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The Iranian government has announced its own international disarmament conference on April 17 and 18, four days after Washington concludes Barack Obama's nuclear security summit, and a couple of weeks before the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) comes up for review in New York.

The press release put out today makes clear the focus of the Tehran conference will be the nuclear powers and their alleged failure to carry out the disarmament part of the NPT. This is one of the talking points:

Examination of nuclear doctrines and their inconsistency with the current world situation; the nuclear states regrettably continue to insist on the role of nuclear weapons in their military doctrines and, once in a while, threaten non-nuclear states with the use of such inhuman and destructive weapons.

The calling of rival conferences will provide a timely test of strength between Washington and Tehran. In particular, it will be a measure of whether the US and Russia have done enough in the new START treaty, and whether Barack Obama has done enough to fulfil the disarmament promise of his Prague speech a year ago, to persuade the world's nuclear have-nots to stay away from Tehran. Iran is not invited to the Washington summit (although Israel is), and the Americans are similarly unwelcome in Tehran.

The contest has started with an important win for Obama with President Hu's decision to attend the Washington summit, where the emphasis will be on ensuring ... >>>