The EU goes it alone and is skunked:

Iran reiterated Tuesday it was only prepared to freeze its uranium enrichment activities for a few months and would not, as the EU and Washington want, permanently mothball facilities which could make atomic bombs.

"The length of the suspension will only be for the length of the negotiations with the Europeans and... must be rational and not too long," Hassan Rohani told a news conference.

"We're talking about months, not years," said the cleric, who is secretary-general of Iran's top security body, the Supreme National Security Council.

The United States has expressed skepticism that Iran will stick to the nuclear freeze and says it reserves the right to take Iran's case to the Security Council on its own.

Western diplomats have expressed growing frustration with Iran, which reneged on a similar suspension six months ago and wrangled over each step of negotiations on the current freeze.

Mr. Rohani went on to deliver a paean on EU multipolar unilateralism:

"The Americans have called for Iran to be reported to the Security Council for a year and a half, now the whole world has turned down America's calls," Rohani said.

"This is a historical opportunity for Iran and Europe to prove to the world that [American] unilateralism is condemned, that the world's most complicated matters can be solved by negotiation."

"Negotiations with Europe will be complicated, it won't be easy and will have lots of ups and downs," he added, warning: "If the Europeans do not show honesty, we will leave the talks."

"Europe wants objective guarantees that our enrichment activities won't be diverted to making weapons. How to implement this guarantee will be the most difficult part of the negotiations," he said.

Rohani said the world had nothing to fear from Iran's nuclear facilities. "If we had wanted to make a nuclear bomb we would have made one in the last 20 years," he said.

[All emphases added.]

Were this not so dangerously pathetic it would be hilarious.

Mr. Rohani obviously enjoys making an ass of Europa. And Europa apparently is prepared to play the ass for some world peace headlines. It's all about world peace. And press clippings.

The peace mob is going to sit this one out. Really, what is a benign nuclear Iran compared to the civilization-threatening horrors of hazing at Abu Ghraib? What is more dangerous, a handful of kooky ayatollahs peppering to establish a nuclear caliphate or Mr. Bush appointing strict constructionists to the bench? Eggs-actly. The peace mob needs to husband its energies for the important work of mooning Mr. Bush. The world in flames? Please, airport searches have long ago robbed life of any meaning.

Priorities, America. Best get them straight.

Brendan Miniter over at WSJ has serious commentary.

UPDATE 11.30.04: Perhaps the International Atomic Energy Agency is hoping to confuse the Iranians into abandoning their nuclear-weapons-are-energy program.

The International Atomic Energy Agency praised Iran yesterday for suspending its uranium-enrichment work and removed an immediate threat of sanctions against the Islamic republic, which built its program in secret over 18 years.

IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei told the board yesterday that Iran's suspension is in place and that he has not found any evidence of a weapons program. But last week, ElBaradei said Iran suffers from a "confidence deficit" and needs to work harder to answer questions about its past nuclear activities and win the world's trust.

Meanwhile, Iran's leaders claimed the resolution [scil., GOV/2004/90] as a diplomatic victory, while U.S. officials expressed disappointment the international community did not take a harder line.

In Vienna, where the IAEA board met, U.S. officials said for the first time that the United States is willing to take Iran to the Security Council on its own.

If the United States did so, Iran would be likely to highlight other wording in the resolution that says Iran's suspension is a "voluntary, non-legally binding confidence-building measure," giving Tehran legal maneuvering room to fight the United States.

"My government would like to state, for the record, our reservations about this resolution," [U.S. Ambassador Jackie W.] Sanders said, adding: "Most of what the board is still requesting of Iran is sadly familiar. Indeed, we have been making such requests since June 2003."

Iranian negotiator Sirus Naseri fell asleep during Sanders's speech, according to diplomats in the room.

Well, we're certainly confused.

The euros are really shrewd and intelligent.. they can probably 'contain' nuclear-armed Iranian mullahs through civilized discussions over French cheese and tea.. without cowboy-like threats of violence

OBH,

Along those same lines, see:

http://www.e-nough.hmdnsgroup.com/archives/000700.html

It's not like the mad mullahs and nutty ayatollahs aren't being plain about what they have in mind.

Think about this for a minute, America has had a nuclear capability for almost 60 years. For several years America pretty much had the game to itself. In all that time it was only used once. Given the world obligations on America -- and the threats it has faced -- this is something of an incredible record of restraint. Yet America is seen as the modern threat. Meanwhile DPRK, Iran, Saddam's Iraq have all jockeyed for nuclear power. Does anyone have a guess as to the first thing that our friends would do were they weapons capable tomorrow?

My guess? Blow something up!

Just a guess.

Regards,
DGB

But the European Strategy has been a success, they have stopped that cowboy Bush nuking Iran and given the Iranians more time to conceal, and complete their programme.

You see multipolar world includes as a pole anyone who is not America.

Besides who cares if the towel heads have nukes as long as the oil goes to Total Fina Elf.