Stop SPAM wrote in message ...
Thelasian wrote:
Sure, it "could" but so could my pocket calculator.

If you're going to make specious arguments that LWRs (and your pocket
calculator) can be considered as dual-use technology, then, once again

You seem to be missing the point. Iran's LWR at Bushehr HAS ALREADY
BEEN characterized as 'dual use' technlogy. That's why the US opposes
it. The US has SPECIFICALLY said that Bushehr can be used to make
nuclear weapons because supposedly the technologists who run the
reactor COULD use their knowledge to build bombs, and the fuel rods
COULD be reprocessed to extract plutonium. That's my whole point - ANY
technology can be (mis)characterized as "could be used to make nukes"
- don't blame me for the mischaracterization, I am just pointing it
out.


And because it is Iran's fundamental right to have access to the technology.

If you believe in this statement, then I believe in the statement that
it is the right and responsibility of the rest of the world - through
the UN and the IAEA, in this case - to deny that 'right' to countries
believed to be too unstable


Actually, Iran is pretty stable, and anyway the NPT says "inalienable
right...without discrimination" and doesn't say anything about
"stable" and furthermore, its not the "rest of the world" that's
hassling Iran, its the US, Israel, and EU3. Several other countries
support Iran, like the entire Non0Aligned Nations, which is why the US
hasn't been able to get its way on the IAEA Board.


And might I inquire from what source or document this "fundamental
right" derives? I'm not aware of anything in the UN documents that
provides this "fundamental right" to all countries.


The fundamental right to have nuclear technology is recognized in the
NPT itself (note I said recognized, not derived from) - for example
the Preamble:

"Affirming the principle that the benefits of peaceful applications of
nuclear technology, including any technological by-products which may
be derived by nuclear-weapon States from the development of nuclear
explosive devices, should be available for peaceful purposes to all
Parties of the Treaty, whether nuclear-weapon or non-nuclear weapon
States"


Iran's right to have nuclear technology is derived from the same
source as the US's right to have it, or chinas, or Japans or Russia -
there is no law of nature that says some can and some can't.


A country's "fundamental rights" end where it's actions or planned
actions concerns its neighboring countries (more broadly speaking in
this day and age than past) enough for them to act to counter it.

I see - so might is right. All the more reason for nations to seek
nuclear weapons then.


See, for example: "It has been argued here that Article 51 of the
Charter of the UN includes the customary international law right of
anticipatory self-defense... Israel acted within those limits... This
particular use of force constituted an appropriate application of the
right of anticipatory self-defense in international law." from
"Self-Defense in International Law: The Israeli Raid on the Iraqi
Nuclear Reactor", Timothy L. H. McCormack, Palgrave Macmillan, 1996, p.
302.

Well, not quite. Anticipatory self-defense requires an "imminent
threat" and anyway, if Israel has this right, then any Iraqi attack on
Israel can also be cast in the same light, right? That's the problem
with twisting the law - it can twist both ways.