A fixation with Iran

There may be some point to it if it involved the outlawing of all production of material to produce nuclear weapons, but that is not Washington's motivation.

Shorn of diplomatic niceties, its intention is to preserve the small club of existing nuclear powers while making club members responsible for deciding on the nuclear ambitions of other states.

Mr Rademaker accuses Iran and North Korea of being "absolutely determined" to acquire nuclear weaponry and puts forward intelligence assessments as the basis for detecting nuclear activity.

He is on dodgy ground over this, based on recent history.

First of all, it was Washington's "incontrovertible" CIA evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that was used as the pretext for invading Iraq and for creating the murderous hell that devastates the country still.

Second, the much-vaunted US intelligence services seemed incapable of noticing that Israel was building up extensive stocks of nuclear weapons over decades, despite close links with Tel Aviv.

Or, possibly, they knew all about them and simply forgot to point it out, allowing Israel to continue with its charade of neither confirming nor denying its undoubted nuclear status.

The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which came into effect in 1970, was not intended to protect and sustain an oligopoly of nuclear-capable states.

Indeed, article six of the treaty obliges all parties to pursue good-faith negotiations to achieve a speedy end to the nuclear arms race "and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control."

There is no progress to this end and the US is investing heavily in a new generation of space-based weapons to give itself the ability to hold the entire globe to ransom.

In addition, the British government intends to replace its obsolescent Trident nuclear submarine fleet with more modern means of extermination.

Nor was the NPT intended to prevent states from building their own nuclear power stations for peaceful energy purposes.

Article four permits UN member states to engage in peaceful nuclear programmes, adding that nuclear-capable states "are expected to assist the nuclear programmes of other parties, with special attention to the needs of developing countries."

Widespread popular hostility to nuclear power on grounds of safety and waste disposal problems should not be transformed into a means of assisting the US to isolate politically inconvenient states as a prelude to attacking them.

Whatever fixation the US has with Iran, it has no right to prohibit Tehran from developing its own nuclear power programme.

And, far from poisoning the atmosphere of international forums by proposing nonsensical new treaties, Washington should draw in its horns, end its warlike global ambitions and take its place in the United Nations to discuss issues of contention on the basis of equality and justice rather than imperial domination.