The US intelligence agencies provide a biannual report to Congress on the weapons of mass destruction developed by foreign states, which covers Iran, North Korea, India, Pakistan and others, but not Israel.  

During a parliamentary debate in March the British defence minister Bob Ainsworth was asked whether he thought that Israel's nuclear weapons are "a destabilising factor" in the Middle East. "My understanding," he replied, "is that Israel does not acknowledge that it has nuclear weapons."  

Does Mr Ainsworth really buy this nonsense? If so, can we have a new minister? If Iran builds a bomb, it will do so for one reason: that there is already a nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, by which it feels threatened. 

But we make the rules and we break them.  

The non-proliferation treaty (NPT) obliges the five official nuclear states, of which the UK is one, to work towards "general and complete disarmament".  

On Friday, the Guardian published the notes for a speech made last year by a senior civil servant, which suggested that the decision to replace the UK's nuclear missiles had already been made, in secret and without parliamentary scrutiny.  

Since then defence ministers have told the Commons on five occasions that the decision has not yet been made. They appear to have misled the House. 

At the Geneva conference on disarmament in February, one delegate pointed out that the "chances of eliminating nuclear weapons will be enhanced immeasurably" if non-nuclear states can see "planning, commitment and action toward multilateral nuclear disarmament by nuclear weapon states" like the UK.  

If the nuclear states "are failing to fulfil their disarmament obligations", other nations would use this as an excuse for maintaining their weapons. Who was this firebrand? Des Browne, the secretary of state for defence. A man of the same name is failing to fulfil our disarmament obligations. 

Browne claims that Britain must maintain its arsenal because of proliferation elsewhere, just as those proliferating elsewhere say that they must develop their arsenals because the official nuclear nations aren't disarming. With the exception of France, none of the other European states feels the need to deploy nukes. But the UK keeps preparing for the last war. Of course, no one is refusing to disarm; it's just that the task keeps getting pushed into the indefinite future. Opponents of British nuclear weapons maintain that a new generation of warheads would survive until 2055.

The permanent members of the UN security council draw a distinction between their "responsible" ownership of nuclear weapons and that of the aspirant powers.  

But over the past six years, the UK, US, France and Russia have all announced that they are prepared to use their nukes pre-emptively against a presumed threat, even from states that do not possess nuclear weapons.  

In some ways the current nuclear stand-off is more dangerous than the tetchy detente of the cold war. 

We Lie & Bluster About Our Nukes & Then Wag Our Fingers At Iran 

to underscore the criminal hypocrisy of the fascist bush administration & the dishonest collusion of the IAEA ….. 

Iranian Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Ali-Asghar Soltanieh accused the United States on Friday of double standards over the issue of nuclear energy.  

Soltanieh said in a press release that the United States, on the one hand, banned Iran's peaceful nuclear program, while on the other hand, did nuclear trading with India, which did not sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). 

The double standards of the United States was worthy of serious concern, said Soltanieh, adding the policy has been and is undermining the credibility, integrity and universality of the NPT.  

Iran believed the United States had ulterior motives in the nuclear cooperation agreement with India, he said.

The United States was trying to create a precedent for its Middle East ally Israel, who did not sign the NPT either, he added.  

"There is serious concern that the United States has taken this step with the intention to create a precedent and pave the way for Israel to continue its clandestine weapons activities," said Soltaniyeh.  

Israel, the sole possessor of a nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, refuses to sign the NPT and provide safeguards to the international community.  

According to a Washington-based military think tank, Tel Aviv has produced nuclear weapons with 'a yield of one megaton' - about twice as powerful as the most potent US-made atomic bombs.  

The IAEA's 35-member board of governors approved an inspection agreement with India Friday afternoon, which is key to finalizing a U.S.-India nuclear cooperation agreement. 

The so-called safeguards agreement will subject Indian nuclear facilities to IAEA supervision and is a pre-condition to an agreement under which India could obtain nuclear technology and fuel from the United States without signing the NPT.