Ok - time to wade into this particular mire....
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Originally Posted by dezzo
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This article does not say that they underestimated the job, but that they did not allow for the cultural differences, and therby alienated the populace, making he job more difficult.
I can confirm that the americans did exactly that during the initial invasion - everywhere the brits went, they were made welcome - unless the yanks had been there first, in which case we were harrassed and had stones etc thrown at us - at least until they realised we were not americans...
From what the "man on the ground" was being told - even from day 1 (and before the official war/invasion began) we <the coalition> were there for the long run, and the peace was going to be just as hard as the war.
yes, there was overconfidence on the coalition side - based on the previous encounter with the Iraqi army where they ran from us - but only from the officers and staff - most soldiers work on a very simple priciple do the job in front of you and any soldier will tell you that they expected the Iraqis to fight harder this time (at least all the ones I spoe to prior to the start did) - after all this is their home they are fighting for.
The whole Nuclear issue is a constant battle - there are those that "officially" have Nuclear weapons - the US, Russia, China, France, and th UK - these are the countries that signed to say we will not increase our stockpile - nor will we share the technology with non-nuclear states.
Israel, Pakistan and India have not signed up to this treaty, but are know to have weapons - notably both India and Pakistan openly admit it (pakistan only becme a nuclear power as recently as 1998 (india was 1974) ) whereas Isreal does not - although one of their senior nuclear scientists wrote an article on the Israeli program for the british press so it's hardly a secret...
North Korea withdrew from the treaty in 2003 - then declared itself a nuclear power.
in 2005 they agreed to rejoin the treaty and scrap its weapons in return for "light water" reactors - they have since stated that until they have the reactors, they will neither disarm, nor re-join the treaty.
Iran however has signed the treaty as a non-nuclear country and IIRC the previous Ayatollah (sp?) issued an edict (fatwah?) forbidding the development of nuclear weapons - however the new boss has renounced that edict, declared an intention to "wipe israel from the face of the earth" and has now re-started its enrichment program.
The enrichment program is not in itself against the treaty - but they were negotiating with the UK France and Germany on safeguard to ensure that this program was not going to be used for weapons - that negotiation is now stalled, and is likely to never be re-started as one of the conditions of the negotiation was a halt on enrichment.
As I see it - they may well develop weapons, as North Korea did, in response to what they see as US aggression - however I feel that they are currently trying to see how far they can push the UN/US.