, the importance of thinking this through seems obvious…but how? Workshops take money. If there is serious interest in actively participating, I would be willing to set up a wiki to facilitate a dialogue. Wikis have their limits, but at least it’s a start…and free. Reactions?

The UNSC may keep nukes, all other nations may not save for Israel, India and Pakistan. As long as this antiquated world view lingers on the NPT is doomed to fail, this year, or five years from now, it doesn’t really matter. Taiwan and South Korea were in far more precarious positions than Israel finds itself now and yet the US leaned on them heavily not to go nuclear with great success. The US congress should grow a pair, lay off the Bibble thumper/evango-Zionism moonshine, remember that their first responsibility is to maintain the imploding post ww2 war framework and extend the Taiwan-ROK treatment to Tel Aviv. As far as India and Pakistan goes, we should offer them a simple bargain; the first to verifiable disarm should gain economic aid and a security blanket, the other wins trade sanctions and our enmity.

The longer we hold off cracking the whip the crappier our cards get. I fear they may be too much institutional momentum in the US to snap out of delusions such as held by the author and effect a rational course of action. Perhaps it’s all for the best; we are after all leaving behind an unmanageable world of nuclear armed regional powers for the PRC to inherent when they shove aside.