race_to_the_bottom:

If Iran withdrew from the NPT that would be a whole new ballgame. BUT, they haven’t!
Nice call sign by the way. Very appropriate for our world of WTO-style globalization.

Actually srelf, Iran could, if it wishes, withdraw from the NPT in 3 months. Here is the relevant text from the treaty:

“Each Party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country. It shall give notice of such withdrawal to all other Parties to the Treaty and to the United Nations Security Council three months in advance. Such notice shall include a statement of the extraordinary events it regards as having jeopardized its supreme interests.”

Then Iran would have the same rights as India, Pakistan, or Israel and could go forward to develop nuclear weapons in full compliance with international law. Some brave reporter needs to ask that performer Obama or that mealy-mouthed Secretary of State Clinton if this is indeed the case and watch them squirm out of that one.

You may also recall that when the US ruling class decided it didn’t want to be bound by the terms of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, they simply withdrew. Some like to blame Bush,  but there was not one peep of protest from the Senate which had ratified the treaty in the first place. Ah, bipartisanship.

Lion King:

Iran doesn’t have the “right to nukes” (assuming you are using that word meaning nuclear weapons) if it is a signatory to the NPT. Right?

I completely concur with ardee who concurs with P.T.!

See Scott Ritter on Democracy Now today. He calls the US and Israel out for THEIR provocation, talking about bombing Iran, when Iran has not violated international agreements with the Qom facility. Israel has not violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty because it never signed it!

Iran wants to walk into talks as if they’re the superpower.  It’s about perception.  In other words, world
leaders turn to see an Iranian representative enter the room, rather than the other way around.

I find it funny that religious nuts are exploiting the scientific method while at the same time rejecting
what science tells us about biology, instead adhering to manmade notions of a supernatural father
figure.

Unfortunately, when you couple the insane idea that God is on your side with nuclear weapons, it spells
potential disaster for us all.  If enough weapons were to go off on the other side of the world, it would
affect the climate in ways unimaginable, aside from potential radioactive clouds. 

By the way:  Isn’t it a bit strange that Iran would threaten Israel, considering the land on which Israel
exists is considered “holy” to some extent in Islam?  Wouldn’t Iran, or any other country, essentially
desecrate “their own” land?

And to digress further, it’s funny that God is considered to be a real-estate agent.

I absolutely concur with the succinct yet in depth analysis of P.T.

We demonize, threaten, isolate and insult an entire nation and then wonder why they arm themselves. Bush lives on in the Oval Office apparently.

Let me suggest a third possibility:  The missile tests are intended to deter.