And its record on nonproliferation — aside from its own diversion of civilian technology to its once-secret weapons program — is pretty good.
"At the moment, people are worried that the current crisis in Georgia will make it harder to insulate the nonproliferation cooperation from the wider difficulties in the relationship," said Robert J. Einhorn, a former assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation.
The team, which operates clandestinely and includes terrorism and nonproliferation experts from the intelligence community, the Pentagon, the F.B.I., and the D.O.E., is under standing orders to deploy from Andrews Air Force Base, in Maryland, within four hours of an alert.
"Instead of being the head of a technical agency, whose job is to monitor these agreements, and come up with objective assessments, he has become a world policy maker, an advocate," said Robert J. Einhorn, the State Department's nonproliferation director from 1999 to 2001.
At the more detailed and technical end, the Institute for Science and International Security has a library of past IAEA reports on Iran and their analysis, and Arms ControlWonkcom has a rolling debate on Iran and other nonproliferation issues from, as you might expect, a wonkier point of view.com
The emphasis on abolition would distract the current nonproliferation regime from the "real world" priorities of rolling back Iran and North Korea...
The agreement, which first had to gain approval from the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group before coming to Congress, has drawn criticism from nonproliferation advocates because India has shunned the Nonproliferation Treaty meant to stop the spread and production of nuclear weapons, as well as a companion international pact banning nuclear tests.
"We found that when we tried to extend the discussion from nonproliferation concerns to environment and safety, everybody got their backs up," he says.
Some proponents view it as a useful tool of nonproliferation, discouraging South Korea from developing a nuclear weapon.
This is a plausible concern not just from a nonproliferation of nuclear weapons point of view, but also from a nonproliferation of conventional warfare point of view.
