I ran, but who is running what? And why?

In the good old/bad old/indifferent old days, I was on business in Iran when the Iraqi missiles were making life a bit difficult. ((Hint: Ask me for some anecdotes)). I was also soon after in Iraq when the Iranian missiles were making things not quite so difficult. ((Same sort of hint)). I have a degree of liking for both the Iranians and the Iraqis I met in their own countries and outside. As a sort of balance, I can say I also tend to like the Americans I have met. Having spent a fair part of my life in childhood and, later, working, in the Middle East and Arabia, I tend to pay attention to the news about the area, and to pass this through my credibility filter to try to satisfy myself about what is 'really' happening.

The basic differences that I more or less immediately noticed about the indigenes was that the Yanks were largely ignorant of events outside the USA and they tended for most of the time to swallow whole the spin and obfuscation doled out locally, whereas the others seemed much better versed in world affairs but they also too readily swallowed the same sort of thing.

So, when the USA government started to fulminate about 'Iranian intentions to develop an atomic bomb', (as already developed by the USA, France, Russia, South Africa, Israel, and UK) I wondered why this might be a real problem instead of just another excuse to promote the global world control ambitions of our favourite superpower and in particular to interfere in the Middle East and N. Africa. Then 'Europe' , Russia and China all started to put their five eggs in.

I thought it might be a good idea to read the obligations undertaken by those acceding to the nuclear proliferation treaty and instead of things becoming clearer, more fog descended, and I became sidetracked.

That treaty requires atomic weapons progressively to be destroyed. South Africa manfully led the way and got rid of all theirs. I couldn't find any recent references to any of the rest determinedly getting rid of theirs. The USA clings on to enough atomic weaponry to blast the whole world into atomic oblivion several times over.

I do not count Israel's bombing and destruction of Iraqi atomic facilities before they were producing power as something that ought to be considered as properly furthering the objectives of the treaty.

Despite Iran's repeated protests that it has only peaceful uses of atomic power in mind, who believes that? But doesn't it become more understandable that Iran might feel threatened by the specific threats of Israel to ensure Iran's atomic projects are destroyed, if their (Iranian) efforts are not abandoned, especially given its (Isreal's) previous record over Iraq?

Does it seem plausible that the USA might use Israel as a client state to do such destruction? After all, didn't the USA in the immediate past provide Israel with weaponry, including cluster bombs, which were used to kill hundreds of Lebanese civilians as well as the Hisballah? Stalin and Hitler used the same sort of tactics and we are supposed to have stopped doing such things in these days of so-called enlightenment.

Reports of all the nod, nod, wink, wink politics and the terminological inexactitudes spewed out in support don't make convincing reading to this incorrigible sceptic. How about you?

Some of it seems to be 'really' about oil, some about Israel, some about 'democracy', and none at all about atomic bombs.