Well if you were the United States, Britain, Germany and France, you'd pick nations A and B above. Nation A is of course fun-lovin' Pakistan, Nation B is India and Nation C is Iran.

Both India and Pakistan refuse to sign the NPT. Both India and Pakistan have demonstrated the fact they have nuclear weapons. Both India and Pakistan have missiles capable of firing nuclear warheads at each other, and they've fought 3 wars with each other. They're also engaged in a low-level confrontation in Kashmir, which lies on their border.

Yet despite their flagrant endangerment of world stability, they've both been amply rewarded by the United States and the western allies. On July 8, 2005 the Bush administration signed an agreement to legalize the sale of nuclear technology to India despite the fact that it still refuses to sign the NPT. Of course this is a trade of "only peaceful" nuclear technology and equipment.

Pakistan is still waiting for such an open-ended agreement, but in the meantime it has received millions of dollars in military aid, advanced weaponry such as F-16 fighter jets, and most importantly, was awarded Major Non-Nato Ally status in March 2004. Being declared MNNA means that all sanctions against it were lifted, including those which forbade weapons sales.

Meanwhile of course the rhetoric against Iran continues. Iran has always stated that it is only seeking to pursue civilian nuclear technology, which is permitted by the NPT. You can read the full text here but here is all of Article IV:

1. Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with articles I and II of this Treaty.

2. All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Parties to the Treaty in a position to do so shall also cooperate in contributing alone or together with other States or international organizations to the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially in the territories of non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world.

I don't think the language could be much clearer - Iran has the right to develop peaceful nuclear technology. If the United States and other countries don't like it, they need to amend the treaty, not blame it.

I should also mention that the NPT requires that member nations let the IAEA conduct inspections, which as far as I'm able to tell, Iran has complied with. In fact, IAEA inspectors are in Iran right now. India and Pakistan, not being signatories, don't have to let the IAEA inspect anything (and they generally don't).

But wait a minute, wasn't it proven that Iran had been developing a nuclear weapon program? So you would think, listening to the rhetoric from certain governments. The IAEA however, which would know, says otherwise:

The UN nuclear watchdog is preparing to publish evidence that Iran is not engaged in a nuclear weapons programme, undermining a warning of possible military action from President George Bush.

However, Iran is about to receive a major boost from the results of a scientific analysis that will prove that the country's authorities were telling the truth when they said they were not developing a nuclear weapon. The discovery of traces of weapons-grade uranium in Iran by UN inspectors in August 2003 set off alarm bells in Western capitals where it was feared that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon under cover of a civil programme. The inspectors took the samples from Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, which had been concealed from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for 18 years.

But Iran maintained that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes, and that the traces must have been contamination from the Pakistani-based black market network of scientist AQ Khan. He is the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb.

However those hopes will be dashed by the revelation about the IAEA analysis of the particles from Pakistan, which will remove any chance of Iran being referred to the UN Security Council. But the IAEA is not closing the book on its investigation of Iran's possible weapons programme. A team of IAEA experts arrived in Iran on Friday to pursue other outstanding issues, but they are unlikely to be resolved by the time Dr ElBaradei reports to the board.

I don't know why the newspaper would say anyone "hoped" the IAEA would prove that Iran had an illegal nuclear weapon program. I guess it would fulfill certain parties' political aspirations but the people of the planet would never hope anyone has a nuclear weapon.

According to what the IAEA has discovered, the weapons-grade uranium came from Pakistan, via their national hero and world terrorist AQ Khan. You know, the guy the CIA protected for years. So why isn't Pakistan being threatened with a censuring motion by the UN Security Council?

The only thing that's saving Iran from a first-class smear job is the honesty and integrity of Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA. The Bush administration has done everything under the sun to get rid of this guy, including bugging his offices to try and get "dirt" on him to lobbying for their own stooge to replace him, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer. All to no avail.

The IAEA has a Board of Governors and unfortunately for those who hate Baradei and Iran, the majority of the 35 members are more interested in facts and science. And unless the IAEA finds some kind of new evidence of nuclear weapons development, they're not going to report Iran to the UN Security Council.

Is Iran a cuddly, harmless nation? Of course not. It has lots of flaws, including an atrocious human rights record. But it is absolutely ridiculous to smear Iran for following the letter of the law when two much more dangerous allies regularly flaunt it.

Peace