Egypt's "Easy Ride" to Nuclear Technology

For a while now, Iran has been in the forefront of the international debate over the freedom of nuclear technology, but as Tehran spends years arguing for the right to produce nuclear energy, Egypt, seen in much friendlier light, quietly drawing plans for several reactors. The history Egypt's program began under Nasser in the late 50's. Both the United States, and the USSR helped with building a radioisotope laboratory, and a 2MW research reactor, respectively. Then, after rising tensions with Israel's nuclear weapon armament, Egypt threatened to begin its own nuclear weapons research. They asked the Soviet Union, then China, but after being denied the technology twice, decided to proceed to war with Israel in 1967. After the embarrassing defeat proving Arab disunity Egypt was pressured into signing the current Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. They still tried to develop nuclear arms on their own, but Anwar al Sadat stopped that 1969. For a long while Egypt tried to get the nuclear industry to stick to the market, but to no avail. It was just too expensive, required too much money, and with little foreign investment they had to just sit back and wait. A peace treaty with Israel was signed and Egypt voted to ratify the NPT. Sitting back and waiting on other nuclear powers to fund the program, Egypt adopted full safeguards to establish trust between the Arab and Western worlds.
When Mubarak was elected in 1981 Egypt continued trying to guide their nuclear power industry to success. Now however, Mubarak had grown to resent Israel for its nuclear weapons buildup. He sought not to make nukes, but to make sure nobody had nukes. It's been pretty steady. Egypt has a high standard of transparency. Some in Egypt have even pushed for the Middle East to be nuclear weapon free zone (an idea shot down by American interests in the region). In 2006 the attitudes of France, The United States, and Israel toward an Egyptian civil energy program were more positive than ever. China, Russia, and The United States have even expressed interest in helping the investment and infrastructure of the program. With nuclear fuel as the power of the future, its important every nation has the same opportunity to develop such a clean and efficient source of energy.
As you can see it's been easy transition compared to other nations in the region. Iran, for example, has stated his government believes that nuclear weapons are against God, as they only provide death and destuction. Here's a qoute:

"Making nuclear, chemical and biological bombs and weapons of mass destruction is yet another result of the misuse of science and research by the big powers. Without cooperation of certain scientists and scholars, we would not have witnessed production of different nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Are these weapons to protect global security? What can a perpetual nuclear umbrella threat achieve for the sake of humanity? If nuclear war wages between nuclear powers, what human catastrophe will take place? Today we can see the nuclear effects in even new generations of Nagasaki and Hiroshima residents, which might be witnessed in even the next generations to come. Presently, the effects of the depleted uranium used in weapons since the beginning of the war in Iraq can be examined and investigated accordingly. These catastrophes take place only when scientists and scholars are misused by oppressors."

- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia University, 2007

This is the next big problem America will have to deal with. Eventually, nuclear technology is going to spread. New nations, different from us, with what we may consider stragne lifestyles that we will undoubtedly fear are going to seek the same sources of power as the mightiest nations. It's just the way the world works. Nicholas Sarkozy of France just signed a nuclear deal for the UAE where he was also qouted affirming the Arab right to nuclear technology. We're just going to have to get used to the fact that nuclear power is spreading, and we can't be the one's who decides who gets it. Maybe the only way to make sure nobody has nuclear weapons is to get rid of them all, including our 10,000 nukes. By the way, this costs us 17.6 billion dollars a year just to maintain.