IndigNation             WHAT'S GOT YOU HOT?

Now you should realise that I’m just a humble engineer-turned-product-manager type, and I’m usually too busy wrestling with graph theory, sparse matrix computation or the state of my bowels to worry about matters of national and international significance. But the situation in Iran has had me terribly concerned and I’ve found myself in idle moments (well, the precious few I have), spinning a pencil around my fingers and wondering what we can do to maintain the nuclear non-proliferation treaty intact and, while still letting - indeed assisting if necessary - Iran to have peaceful access to nuclear power generation.

Now I don’t want to get off on a rant here, but what do you do with someone who, along with his predecessors, has lied to you consistently over an extended period of time? Just take him at face value, and believe him because he’s now “telling the truth”? So they misled, obfuscated, denied, counter-denied and piled lie upon lie before they finally came clean and said “we not only did not fulfil our obligations under the NPT, but we actively sought nuclear technology”. Hmmm. What’s this? Pakistan patent #AQ348234 - method for shaping radioactive material into a dome. Can someone explain to me how this can be used as a fuel rod?

Answer - it’s not, people. It’s a bomb component.

So, after much consideration, I am delighted to tell you all that I have come up with a solution that I think will resolve the issue, once and for all, to the satisfaction of all parties, and the delight of some.

President Ahmadinejad is salivating at the prospect of arming his country with nuclear weapons, and I’m sure he wept and moaned and groaned when A.Q.Khan admitted he’d been selling nuclear secrets for years and retired to house arrest and a substantial pension in Islamabad. To any sane person (a group from which he can be quickly excluded) it is beyond question that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, despite all his public and private protestations to the contrary, is absolutely desperate to gain nuclear weapons.

I say we give him a couple. Airburst over Tehran. Add a couple each around Arak, Natanz and Beshehr. I’m feeling generous - we’ve got 10,000 warheads at our disposal, so we can spare them. Besides, it’ll clear some space in storage for some bigger and badder ones.

There’s no need to thank me. The mere knowledge that I’ve done my bit to make my adopted country a safer and happier place is enough. It is a bonus that we would become known throughout the Islamic world for heeding and responding to their requests.