Joining The Club

It's seen by so many as a prestigious club, those nations who have obtained nuclear status. A sign of coming-of-age, of arrival, of ostentatiously demonstrating one has the wherewithal; financial and cerebral to attain to that explosive status.

It begins with the aspiration to provide scarce energy for needful civil purposes; expands toward inspiration that builds upon the civil structure, expanding into dual-nuclear technology supporting nuclear armaments.

All nations seem to be drawn to military advantage. As a means of securing in the most definite way possible, respect from neighbours who might conceivably harbour the inconvenient notion of invasion, war and occupation.

Uneasy relations between neighbours become ever more fidgety with the introduction of nuclear weapons, and in many instances neighbours maintain their scrupulous borders through the reality of nuclear deterrence.

That is to say most countries headed by reasonably sane administrations value their live presence on this earth sufficiently to acknowledge that white-hot anger leading to the temptation to unleash nuclear Armageddon would end up harming them as much as their purported enemy.

On the other hand, if the leaders of some nations have a theocratically frenetic belief in salvation through death, deterrence is a moot condition.

So here is a tinder-box geography with neighbouring states in the Middle East traditionally disgruntled with one another; each attempting over generations of history to ascend to a position of hierarchy over the lesser, less-advantaged states.

Their continual game of rhetorical bombast, hegemonic moves, religious superiority and sectarian aggression is par for the course. And then, suddenly, the singular Muslim-not-Arab state comes perilously close to nuclear ownership, with full disclosure not on the horizon until uranium enrichment leads inevitably to the final step.

This is a situation that has caused a domino-effect of nervous twitches throughout the area. And allied with it, those countries whose natural endowment of oil riches enable them to aspire, initiating their own baby-steps toward civil nuclear programs.

The "civil" in the equation makes it legal and above-board. While the agenda has much greater depth. No fewer than thirteen nations have now embarked on their own nuclear energy projects in the Middle East, somewhat emulating Iran. Civil for the time being; long-range plans an entirely other story.

Iran, whose threatening presence on the world stage, presents a more imminent threat to her neighbours, has many imitators, but scant few admirers in the Middle East.