The Great Game

Sneaky little bugger. This just goes to show that Bush isn't an idiot. You can't be an idiot and come up with something this sneaky. I am reminded of Gollum.

Jax

Behind President Bush's recent shift in dealing with Iran's nuclear program lies a less visible goal: to rewrite, in effect, the main treaty governing the spread of nuclear technology, without actually renegotiating it.

In their public statements and background briefings in recent days, Mr. Bush's aides have acknowledged that Iran appears to have the right - on paper, at least - to enrich uranium to produce electric power. But Mr. Bush has managed to convince his reluctant European allies that the only acceptable outcome of their negotiations with Iran is that it must give up that right.

In what amounts to a reinterpretation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Mr. Bush now argues that there is a new class of nations that simply cannot be trusted with the technology to produce nuclear material even if the treaty itself makes no such distinction.

So far the administration has not declared publicly that its larger goal beyond Iran is to remake a treaty whose intellectual roots date back to the Eisenhower administration, under the cold war banner of "Atoms for Peace." To state publicly that Iran is really a test case of Mr. Bush's broader effort, one senior administration official said, "would complicate what's already a pretty messy negotiation."

But just three days before the White House announced its new approach to Iran - in which it allowed Europe to offer broader incentives in return for an agreement to ask the United Nations for sanctions if Iran refuses to give up the ability to make nuclear material - Mr. Bush issued a statement that left little doubt about where he was headed.

The statement was advertised by the White House as a routine commemoration of the treaty's 35th anniversary, and a prelude to a meeting in May in New York to consider its future. It never mentioned Iran by name. But after lauding the past accomplishments of the treaty, also known as the N.P.T., in limiting the spread of nuclear arms, Mr. Bush went on to say, "We cannot allow rogue states that violate their commitments and defy the international community to undermine the N.P.T.'s fundamental role in strengthening international security.

"We must therefore close the loopholes that allow states to produce nuclear materials that can be used to build bombs under the cover of civilian nuclear programs."