Some people are making fun of how Sarah Palin pronounces "nuclear." That's a mistake. Instead they should listen to how she used the word - because that displayed a truly terrifying ignorance.

    "Now, a leader like Ahmadinejad," she said, "is not one whom we can allow to acquire nuclear energy, nuclear weapons." Her mindless merging of nuclear energy with nuclear weapons threatens the entire structure of the 1968 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), the only legal obstacle to a planet where dozens of nations confront each other with nuclear bombs and missiles. The NPT is also the only legal obstacle to a nuclear-armed Iran.

    The NPT depends on its assurance that all non-nuclear armed states have an "inalienable right" to develop "nuclear energy for peaceful purposes." The treaty even obligates nuclear-armed states to assist this development. To insure that this nuclear energy is being developed for peaceful purposes, the NPT provides for international inspection. That is the legal basis for the inspection being conducted in Iran. Denying Iran's right to nuclear energy would push it into withdrawing from the NPT, thus ending all inspection and actually legitimizing a nuclear-armed Iran.

    So was this just a slip by Palin? Or was it just her own ignorance? I'm afraid the answer is much scarier. Palin was attempting (in her garbled way) to express the long-held position of John McCain, which was also the policy that George W. Bush actually implemented, the policy that led to North Korea testing a nuclear bomb in 2006 and moving toward a nuclear arsenal.

    Back in 1994, President Bill Clinton halted North Korea's development of nuclear weapons (which had begun during President George H. W. Bush's administration) by negotiating what is known as the "Agreed Framework." Under the Agreed Framework, North Korea's secretly produced plutonium was locked up and placed under strict international supervision, with teams of international inspectors sent to live in North Korea, where they maintained continual surveillance of any possible nuclear activities. In return, the United States agreed to help North Korea meet its energy needs by providing an ample supply of fuel oil and two light-water nuclear reactors, just as envisioned in the NPT.

    Washington, however, did not abide by several parts of its side of the agreement, including its promise to help build the light-water reactors. Nevertheless, on and off negotiations continued, and for the next eight years North Korea engaged in no significant development of nuclear weapons.

    But then in December 2002, after denouncing Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the "axis of evil" and while deploying forces to invade Iraq under the spurious argument that Iraq possessed an arsenal of "weapons of mass destruction," President Bush announced that the United States was unilaterally withdrawing from the Agreed Framework. When the United States actually invaded the only one of these three nations that did not have any active nuclear program, North Korea predictably decided to go hell-bent for a nuclear deterrent. So in 2003, North Korea withdrew from the NPT. Thus, the international inspectors no longer had any right to be there and Pyongyang was free to rush into the nuclear arms race. On October 8, 2006, North Korea conducted its first test of a nuclear bomb.

    Three days later, Sen. John McCain went on NBC's "Today" and ABC's "Good Morning America" to blame North Korea's bomb on President Clinton and the Agreed Framework. To advance his position, McCain blatantly rewrote history, ignoring the basic fact that the Agreed Framework had stopped North Korea's development of nuclear weapons for eight years. Later that week, a number of analysts called this the beginning of a campaign by McCain to win the White House in 2008.

    McCain's position on nuclear proliferation two years ago is still his position today. Forget meaningful negotiations, ignore the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and rely on threats and force to keep nations such as Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. So it's not hard to understand how Sarah Palin, after her pre-debate crash course in talking points, could end up saying that Iran should not be allowed to have nuclear energy.

    That's scary. What's even scarier is that so few Americans know enough to be scared by the words coming out of the mouth of someone who could easily become president of the United States sometime in the next four years.