Iran has never come to terms with its weaknesses and failures, starting from the defeat by Greece, its decimation by the new Arabian Islamic hordes, its subjugation by Russia and Britain and its manipulation by America. Its arguments to acquire uranium enrichment expertise are legitimate but a mere subterfuge for achieving the status of a nuclear weapon state to fulfill its aspirations of being a great power and for becoming secure. It is the folly of America and Israel's aggressively inhuman policies that is encouraging any state worth its mettle and with a history to acquire nuclear weapons, as the Soviet Union, China, France, India and Pakistan did. As French thinkers have emphasized, a nuclear 'Force Frappe' allows an independent foreign policy and as General Sunderji understood, after Saddam's debacle following the invasion of Kuwait, it is downright foolish to challenge a major power without a nuclear deterrent.

The above diatribe is not meant to justify Iran's ambitions. There are legitimate concerns about an illegitimate, rabid Islamic theocracy becoming capable of nuclear blackmail, as the world is familiar with such a problem in the enfant terrible, Pakistan. This is not to give a free pass to the West, whose sordid record in the first use of biological weapons against American Indians by Spain and the British pilgrims, the first use of chemical weapons by the Germans in WW1 and the first use of nuclear weapons by America against Japan in WW2, denies it any high pulpit or moral ground.

India as a matter of principle and Pakistan out of resultant insecure paranoia, refused to be a party to the NPT as an unjust discriminatory policy of the nuclear powers. China, out of fear and security concerns crossed the barrier earlier in 1965 with the help of the Soviet Union and India and Pakistan snuck in just as the doors were closing. It is not Iran's desire that is a cause of worry. It is the nature, illegitimacy and the proclivities of the Mullahs that are worrisome. The shortsighted idiotic policies of America and Israel are responsible for much of the terror and mayhem that the world faces. They have nursed militant Islam, the other scourge by tender feeding in the case of America and unjust oppression in the case of Israel.

The reality is that there is little or nothing that can be done to stop this opening of Pandora's box. America with its profligate ways and its foolish misadventure in Iraq is severely constrained by its trade, budget and current account deficits, its un-funded social security and Medicare liabilities, and its slow hemorrhaging of money and manpower in Iraq. What compounds this problem is the reluctance of the EU to take any aggressive stance and the rising oil prices and shortage, that makes an Iranian oil boycott, a self-mutilating policy. Rogue China, with burgeoning energy needs and a smart Russia with foresight, and to have its revenge for the American technocrats, who created its oligarch kleptocracy are willing to encourage Iran, which is no threat to them and a source of reliable energy and trade.

China signed a 70 billion dollar energy deal with Iran that may go up to 200 billion dollars and may use its veto in the Security Council, if the US tries to impose sanctions on Iran. Russia has signed similar lucrative deals and Iran hopes to use its veto in trying times of desperate need not to become a pariah nation. India has a similar attitude and Pakistan has in the past, sold Iran clandestine nuclear technology and loves the idea of a neighboring radical Islamic state, though it has some misgivings about its apostate Shia character. The remaining Gulf States and Saudi Arabia tremble in fear, but have enough internal problems and little power to influence events. Israel is the most worried, but its choices are those of Hobson and the best outcome for it a Pyrrhic victory.

America needs to worry more about North Korea and its nuclear weapons and get out from its obsessive hostage situation to the Jewish lobby, money and political influence. The North Korean nukes are likely to prompt Japan to develop nuclear weapons and thus escape from its slavery of American protection. This would remove the last underpinning from America's subsidized status. The EU is already fairly disassociated from the American economic hegemony and moving along that path by expansion and by forging alliances with the Islamic Middle East, especially Turkey. If Japan escapes the oppressive burden of its American domination, the American dollar and pretensions of power are destined for marginal irrelevance. India, on the other hand must cultivate its relations with America and Israel to counterbalance China and acquire technology, while continuing its good relations with Russia. To my chagrin, China's strategy makes it a smart, calculating and intelligent player on the world arena of power play, while India is a blundering non-entity, destined to be buffeted by circumstances beyond its control, like a particle subjected to the whim of Brownian movements, due to the ineptitude, lack of foresight and stupidity of its leadership, just like America.