Having Iraq as the chair of a conference on disarmament does seem a bit odd given the days we are living in (and the right wing is certainly screaming bloody murder about it) but then again if you have a look at the list of countries involved in the conference maybe not. There are some pretty heavily armed countries sitting around that particular table who have considerable stock piles of weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, biological, and chemical) tucked away in their respective cubby holes in the interests of their own “national security” who do not necessarily bother to consider, or take seriously, the concerns of other world nations because, of course, they are “the good guys”, being forced to sit a bit further down the conference table for a while might be good for them.

As necessary as a heaping helping of humble pie is for all of us at various points in our lives we can expect a certain group of countries to boycott the proceedings (use your imagination as to who) but if all the participants can get their collective acts together for long enough to be mature about the whole thing, and everybody sits down and plays nice together for a few weeks, something good may come out of it.