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From The New York Times:
But the nuclear clock is ticking, and some of Mr. Bush’s aides fear that Iran is heading the same way as North Korea did in the 1990s — playing out the negotiations while its scientists and engineers pick up skills, leaving open a withdrawal from the treaty. Alternatively, some in the C.I.A. believe that there are really two nuclear projects under way in Iran: a public one that inspectors visit, and a parallel, secret one on the country’s military reservations.
The Iranians deny that, but admit they have built huge tunnels at some crucial sites and buried other facilities altogether. Mr. Perkovich said that when Iranian officials were asked about that at the conference, they answered, “If you thought the Americans were going to bomb you, wouldn’t you bury this stuff, too?”
The answer is of course yes. The twin lessons of Iraq and North Korea are that if you don’t have an atom bomb, Bush will wage “preemptive war” on you anytime he wants. And if you do, he won’t. No better scheme for spreading nuclear bombs all over the world could be imagined.
Maybe this is all a perfectly natural geopolitical progression. There was no shortage of murderous bullies in Moscow and Washington throughout the Cold War, and the only thing that held them back from World War III was the high likelihood that they themselves, personally, were likely to die in it.
And the only thing that can protect smaller nations from future Bushes in Washington or Beijing or Moscow is an atom bomb or two tucked away somewhere. This is the calculation Castro made after Kennedy invaded Cuba, and it is the calculation being made right now, all over the world.
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