AM I READING THIS RIGHT?  ARE WE BEING RUN BY LUNATICS? – AT 11:48 A.M. ET:  The AP is reporting that Washington is making a nuclear agreement with Vietnam that does not  contain a standard safeguard.  This will make us look foolish:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has told US lawmakers that a nuclear cooperation deal with Vietnam is unlikely to include a promise by the Hanoi government not to enrich uranium, congressional aides said.

The United States had sought a no-enrichment pledge, which the State Department promotes as the "gold standard" for civilian nuclear cooperation accords.

It would have been modeled on a deal last year in which the United Arab Emirates pledged, in return for US nuclear equipment and reactors, not to enrich uranium or extract plutonium from used reactor fuel — procedures that would provide material that could be used in a nuclear weapon.

COMMENT:  What is going on here?  What really is going on?  Here we are, at a critical stage with Iran over enrichment, and we're prepared to drop a no-enrichment provision in a nuclear deal with...Hanoi?

It seems inconceivable.  We'll be ridiculed immediately.  The Iranians, and the North Koreans, will throw it in our faces.  I'd imagine that even our allies will be dismayed.

What is so important about a nuclear deal with Vietnam that would prompt us to drop that "gold standard"?  Do we trust the Vietnamese that much?  Or is this some stunt by Obama's left fringe to provide a kind of reparation for the Vietnam War?  Hmm.  Why do I suspect that I've just hit a nerve?

I believe that these nuclear accords must be ratified by the Senate.  We'll watch this.  We should oppose ratification if the no-enrichment pledge is missing.  And members of Congress should start inquriing right now, this minute, as to why we would make such a strange deal with a Communist country.

August 7, 2010