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Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Golly!

We have supported EU efforts to talk Iran into making sure their nuclear programs are for peaceful purposes only. We have allowed the Euros to carry on this process for several years now.

Ahmadinejad has so much contempt for the Euros that he doesn't even care to pretend to talk anymore:

Ahmadinejad has defied two Security Council resolutions demanding Iran suspend enrichment and imposing escalating sanctions on key figures and organizations involved in the nuclear program. He made clear in his speech that Iran did not intend to comply with them now.

"In the last two years, abusing the Security Council, the arrogant powers have repeatedly accused Iran and even made military threats and imposed illegal sanctions against it," he said.

"Previously, they illegally insisted on politicizing the Iranian nation's nuclear case, but today, because of the resistance of the Iranian nation, the issue is back to the agency, and I officially announce that in our opinion the nuclear issue of Iran is now closed and has turned into an ordinary agency matter," Ahmadinejad said.


Iran has decided "to pursue the issue through its appropriate legal path ... and to disregard unlawful and political impositions by the arrogant powers," he said.

This would seem pretty final. But I've never been convinced that Europe will take no for an answer.

On the bright side, France and Germany each elected a spine:

The Iranian president spoke shortly before German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned the diplomats of "disastrous consequences" for Israel and the world if Iran acquires a nuclear bomb. "The world does not have to prove to Iran that Iran is building a nuclear bomb. Iran has to convince the world that it is not striving towards such a bomb."

Hours earlier, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told the assembly that allowing Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons would be an unacceptable risk. "There will not be peace in the world if the international community falters in the face of the proliferation of nuclear arms," Sarkozy said. The Iranian crisis "will only be resolved if firmness and dialogue go hand-in-hand."


Iran must be stopped.