While on a visit tothis week, US Vice-President Joe Biden threatened Iran with unspecified "action"over its testing of two long-range ballistic missiles. Biden, who is nicknamed Bazooka Joe for his blunt rhetorical style, displayedover his warning to Iran. He issued his admonition while in Tel Aviv alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose state is known to beEarlier, Iran reportedly. Each were said to have range of over 1,000 kilometers, and an Iranian military spokesman said the weapons werewhat the US action towards Iran would entail. But given thatforbidding the mere verbalizing of aggression by threatening that "all options are on the table" with regard to Iran, theOr it could mean theas part of the international nuclear accord signed last July with Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers.For its part, Iran said that the, which mandates that Iran foregoes any nuclear weapons development. Iran saysit has the right to develop all conventional weapons for defensive purposes.Only two weeks ago, the according to Reuters. The Minuteman III missiles were launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to hit targets more than 6,500 kilometers away in the South Pacific. The difference with the Iranian missile tests this week is that the American weapons are expressly designed to carry nuclear warheads. Though the California test-fired missiles were on that occasion reportedly not armed with nukes. But as deputy defense secretary Robert Work said at the time: "We and the Russians and the Chinese routinely do test shots to prove that the operational missiles that we have are reliable. And that is a signal... that we are prepared to use nuclear weapons in defense of our country if necessary."According to Reuters, the US launch was the 15th such nuclear-capable ICBM test-fire since January 2011. That's a rate of three per year. Russia has reportedly carried out a total of 16 nuclear-capable ICBM test launches over a 25-year period since the end of the Soviet Union. That is less than one per year. A report earlier this month said that Russia was about to conduct ICBM test-launches from nuclear-powered submarines in the Barents Sea.The US appears to be leading this race, with the administration of President Barack Obama having committed The US has according to the Arms Control Association. This is more than any other country, althoughBetween them, theof the world's entire stockpile of these weapons of mass destruction.And lest we forget, the US is the only country to have ever actually used nuclear weapons when it destroyed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, killing over 200,000 mainly civilians instantly. This is the reality check that Washington needs, but few of its politicians seem amenable to. Instead,For more than 40 years since the signing of the NPT, the world is nowhere near the nuclear disarmament that it mandates ofPresident Obama received a Noble Peace Prize back in 2009 because of a speech that ostensibly committed his nation to nuclear disarmament. Reuters describedan "ironic turn". Some would simply call itWith North Korea last week threatening "pre-emptive nuclear strikes"on top of an alleged ICBM test only weeks before, it does seem that the world has indeed entered a new, dangerous arms race.The only reasonable way forward is for a concerted international program of mutual disarmament.This call was made 53 years ago by US President John F Kennedy in a landmark speech at the American University in Washington on June 10, 1963.The US evidently presumes the right to maintain the world's biggest arsenal, while excoriating other states like North Korea and Iran for allegedly contemplating the development of the same weapons.Joe Biden speaking in a state this week that continues to illegally occupy Palestinian land in defiance of countless UN resolutions, a state which possesses nuclear weapons outside of any international control, and yet Biden chooses to focus his admonishment on Iran based on spurious complaints - now that demonstrates thatand is not coming back to Earth any time soon.