Mid East Racing to go Nuclear

Nuclear power is a new focus for the Middle East, which no one needs to be reminded is a hotbed for American hatred and a stockpile of world oil.

Iran's nuclear ambitions are well known, if often disputed: Is it aiming just for peaceful energy or threatening weapons? Egypt now, with apparent American sanctions, is aiming to build new nuclear power plants. And then there's Syria, which may or may not have had a nuclear facility bombed by Israel.

The debate about nuclear power in the United States focuses primarily on dealing with the waste and securing the plants, and whether either -- dealing with never-ending radioactivity and the inextinguishable chance of human error or terrorism -- is possible. Environmentalists have been giving nuclear power a second look, now that concerns about global warming have eclipsed, for some, those concerns.

In the Middle East, there's also the concern that more nations will gain the ability to launch nuclear weapons -- which reminds long-time advocates of the early days of anti-nuclear demonstrations, when it was intertwined with the peace movement. In that sense, the early campaigners have been proved right: The use of nuclear technology has spread around the world. To what end?

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