Nuclear Musical Chairs

[Bonnie]

Nuclear Musical Chairs
Who will be the last standing?

By Henry Sokolski

With Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s announcement last Friday that Washington would drop its objections to Iran's World Trade Organization membership, Washington officially joined the EU-3 (Germany, France, and the United Kingdom) in a diplomatic dance to end Iran’s nuclear-bomb project. The only questions now are: When will the music stop — and who will be left standing?


The thinking within the Bush administration is that Iran will be the odd man out after the next set of EU-3-Iran talks scheduled for March 23 in Paris. This view rests on three particulars. First, Iranian officials have threatened to resume building their centrifuge enrichment plant at Natanz (a facility whose “peaceful” operation would bring Tehran ineluctably within days of having the bomb) if Iran does not get what it wants in Paris. Second, the EU-3 has so far insisted that the only “objective guarantee” Iran can give that it will stay out of the bomb-making business is to forswear and terminate its enrichment and reprocessing efforts.

Third, Iranian officials seem to be spoiling for a fight. On March 12, Iran’s foreign ministry dismissed Rice’s offers as insignificant. Describing the secretary as “the queen of war and violence,” it demanded Washington “apologize” for suggesting that allowing Iran to enjoy what was already its own by right — WTO membership — was any offer at all.

morehttp://www.nationalreview.com/comment/sokolski200503150742.asp

 

[nosarcasm]

well I hope the EU and Us leave the Iraq diplomatic fiasco behind and
agree on a harline to pressure Iraq.

The first step is to be ready to start an economic embargo on Iran, restriction on their commercal flights to back up the talk.

If nothing works out the final step is the consideration of air strikes
against nuclear facilities in Iran and the support and pledge
of European troops in case Iran escalates it further and more activly
destabilizes the democratization of Iraq.