The NY Times can't be serious about their policy suggestions for preventing Iran from joining the nuclear club.

The Iranian Nuclear Challenge

If international treaties to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons have any power, now is the time to flex it on Iran. Last week the United States, Europe, Russia and China jointly condemned Iran's refusal to explain how it got blueprints and equipment usable for making nuclear bomb fuel. That criticism must be followed up with concerted pressure to keep Iran from joining the growing list of states armed with nuclear weapons.

Flex a treaty? Concerted "pressure"? Is this a serious plan? How can they discuss Iran's nuclear capabilities without once mentioning the threat from a country that supports terrorism even more clearly than did Iraq?

China should order its companies not to cooperate with Iranian enrichment or bomb-making efforts, and should urge North Korea and Pakistan to impose similar bans.

And how should China "urge" these totally unstable countries with a history of trading in nuclear secrets from not doing business with one of their clients? And what if the Chinese are unsuccessful? No "Plan B" is offered from the Times.

The unhappy experience of Iraq showed that unilateral military action is not a very useful antiproliferation tool.

Since when does "unhappy" have anything to do with success? Due to our action in Iraq we KNOW that their country is WMD-free where it was uncertain before and we KNOW that their current leadership will not invade other countries or export nuclear technology and we EXPECT that the flourishing of democratic institutions will deprive them of the need for such technology.

Furthermore due to our action in Iraq, we KNOW that Libya has given up it's WMD plans and we KNOW that Dr. Khan of Pakistan has come clean about his dealings in nuclear technology and enlightened us on much of what was happening in that area in the recent past.

I'm sorry the Times is not happy about that, but I'm not sure how they can claim that Iraq is not a success on the antiproliferation front.