Iranian Crooks & EU Suckers

In light of his recent travels, I should probably defer blogging on Iran to Younghusband. But with the perfect storm of coverage on the Iraqi elections and Iranian nuclear program, I can’t sit on my hands—there is too much juicy stuff here.

The BBC can hardly contain its glee that the EU3 have recieved a promise from Iran to stop processing uranium. “US Thwarted” screams the headline. I’ve written on this before (“Is the Analogy Munich 1938 or Pyongyang 1994?“), that the promise from Iran isn’t worth the paper its printed on, that those crooks will keep doing as they please and will get a nuclear weapon regardless of how the media hypes promises to the contrary.

Iraqi WMD is the (facially valid) EU3 justification for going ahead with the agreement:

The EU Three have been cautious about accepting the US claim that Iran’s nuclear programme is about weapons, not about power. The US says it has evidence to support its claim but it is hard to verify. After the experience of Iraq and the very public failure to find evidence of WMDs, the US is low on credibility credit.

The BBC also jump head over heals that the IAEA has decided not to submit a resolution for sanctions, and all the accompanying balleyhoo, to the UN Security Council. Don’t make me laugh. With all the oil Iran supplies to the world, and to veto-wielding China, no sanctions would be approved.

In addition to working themselves up over unsubstantiated bad faith promises to stop enriching uranium, there is another dynamic the BBC is missing here: the elections in neighboring Iraq. Stratfor noted today that the Iranians are going to be extremely cooperative on nuclear projects in the coming weeks because they see the opportunity for a Shiite-dominated Iraq. Various Sunni and Kurdish groups are coming out in favor of delaying the election in light of the violence. But for the Shittes and their allies in Iran, the January 30 elections are a great chance for this that they’d rather not jeapordize with a delay. So look for them to be on their best behavior over the next eight weeks, but not much longer.