Excellent Article about France, nuclear dilplomacy

[Flabbergasted]

Asia Times Online

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH25Ak02.html
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France knocks heads over its Iran diplomacy
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Aug 25, 2007


There is something amiss when French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is leading his country to a new nuclear-arms modernization program that clearly breaches the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligation of nuclear states on disarmament, calls on Iran to "honor its commitment".

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Yet Sarkozy and his circle of policymakers may be swimming against a current that began in March 2005 when then-president Jacques Chirac met with Iran's then-nuclear negotiator, Hasan Rowhani and openly endorsed the idea of a "limited enrichment program" for Iran. The endorsement, though, was brief after Chirac was forced to retract his statement by intense opposition from Washington and London.

snip

Why is the Larijani-Solana duet making progress while other channels are not? The answer is persuasive diplomacy, for Solana has wisely used quiet diplomacy and rationality, rather than the rhetoric of Washington and London. Rationality is in short supply these days in the United States, where the media have rallied behind the "pressure Iran" paradigm virtually without exception. Even a nuanced version of this "paradigm" reflected in a Christian Science Monitor editorial that offers more carrot as a reward for Iran's cooperation fails to admit that threats are no way to deal with Iran. <1>

smip

As usual, the US has used more coercion than diplomacy and, in doing so, raised fears in Iran that it is preparing to attack its nuclear facilities under the pretext of striking the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which the White House recently labeled as a "specially designated global terrorist" group.

snip

The question, of course, is whether the White House strategy of pushing for more sanctions by ignoring the positive developments in the Iran-IAEA front really washes with the international community.

The answer is that it does not, which is why the White House is using the "terror" angle on the IRGC to muddy the picture, thus attempting to create a direct linkage between Iran and Iraq, all to the detriment of its own interests in Iraq. This makes no sense and, should the US and its European allies bully the UN Security Council into another round of sanctions against Iran, then the most likely victim will be the IAEA, in light of Iran's warning that it will curtail or even cease its cooperation with the UN's atomic agency if that happens.

A chain reaction, facilitating the "military option", will likely follow, all the more reason for the Europeans in particular to think twice about the wisdom of ganging up on Iran, action reportedly charted by the hawks led by US Vice President Dick Cheney

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH25Ak02.html