saddam's going into exile?, page-6

re: saddam - the real threat Iraq must not be allowed to get the bomb. Iraq must not be permitted to menace its neighbours. Iraq must be turned into a peace-loving democracy - by non-peace-loving means as necessary. You finish the latest Tom Clancy on the plane and head straight for the UN.

Jog back through time, though, to the theories we once held dear: to mutually assured destruction, to the hallowed doctrines of deterrence. Who are these neighbours supposedly ripe for menacing? Look east. Iran, with a little help from President Putin, is much closer to having a nuke of its own than Iraq. (You could almost say Saddam's playing catch-up.) Iran, too, has a long border with Pakistan, which already has the bomb, and tests it when the Indians grow stroppy over Kashmir. The three biggest regional powers on Saddam's eastern doorstep, in short, are already in - or nearly in - the nuclear club.

Look north, and Turkey has its own research programme. Look west, and there Israel sits (with Egypt, Algeria and Syria beginning to make research pushes). Look south into the Gulf at America's warships and submarines. The real awful warning isn't that Saddam will be able to roam around like a wild dog, the only nuclear power on his block. It is that our globe will develop a swath of bomb- toting countries stretching from the Mediterranean to the Bay of Bengal, all preaching mutually assured destruction.

And regime change, then, will be no sort of option. Which Hindu nationalist should we choose to sit in New Delhi? Is there a cuddly Pakistan leader from Jamaat-e-Islami we could trust?

Meanwhile, the pace accelerates. "As their domestic capabilities grow, traditional recipients of WMD and missile technology could emerge as new suppliers of technology and expertise to other proliferators," George Tenet wrote in that same report. "We are increasingly concerned about the growth of 'secondary proliferation' from maturing state-sponsored programmes, such as those in India, Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan.

"These countries and others are not members of supplier groups and do not adhere to their export constraints. In addition, private companies, scientists, and engineers from countries such as Russia, China and India may be increasing their involvement in WMD and missile-related assistance, taking advantage of weak or unenforceable national export controls and the growing availability of technology".

Let's be grimly clear-headed here. The more nukes there are around, the more likely it is that some Bin Laden figure will get hold of them. And the more countries who have nuclear weapons in unstable parts of the world - a mad MAD world - the likelier they are to be used by accident or design.

But it is not individual dictators, scurrying from bunker to bunker, who are the true problem. (Saddam is a cautious, cringing old conservative when it comes to risk-taking for himself.) The problem is the weapons themselves. Conventions against biological and chemical threats begin at home, in the homeland. Nuclear non-proliferation picks up where Mr Bush and Mr Blair - and their four unhelpful little words - leave off.