Sometimes it’s hard keeping up with the neighbors, they get a new car so you want a new car. In the Arab neighborhood it’s no different. The Ahmadinejads are working on getting a nuke, and everybody else just has to get one too. Now six Arab states join the rush to go nuclear. A nuke — the ‘must have’ this season.

Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, UAE and Saudi Arabia seek atom technologyThe move, which follows the failure by the West to curb Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, could see a rapid spread of nuclear reactors in one of the world’s most unstable regions, stretching from the Gulf to the Levant and into North Africa. …

The announcement by the six nations is a stunning reversal of policy in the Arab world, which had until recently been pressing for a nuclear free Middle East, where only Israel has nuclear weapons.”
–By Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor London Times here and here, via Austin Centrist

The six countries want to build civilian nuclear energy programmes, as they are permitted to under international law, but we all know places like Saudi Arabia don’t NEED nuclear energy.

Other reading, “”what do you call an American tourist in Islamic Republic of Iran?”

They say Tehran is lovely this time of year. Or maybe they don’t. But even as nuclear tensions grow between Iran and the United States, Tehran has decided to reach out to American tourists which brings the question of “what do you call an American tourist in Islamic Republic of Iran?…’hostage‘”.Iran’s mullahs regime offering travel agencies $20 a head for each American who can be persuaded to visit. Visitors from most other countries are only worth $10.

While that’s pretty cheap as incentives go, it’s interesting that Iran’s fiercely anti-U.S. president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sees something to gain by attracting Americans.

In January, Ahmadinejad, one of hostage-takers of US embassy 1980, proposed the resumption of direct commercial flights between Iran and the United States, which were halted more than 25 years ago.

Thank you Ahmadinejad, but we’ve been that route before. No thanks!