EU backs down on Iran
The EU has been forced to back away from its tough stance on Iran after it failed to get Russia's support for reporting Iran's nuclear ambitions to the UN Security Council. After a series of negotiations at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, the EU, represented by France, Germany and the UK, decided to withdraw a draft resolution that called for Iran to be reported to the security council for breaching the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). According to the Guardian, the resolution said there was an 'international absence of confidence that Iran's nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes'. While the EU's position, strongly backed by the US, had reportedly gathered just enough support to pushed through the governing council of the IAEA, it was feared that Russia and China would then block the initiative in the Security Council. Pushing for the Security Council route without consensus in the IAEA would also have sent a damaging message about international views towards nuclear proliferation.Would this 'damagin message' happen to be the truth that most of the international community doesn't care very much about nuclear proliferation? It is becoming increasingly obvious that either we accept a nuclear powered Iran, or we use military force to prevent that. Those are the choices. The rest is just window dressing.
posted by Dave Justus | 9/23/2005 03:14:00 AM
1 Comments:
I think you'll find that "international opinion" leaves the US in the minority position. We are part of the small group that has nuclear weapons, and doesn't want anyone else to have them. The other 172 or so countries in the world don't have nukes, and either support no one having them or support the idea that everyone has equal rights to them. We used to support our position by saying that our nukes were only for defensive purposes to deter nuclear war. However, the Pentagon's new Joint Nuclear Doctrine lists a number of situations in which the US would use a nuclear weapon preemptively, even against a target that did not have nuclear weapons.
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