Nuclear proliferation: Might as well learn to love it

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the month-long U.N. conference on nuclear proliferation has ended in failure, largely because of disagreements between the U.S., Iran, and Egypt:

Representatives of more than 150 nations convened at U.N. headquarters to seek ways to stop more countries from developing nuclear weapons, prevent terrorists from acquiring them, and get a renewed commitment from atomic powers — especially the United States — to significantly reduce their stockpiles...

The United States tried to keep the focus on alleged nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea instead of its pledges to whittle down its own arsenal...

"The conference after a full month ended up where we started, which is a system full of loopholes, ailing and not a road map to fix it," Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters in Vienna as the conference fizzled to a close.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan launched the conference — a review of the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty — on May 2, telling delegates that "the consequences of failure are too great to aim for anything less" than new measures to curb the spread of nuclear weapons and reduce the number of existing arms...

Annan said Friday that conference participants had "missed a vital opportunity" to strengthen the world's collective security and urged leaders to take up the issues again at a September summit at the U.N.

A number of diplomats put much of the blame for the deadlock on the United States.

Well, of course they did -- and perhaps not just because of anti-Americanism. After all, a strong case can be made against Iran and North Korea, and perhaps Russia, but the problem is that it doesn't make much sense for the U.S. to push non-proliferation (and a legitimate concern for nuclear terrorism) while simultaneously refusing to address its own stockpiles, preventing discussion of Israel (which likely possesses nuclear weapons), and researching next-generation nuclear weapons. This is an extraordinarily important issue, but, as usual, the Bush Administration is pushing its own unilateralist agenda.

Yup, Bolton will fit in just fine.