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Iran and the UN

In my previous post I lamented how slow the United Nations moves in attempting to get anything done. Iran's reaction to the UN resolution calling on them to freeze their uranium enrichment shows why the pace is so slow. This glacial pace hides the fact that such resolutions are almost entirely useless.

[...]Tehran said if the Security Council went as far as punishing Iran with sanctions, the country might follow North Korea and pull out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty altogether.

This situation looks to be a replay of Iraq. Washington says that the uranium enrichment is to develop nuclear weapons, Iran claims it is for a nuclear energy program. All Iran has to do is prove this and the world goes away, nice and happy. In the immortal words of Prime Minister Chretien "The proof is the proof. When you have the proof it is proven." But,

[...]“Iran will not accept any obligation regarding the suspension of uranium enrichment,” chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani told a news conference yesterday. “No international body can force Iran to do so.” He added Iran would stop allowing UN inspectors to make short-notice visits to its atomic facilities if its dossier were sent to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions. Meanwhile, the Iranian parliament urged the government to ignore the UN resolution.

So the world is to sit by as a (actually another) fanatical regime develops Weapons of Mass Destruction. And here is the rub, since the coalition did not find WMDs in Iraq how can the US mobilize another coalition to stop Iran from developing the same? So the UN position is reduced to pleading,

“What I am asking Iran, is please build the confidence and please work with me to build the confidence through the agency and please allow us to verify all outstanding issues,” he ( IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei) said.

Please, pretty please.

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This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on September 20, 2004 8:02 AM.

The previous post in this blog was Inching closer towards progress.

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