Word: nuclearism
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...struggles to advance U.N. sanctions against Iran for its defiant pursuit of nuclear capability, President Barack Obama is about to launch a month of high-profile international meetings designed to restrict the spread of nuclear weapons. But Iran's resistance to international pressure threatens the credibility of the entire enterprise. Rather than opening a new era of international cooperation on nuclear nonproliferation, the next four weeks of summitry look more like stagecraft designed to hide failing statecraft...
...state to Washington for talks aimed at getting countries with existing stocks of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium to do a better job of securing them so they don't fall into the hands of terrorists. Then, in May, the parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) will convene in New York for the treaty-review conference held every five years. Major nuclear powers such as the U.S. and Russia hope to strengthen the floundering treaty, which seeks to prevent new countries from acquiring nuclear weapons by getting those who already have them to begin...
...unspoken shadow over both meetings will be Iran's pursuit of the capability to build nuclear weapons, undeterred by Washington's attempts to stop it with a combination of talks and coercion. Iran is a signatory to the NPT, which gives it the right to enrich uranium for energy purposes. But because Iran violated NPT transparency requirements, the Security Council has punished it with a series of limited sanctions. Efforts to ratchet up the U.N. sanctions, first imposed in December 2006, have thus far come to nothing...
...Iran has the advantage here is an understatement. Every attempt to curtail its nuclear program has failed. Obama's outreach in the first year of his Administration produced neither a change in Iran's behavior nor a willingness among other countries to increase the pressure on Tehran. The Administration currently claims it is making progress toward tougher sanctions, and the President said this week that he hoped the Security Council would pass a new sanctions resolution this spring. But it is increasingly clear that any new U.N. sanctions, if they come, will contain few new penalties. (See pictures...
...conferences even have the backing of hawkish U.S. critics of Obama's Iran policy. "These programs are worthwhile, and they were continued in [the] Bush [Administration]," says John Bolton, who represented the previous Administration at the U.N. and who advocates a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities...