Drumbeats from across the Pond (Updated) 0
Where have we heard all this before?
Scott Ritter in the Guardian:
Smith is no unbiased observer. As the spokesperson for the so-called “EU-3” (Great Britain, France and Germany), he serves as the face of a group which has a considerable political investment in maintaining the notion of Iran as a non-compliant player in the diplomatic game that is Iran’s nuclear programme. The EU-3 has been attempting to walk the tight wire between a desire to moderate hardline US policies through placation, and their responsibility under international law to respect the provisions of the non-proliferation treaty. In doing so, the EU-3 has married itself to a policy that centres on Iran’s requirement to suspend unconditionally its uranium enrichment programme, since such a programme could be used in any nuclear weapons program.
(snip)
(In the prelude to the War in Iraq–ed.) Iraq had been placed in the impossible position of having to prove a negative, a doomed process which led to war. I am fearful that the EU-3 is repeating this same process, demanding Iran refute something that doesn’t exist except in the overactive imaginations of diplomats pre-programmed to accept at face value anything negative about Iran, regardless of its veracity. The implications of such a morally and intellectually shallow posture could very well be disastrous.
It moves me to poesy:
Addendum, Just a Few Minutes Later:
Digby has more.
Via Susie.
