A couple of questions. What exactly are the Additional Protocols and to whom do they apply?

To the extent they "cheated" in arriving at a nuclear capability and dealt with bad guys like Pakistan and N. Korea, did they have much choice in light of the West's withdrawal from Iran ?

Is Iranian paranoia rational? Have we interfered in their internal affairs and have we supported a massive war of attrition waged against them?

Aside from a fairly childish holding of hostages in the wake of years of oppression at the hands of our puppet how has Iran attacked us (the U.S.) such that we should anticipate aggressive military type actions against us if they actually possessed a nuclear weapon?

Why are you convinced that "eventually they will use force," presumably nuclear, particularly if we stopped interfering in their neighborhood for the sake of good deals and hegemony when our strategic interests are not involved except to the extent that we cut a marginally better deal for oil on behalf of certain cronies?

Don't we, as the guys with the biggest sticks, still have the opportunity to impose our will when in fact our strategic interests are at stake, if we take the gamble that the players in that neighborhood might find their own balance if we don't keep messing up the game on behalf of one or another crony?

What makes you think that they are in any way a significant (not even existential) threat to us?

...than I have available to deal with this afternoon to deal with. Hope you can wait until tonight.

"Ambiguously loose statements on the one hand, and euphemisms that link terrorism and fascism to Islam on the other, have created confusion and resentment on all sides." ~ Fariborz Mokhtari

"We have significant conventional military power and are well integrated into international security arrangements - there is significant reason to believe, quite aside from our long history full adherence with NPT obligations, that we would not weaponize."

I'll have to object to that statement. The US does not have a history of adherence with NPT obligations and to the extent that it is in compliance it is a totally non-symmetrical way. The Nuclear Posture Review contains no provisions for verification or transparency. The US does not want any transparency or accountability for its disarmament obligations for the same reason that Saddam refused to be transparent about the state of his WMD programs - he had enemies and he didn't want his enemies to have any kind of clear understanding of his weapon capabilities.

I'll go out on a limb and say Iran is not going to use a nuclear weapon against another country. I know that as sure as I knew Saddam didn't have WMDs. Its never going to happen. I don't even believe they intend to build a nuclear weapon but I certainly could be wrong about that. And let's be honest - nothing will convince the current administration that Iran does not intend to build nuclear weapon. No matter what hoops they jump through, no matter what protocols they implement.

Also I think the current situation in Iraq shows that the US is not well integrated into international security arrangements. The US has the ability to carry out whatever illegal actions it deems fit without consequences, atleast not from other nations. If the US decided to use nuclear weapons against Iran tomorrow, would other nations even protest? The people of other nations would but would their governments? Or would they prefer to wait out the current administration and preserve their foreign relations with the US.
Contrary to your argument I would say the US and Israel are the two countries most likely to use nuclear weapons against another country for the simple reason that they are the only two countries which can expect to escape in-kind retaliation.

"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music."
-Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without A Country

Ian asked why Canada (that'd be me, BTW) and Japan can have a surge capability, but Iran can't. Being a nuclear weapons state, by definition, the United States doesn't enter into the question.

"Ambiguously loose statements on the one hand, and euphemisms that link terrorism and fascism to Islam on the other, have created confusion and resentment on all sides." ~ Fariborz Mokhtari

Actually I'm a Canadian too. I didn't realize you were Canadian so I totally misinterpreted your comment. Apologies all around ;)

"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music."
-Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without A Country

was voluntary and never ratified by Iran. Iran's stopped it.

Some history:

http://www.antiwar.com/prather/?articleid=11539

But the reality is the IAEA has once again verified to all IAEA members and NPT-signatories "the non-diversion of the declared nuclear materials" by Iran. Furthermore, Iran and the IAEA Secretariat have just announced an important agreed "time table" for "resolution" by year’s end of "all outstanding questions" relevant to the implementation of Iran’s Safeguards Agreement. And even some "questions" that aren’t relevant.

