Fernand Braudel Center, Binghamton University

The headlines in recent months have been full of nuclear diplomacy. It is hard to keep a straight face reading them. Libya has renounced making nuclear bombs forever. Pakistan's nuclear hero, Abdel Qadeer Khan, has confessed that he (and he alone in Pakistan) has been selling nuclear secrets on the world black market for two decades. General Musharref says he and the Pakistani army of course knew nothing about this. The Iranian government says it is not in the least interested in making nuclear weapons, never has been, never will be. The North Koreans haven't said anything new recently, but when last heard from, claimed they already were a nuclear power. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed el-Baradei, says he's amazed to discover the details of a large international smuggling ring in nuclear equipment. The CIA says it's learning all sorts of new things it never knew before. And Malaysia says it's anxious to cooperate in closing down any role its citizens or residents may have played in this worldwide smuggling operation.
Frankly, I believe almost nothing of this. Everyone knows everything, or almost everything, and has for quite a while. Most countries are lying through their teeth. This is the game of proliferation diplomacy. In real life, North Korea and Iran are no doubt hard at work developing nuclear weapons. Probably other countries are as well. The Pakistanis have every interest in continuing to support this. To be sure, the American government dearly hopes that there will be no further proliferation by others, while it improves its own nuclear weapons with abandon. And the world's secret services (and probably the IAEA as well) know more or less what's been going on, and have known this for decades...