by James Glaser
November 29, 2004

Sunday Iran once again pledged to halt all of their nuclear enrichment work. Their plan will be presented to the International Atomic Energy Agency on Monday according to a report by Reuters News.

In the last couple of weeks Washington has been telling the world that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. They have been presenting their case almost like they did with Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction. Only now many the world over are thinking about, "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."

Both Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Vice-President Cheney told the world about Iraq's weapons, "We know where they are," and we didn't. Iraq told the world they didn't have any and the world didn't believe them, but they were telling the truth. Iran is telling the world that its atomic program is aimed solely at generating electricity and Washington is saying that they are lying, like they said Iraq was lying. Now the world has to wonder about our sincerity on this subject.

Iran has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and it has repeatedly called for a nuclear free Middle East. You would think that Washington would fall all over itself agreeing with that idea, but they don't.

Why? Well Israel has lots and lots of nuclear weapons. We don't know exactly how many, because Israel has refused to sign that non-proliferation treaty and refuses to allow international inspections and for some strange reason that is just fine with Washington.

Not only George Bush, but every American President has given a blind eye to Israel's nuclear program. America wants the Middle East to be free of all Weapons of Mass Destruction except for the only non Muslim Country there and that is Israel. Not only do we think it is OK for Israel to have any and all weapons systems. George Bush is willing to sell them our most powerful Bunker-buster bomb.

I don't like Iran having Nuclear weapons and I don't like Israel having them either, but for us to climb on our high horse and tell one side they can't have them while we give billions in military aid to the other makes no sense at all. Also it is hard to tell anyone they can't have these weapons when we have enough nuclear bombs to destroy the whole planet many times over and at the same time our President is pushing for us to develop a whole new class of these weapons.

We can't have it both ways. Iran feels that they have a right to defend themselves from Israel, who they know have nuclear weapons. Washington is trying to tell the Muslim world that they can't have these weapons, but Israel can. On top of this we are trying to tell the Muslim world that they should become democracies because it is a fairer form of government.

We are in a war right now with Terrorism and most of the terrorists come from Muslim countries. We need the cooperation of these Muslim Governments if we want to win our war. I try to understand Washington's rational on this subject as does the rest of the world, but I don't think there is any. The Israeli lobby pours millions into the coffers of both of our major political parties and they have been doing that for decades. Hey, it works.