This Can't Be Good!

Dmitry Astakhov/Presidential Press Service, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who is offering nuclear aid.

So, too, Turkey is preparing for its first atomic plant. And Egypt has announced plans to build one on its Mediterranean coast. In all, roughly a dozen states in the region have recently turned to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna for help in starting their own nuclear programs. While interest in nuclear energy is rising globally, it is unusually strong in the Middle East.

“The rules have changed,” King Abdullah II of Jordan recently told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “Everybody’s going for nuclear programs.”

In Washington, officials are seizing on such developments to build their case for stepping up pressure on Iran. a senior administration official said that the recent announcements were “clearly part of an effort to send a signal to Iran that two can play this game.” And, he added, “among the non-Iranian programs I’ve heard about in the region, I have not heard talk of reprocessing or enrichment, which is what would worry us the most.”

So now it's a game of tit for tat? Great. All under the guise of Nuclear Energy? We will have to wait and see who "wins" by making the first nuclear bomb and pushing the button...oh wait, there won't be anyone left to know who won!

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