When Did WMD Get on the List of Small Arms?

The UN Summit on the illicit trade of small arms suddenly turned into a discussion of WMDs. For some reason Iran has taken, or more correctly, defined itself as a leader on controlling the spread of WMDs.

Now that you've had a chance to stop laughing, they also blame Israel for the problem.

Iran's foreign minister told a UN conference in New York on Wednesday on the illicit trade of small arms that Iran's priority was to fight the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, especially what he characterized as a threat posed by Israel.

"Fighting proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and combatting the threats posed by those possessing those weapons, particularly the Zionist regime, will always remain our greater goal," Manouchehr Mottaki said.

The minister said Iran wants to promote peace and security "on the basis of justice and free from any and all discriminatory and double-standard considerations."

Does anyone actually believe any of this? I'm fairly certain that the left out a lot of qualifiers from that last paragraph. You know, they want to promote peace as long as you are Islamic and Shiite and don't question their readings of the Koran, etc.

Reuters, to no big surprise, ensures that the Nuclear weapons topic is pushed into this statement. Though I can't find anything in the statement that specifies nuclear weapons.

Tehran says it is pursuing nuclear enrichment to produce electricity, but Western powers have demanded that it suspend this activity, suspecting it is using a civilian nuclear program as a cover for the production of atomic weapons.

Iran has argued repeatedly that the West is using a double standard against it by ignoring Israel, which is assumed to have about 200 nuclear weapons but has never confirmed having any and, unlike Tehran, has not joined the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Double standard? Well, Iran is a signatory of the NPT and Israel isn't. And there is loads of evidence that points to Israel's activities as a supporter of terrorism. Umm. Well, maybe the Iranian complaints aren't very logical.

Then there are the remarks by Amr Moussa of the Arab League on the topic:

The United States must check the internal voices of nationalism that are promoting a "clash of civilizations" with Islam, the head of the Arab League said Tuesday.

"You have to stand firm against all negative forces with agendas," Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa told the US Arab Economic Forum in Houston, Texas.

"We fear it in the Middle East. Many of us read what they say and we are angry about this nationalist agenda that is gaining some ground."

Hmm, I wonder why the US would have a nationalist agenda related to the middle east?

"The Arab world is the friend of America. The question of hating America is not there. We’ve never hated America," he said while explaining that the Arab world may disagreed with US policies but does not project that distaste upon the country as a whole. Moussa vowed to fight extremists in the Arab world and asked US policy makers to do the same at home. "Let us not give the negative forces on both sides any chance to continue their policies and practices and achieve any success. Their success is our failure."

Yeah, we're doing our best to ensure those negative forces in the middle east don't continue. This guy seems to miss the point that our negative forces don't strap on a bomb and blow themselves up in a market place. So far the Arab Leagues work to control those negative forces seems to be having little effect. I'm also certain that those protests where the Arabs burn American Flags and scream 'death to America' isn't a negative projection on the US as a whole.

But the best statement comes with regard to Israel:

Moussa said the Arab-Israeli conflict is the greatest threat to instability in the Middle East.

"This conflict is the one that will make or break stability in the region," he said.

"There is no doubt that this conflict cannot be resolved without the active involvement of the United States as an honest broker."

Moussa said the United States needed to acknowledge that the conflict was not a result of "terrorists" but of a military occupation by Israel. The policy of aiming for "security now and peace later" will not work, he said. He said the United States needed to stand behind the withdrawal of Israel from the occupied territories, deal with the issue of Jerusalem and push for the adoption of UN Security Council resolutions and the enforcing international laws.

I'd like to know what Moussa actually thinks the US should do as an "honest broker." Especially when he starts flinging about the "military occupation" rhetoric. As for the UN's involvement, well, they started this mess by waffling on the partition and creation of the Israeli state, I doubt that there is any reason to hope that their involvement wouldn't just make things much worse.

The article is fascinating in that it clearly shows the cultural divide and the complete lack of empathy for the views of the west. I don't doubt that there is a lot of unfair rhetoric against arabs in the west, but then, I can visit Al-jazeerah and view the inflammatory rhetoric their that claims to be news.