Yes it is. That is the proper way to go about it. Non Signatories cannot be forced to comply. A happy middle of arms reduction and non first use needs to be re-established.

India may be the worlds largest democracy but it is a very imperfect one. No bill of rights, no rights to property are some of the things wrong with the constitution.

Quoting rgajria: Yes it is. That is the proper way to go about it. Non Signatories cannot be forced to comply. A happy middle of arms reduction and non first use needs to be re-established.

I think I'd rather see a face-saving deal of some sort crafted to lure some of the unsigned moderates into the club. A bright line with states like Iran on the minority side is the goal.

Fine DV. Participants were too polite to mention that the Fundamentalist BJP jockeying for power in India is only marginally less nutty than the admittedly crazy Muslim Fundamentalists wanting to grab the nukes in Pakistan. (Actually given Pakistani ISI and military are already fairly fundamentalist-friendly, one could say that mission's already virtually accomplished.) This has all the marks of yet another Bush crony-capitalism venture cross-bred with a payback (G.E.?) for abundant donations from wealthy Indian businessmen and a simultaneously hostile and counterproductive geopolitical "containment" chessboard move aimed at China, Iran, etc., i.e. yet another wacky power trip out of Cheney's office. Good one George Bush. You haven't screwed up the world enough already. Nice, too, to see how tough the Dems were at pushback on this one (quickly "rubber-stamp" and then "push-back" to George for his signature). Thanks to both. EW

Thanks to Mark and Daryl!

Daryl Kimball’s description of the North Korea situation was not quite complete. The Clinton administration had agreed, rather stupidly, to provide North Korea with two light water reactors. This was already a non-starter. Never-the-less, Bush did little to help the situation. What little good has been done is probably to the credit of Secretary Rice. Iran is entirely within their rights to continue with their enrichment program. Negotiation is the next step, but it must also include Israel’s participation in good faith as well. Iran won’t give up it’s legal rights to fuel cycle technology unless Israel does the same. Why does Mark Goldberg keep implying that the NPT is in trouble? That is utter nonsense. Do two bad apples spoil the whole bunch? What about the other 143 member states who are living up to the terms of their safeguards agreements? The IAEA verifies worldwide compliance with safeguards agreements on an annual safeguards budget of about $130 million dollars per year, or about the cost of two fighter jets. Is that a bargain or not? Is Mark really ready to throw the whole thing away? NPT is alive and well, and largely because of NPT, so

Jim- I didn't mean to imply the NPT was in trouble. Daryl and I fundamentally agree on pretty much everything he said, so I was just trying to play the devils advocate a bit. For the record, I don't think the NPT is in trouble. I think it's remarkable what it has been able to achieve. I may be mistaken, but I'm fairly certain that more countries have given up their nukes under the NPT than have proliferated. (New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil, Libya). One big problem with the NPT, though, is that one of the three legs--disarmament--is struggling. Thanks for your comment. And Wonderment thanks for suggesting the topic.