Friday, July 01, 2005
German Wimpiness and Iran
I care less and less about how the rest of the world views us when they are stupid.
On Monday, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder met with Bush in the Whie House, urging him to make new concessions to the mullahs - the European "response" to the election of Ahmadinejad. The West cannot bar Teheran from the peaceful use of nuclear energy, "even though some might not like that," Schroeder said.
Schroeder's logic goes something like this: The Islamic Republic has cheated repeatedly with the IAEA. We really wish they wouldn't do this, so every time they cheat, we get a little nicer. Now, with a new hard-line president, it's time to get really nice. Why not acknowledge the inevitable? Iran is going to get nuclear weapons, so we'd better get used to that idea if we want to achieve peace in our time.
The Bush administration has rightly rejected this logic. But the US also knows that it will not be able to count on Germany, Russia, China or former ally, France, should Iran's case go to the United Nations Security Council for sanctions.
We don't have very much time to get this right.
IRAN'S CLANDESTINE nuclear weapons program was relaunched in 1985 by none other than Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the smiling mullah who announced during the recent presidential campaign that if elected he would broker a deal over Iran's nukes with the United States.
I care less and less about how the rest of the world views us when they are stupid.
