A NEW BED IN THE MAKING

Once again, El Presidente is making a big bed - and we will all have to lie in it long after he is gone from the White House. We could very well name this bed "The Selective Breaking of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) When Suitable".

It is a dangerous bed, even though this is India - a friendly democratic nation - we are talking about. India (together with Pakistan and Israel) has declined to sign the NPT, but the United States is a major signatory. Which means the current administration should be respecting the treaty's definitions and sticking to them.

El Presidente, however, is trying to build a case on the fact that India is a peaceful nation and not an enemy of democracy; that India is an "exception". But if Congress agrees with him, nuclear trade between the United States and India could help further destabilize an already rough corner of the world.

Under this rationale of exception, what should stop a madman like Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from breaking every rule of the treaty as well (Iran is a signatory)? Not to mention that further developing its currently primitive nuclear program will give Iran an edge and definitely the means with which to try and really wipe Israel off the map (let's face it, the man is deranged).

But it is always good to remember that in the past there was plenty of nuclear cooperation between the United States and Iran (one might say that Iran once qualified as the "exception", no? A vicious cycle perhaps?). Some of the documents signed in the seventies under the auspices of then President Gerald Ford, now Vice President Dick Cheney and other equally powerful players can be found at this website.

Of course, this all changed after Iran became a theocracy following the 1979 revolution. But the damage was already done.

So it is 2006, and El Presidente is making concessions about India and bending the rules; Iran, without a doubt, will make the most of it. And although I am by all accounts an optimist, it is hard to believe that Iran truly intends to develop a peaceful nuclear industry. Not under this president and not under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (in 2005, he released an anti-nuclear fatwa, but then recently he also clarified that Iran will not bow to foreign pressure in what concerns its nuclear plans; plus, he is another madman himself).

So, the question remains - why is El Presidente making one more bed? We have many already. And soon enough the beds will outnumber us...

He should stay put, at least this once.