Iran showdown

From the Asia Times:

The European Three (EU-3 - France, Germany and Britain) have by all indications prioritized their transatlantic ties with the US over their relations with Iran, trying to outdo each other in appeasing the US in its unilateral march toward anti-Iran sanctions at the UN.

This is precisely where the word "multilateralism" begins to lose some of its luster, seeing how the collapse of European diplomacy in the cesspool of unilateralism is nicely covered by the make-believe concerns of top European diplomats over the fate of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)...

The stakes are getting increasingly high, with Iran now contemplating exiting the NPT and stopping all cooperation with the IAEA.

Well, if the Europeans' real concern is to keep the IAEA intact, their action is hardly going to have the desired result, as the North-South divide within the IAEA will sharpen dramatically and qualitatively, as explicitly feared by IAEA chief Mohammad ElBaradei.

In his latest report, ElBaradei cited good progress in Iran's cooperation with the IAEA and stated that Iran's nuclear program would be subjected from now on to routine inspections. How will he react a few weeks or months from now when Iran is no longer a part of the IAEA and the whole Muslim world is blaming the IAEA of indiscrete double standards?

Not exactly bright prospects for the IAEA and its Western composition, and all the more reason for the IAEA to amend itself and step back from the confrontational path it has chosen in regard to Iran.

Read the rest....