The return of nuclear terror.

• Position: India and Pakistan nuclear tests - Editorial

By testing nuclear weapons, India and Pakistan have made a terrible mistake. And the United States--despite its pleas with both countries not to conduct nuclear tests--bears part of the blame.

On May 11 and May 13, India set off five explosions. One was a hydrogen bomb. Pakistan, a rival of India's since Britain split the countries apart in 1947, responded with what it claimed were six detonations. In both countries, most citizens responded with jubilation.

The United States denounced the tests, and President Clinton promised harsh economic sanctions. But who is our President to act all high and mighty about nuclear weapons? The United States maintains the world's largest nuclear arsenal and is still developing nuclear bombs at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory through the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program. It manages to circumvent the Comprehensive Test Ban it signed in 1996 by conducting "subcritical" tests or simulating tests with sophisticated computers. President Clinton has threatened to use nuclear bombs against Iraq, Libya, and North Korea. And he has issued a directive that would allow for the use of U.S. atomic weapons against non-nuclear states, which breaks a promise the U.S. government made to these states during the negotiations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The other nuclear powers also have large arsenals--there are thousands of nuclear warheads in Russia, and hundreds each in China, France, and the United Kingdom. None of these nuclear powers has set up a schedule to get rid of them.

The nuclear powers have also been shamefully lax about controlling the proliferation of nuclear materials and technology.

But that is no excuse for India and Pakistan to test nuclear weapons of their own. There is a lot of foolish machismo surrounding these blasts. "Millions of Indians have viewed this occasion as the beginning of the rise...