ABSTRACT
Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has pursued various nuclear counter-proliferation policies. The relevant international negotiators the P5+1 group in the case of Iran, and five regional powers in the case of North Korea are structurally hampered in this dynamic. Any informed assessment of US policy in confronting determined proliferators must begin with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), as the states in question are all members of the treaty, holding the status of non-nuclear weapons states (NNWS). It had been justified by the necessity of destroying Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but no WMD were found and this led the international community to conclude that the rush to a devastating war based on faulty intelligence was a mistake that must not be repeated. Over the course of late 2012 and early 2013, the sanctions had begun to really bite. This was the situation that Hassan Rouhani's nuclear strategy was set to rectify.