On May 15, 1974, Iran entered into an agreement with the IAEA – to remain in force as long as Iran remained a party to the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons – wherein all Iranian "source or special fissionable materials" and activities involving them were to be made subject to IAEA Safeguards "with a view to preventing diversion of nuclear energy from peaceful purposes."

Now, it is true that Iran voluntarily suspended certain activities in 2003 when it signed an Additional Protocol to its Safeguards Agreement, and offered to begin complying with the Additional Protocol, immediately, in advance of its formal ratification. And, in 2005, offered to permanently suspend certain other activities, in return for certain security guarantees by the European Union.

But that offer to the EU was never even acknowledged, no NPT-illegal sanctions on Iran were ever lifted, and no security guarantees were ever provided to Iran.

So, Iran resumed some of the activities it had voluntarily suspended. Furthermore, Iran’s Parliament decided not to ratify the Additional Protocol and ordered the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency to cease complying with it.

Since then, the official mission and role of the IAEA in Iran is once again totally proscribed by the original Safeguards Agreement and its Subsidiary Arrangements.

Nevertheless, on February 4, 2006, under extreme pressure by the United States, the IAEA Board of Governors adopted a resolution in which it concluded that for "confidence" to be built "in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program" it was "deemed necessary" for Iran to :

* re-establish full and sustained suspension of all enrichment related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, to be verified by the Agency;
* reconsider the construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water;
* ratify promptly and implement in full the Additional Protocol;
* pending ratification, continue to act in accordance with the provisions of the Additional Protocol which Iran signed on 18 December 2003;
* implement transparency measures, as requested by the Director General, including in GOV/2005/67, which extend beyond the formal requirements of the Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol, and include such access to individuals, documentation relating to procurement, dual use equipment, certain military-owned workshops and research and development as the Agency may request in support of its ongoing investigations.

Now, it is certainly within the Board’s purview to ask Iran to resolve those legitimate "outstanding questions" concerning Iran’s implementation of its Safeguards agreement, chronicled in the Director-General’s report of September 2, 2005.

But nowhere does the UN Charter, the IAEA Statute or the NPT, itself, even suggest that the Board needs to satisfy itself that any country’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful.

For the Board to "deem it necessary" for a sovereign state to promptly ratify the Additional Protocol to its existing Safeguards Agreement – a treaty – is an egregious violation of the IAEA UN-proscribed charter.

And for the Board to "report" Iran to the Security Council as a "threat to the peace" for Iran’s failure to comply with the Board’s illegal and outrageous demands is beyond the pale.

The primary mission of the IAEA is to "encourage and assist research on – and development and practical application of – atomic energy for peaceful purposes, throughout the world."

More at link

Bottom line: Iran is being told it's no allowed to do things that other countries are allowed to do. They don't like that. I wouldn't like it if I were an Iranian.

None of which is to say that I really want Iran to have nukes, or want them to have enrichment capacity. But if the West didn't want that to happen, maybe it should have accepted Iran's serious offer in 2003 to stop it all - or Iran's offer in 2005 to stop it. The West didn't, and Iran has to assume the reason we didn't is because we don't want to give them real security guarantees.

And really, they're absolutely right on being supplied fuel by the West. You know, and I know, that the West would cut them off in a second, and even if it didn't cut them off would constantly be using the threat of cutting them off as blackmail.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if they want nukes and are working to get them. It's rational behaviour for them to do so.

for a head of state.

I suppose it's fair enough though; the rest of the world has hardly been silent about Bush and Cheney. If they didn't have the muscle to stage-manage virtually every encounter with the public, both at home and abroad, they'd have been in for similar.

damn pathetic. The US had Kruschev over, a man with the ability to wipe the US off the face of the map, and was far far more polite.

He isn't even that important in Iran, that's the funny thing.

At least he wasn't important, before US boorishness boosted his popularity at home.

Is it prudent for Americans to accuse another country's head of state of exhibiting the signs of a "petty and cruel dictator?"

. . .

Also, state and city lawmakers say they are considering withholding public funds from the Columbia to protest its decision to invite Ahmadinejad to campus.