Word: nuclearism
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...thwart the possibility of North Korea-Iran exchanges of technology and know-how on long-range missiles - U.S. intelligence believes some of Iran's missiles are based on North Korean designs - and nuclear devices, the Bush administration has assiduously courted the Sunni-dominated Gulf states that serve as key banking and shipping centers for Iran. Next week's exercises are being heralded by Bush Administration officials as a sign that the political leaders in the Gulf accept the U.S. view on the Iranian threat. But some U.S. officials acknowledge it's too soon to tell whether the Gulf states will...
...Which is just the way the U.S. and its allies want it. While the international diplomatic effort to stop Iran from acquiring the capability to build nuclear weapons appears stymied, Plan B is the Proliferation Security Initiative, an anti-smuggling project launched by the U.S. and ten partners in 2003 and now boasting 80 participating nations. Next week's multinational training exercise, codenamed "Leading Edge," represents the first such counter-proliferation war game to be staged in the Gulf, and the first to include the participation of the Gulf states - Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates...
...clearly meant as a signal to Tehran that its neighbors are prepared to move aggressively to prevent it from obtaining the parts and materials necessary to advance its uranium enrichment process - a process the U.S. and many of its allies believe, but Iran denies, is ultimately intended to develop nuclear weapons...
...also carries also a message for North Korea. On Oct. 14, after the country tested a nuclear device, the U.N. Security Council unanimously voted trade and travel sanctions on Pyongyang. But the success of the sanctions depends on vigilance by authorities in the neighboring countries. Two of those key neighbors, Russia and South Korea, have declined to sign on to the PSI as full-fledged participants, but are sending observers to Bahrain for the exercise...
...official says in meetings in Beijing last week, Secretary Condoleezza Rice received some encouragement when she pressed for tighter controls along China's thinly-patrolled 880-mile border with North Korea to enforce U.N. Security Council-mandated sanctions barring commerce that would advance that nation's nuclear and missile programs. "The Chinese reaffirmed that they support the principles and the objectives of the [Proliferation Security] Initiative but they're not at a point?where they're able to formally endorse the initiative," says the U.S. official...