Iran Joins Nuke Club

Vows to pay dues in a timely fashion

Special to The WitList
13 April 2006

TEHRAN -- Earlier this week Iran announced it had successfully enriched uranium for the first time, joining the so-called Nuclear Club of Nations.

Mohammed al Baradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, welcomed Iran to the club and announced that it would soon be issued membership cards, jackets, and a booklet of discount coupons offering 10 percent off at AQ Khan's House of Plutonium. Iranian officials will also be allowed to display official "Kooks with Nukes" bumper stickers on their limos.

Iran claims it needs nuclear capability to build power plants, not bombs. However, the US State Department says Iran possesses 50,000 centrifuges capable of turning nuclear fuel into weapons grade plutonium, and could build a bomb in just 16 days -- 21 days if they took weekends off.

Hoping to achieve a diplomatic solution to the growing crisis, the White House has named former FEMA director Michael Brown as special envoy to Iran. Brown said he was deeply honored by the appointment, then immediately resumed his nap.

White House spokesperson Scotty McLapdog says the Bush administration has not ruled out a military response. But if the administration were to launch a series of massive airstrikes, he says they would do it closer to the midterm elections to give Republicans a better bump at the polls.

In a survey conducted by Bloomberg News and the Los Angeles Times, 48 percent of Americans said they'd support a military response to Iran's nukes, though 54 percent said they're prefer someone other than George Bush to oversee the operation. Nearly 30 percent of those surveyed said they didn't understand the difference between Iran and Iraq and wanted one of the countries to change its name, while 17 percent hoped the US would release Saddam Hussein and then try to catch him again, since it was so much fun the first time.

It was the mistaken belief that Hussein was a member of the Nuclear Club that prompted the Iraq invasion in the first place, says a senior White House official, speaking on conditions of anonymity. "We found fake membership cards and T-shirts," says the official. "He knew the secret handshake and everything."