Sharing The Nuclear Wealth

While President Bush sets about the task of buying the entire Gulf Coast while continuing to make the world safe for Iraqi democracy (the latter of which, at least, is certainly a laudable goal), he might want to spare an eyeball or two for the mockery the Iranian mullahgarchy is about to make of his anti-WMD proliferation efforts:

Iran is ready to share its nuclear technology, considered to be a front for bomb-making by Washington, with other Islamic countries, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying on Thursday.

Not that this is any surprise. As the central hub of Islamist terrorism, it stands to reason that once Tehran has nukes, they will pass on both the weapons and related technical knowledge to proxies and satellites.

Yet this is all the perception of the true stakes involved that Reuters can muster:

The comments were likely to heighten Western concerns about Tehran's nuclear program just ahead of a key meeting of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog this month which could decide to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for punitive action.

"Punitive action"? Obviously that adjective means something entirely different to the press than it does to me. I think of "punitive action" as the mullahs meeting Saddam Hussein's fate. And that's something the U.N. Security Council will never sanction, seeing as how it spent a dozen years protecting and clandestinely subsidizing Saddam's WMD ambitions. And if the mullahs don't meet Saddam Hussein's fate, and awfully soon, they will have nukes, they will be functionally untouchable, and they will make good on their promises of atomic altruism.

And then we will be in some REALLY deep doo-doo.

"Faster, please"? How about "git-r-done" yesterday?

UPDATE 9/17: France tells Tehran "okey-dokey"....