Iran's Frogmarch to the UN

Hugo at le petit radiateur points to an excellent article in the Asia Times regarding the referral of Iran to the UN Security Council. Afrasiabi discusses the blind rejection of Iran's recent six point proposal designed to assauge EU/US concerns over their nuclear program. And while the Iranian proposal appears to be fairly lucid and concessional, including a two year moritorium on uranium enrichment, Afrasiabi points out that European and US media have altogether ignored the actual content of the proposal, favouring to simply parrot unfounded statements of various European negotiators, who seem hell bent on the following the US down another disasterous foreign policy path.

Given all the mountainous revelations about the cover-ups and disinformation on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, all indications are that we have not learned any meaningful lessons from the Iraq fiasco, such as the need for a more scrutinizing media.

Yet, incredibly, no one in the European or US media even examined the nature and content of the six-point Iranian proposal, confining themselves to the official pronouncements of the EU-3 diplomats who are more keen on satisfying the US's march toward the Security Council than in breaking the nuclear stalemate on their own.

Indeed, it is almost impossible to learn just what the Iranian proposal even contains from western media:

-- Iran pledges that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, not nuclear bombs.
-- Iran pledges that it will get the legislative approval in its majlis (parliament) of the Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and will continue with IAEA inspections.
-- Iran pledges to stay within the NPT.
-- Iran pledges that it will not resume enrichment prior to the next IAEA meeting.
-- Iran pledges that its nuclear research will be under monitoring by the IAEA.
-- Iran will continue negotiating with the EU-3 regarding enrichment issues for two years, and after two years, if the negotiations fail, will resume enrichment activities.

With the immediate rejection of this proposal, the EU-3, as proxy for the US, seems determined in its march against Iran. They do this, apparently, based on the recent statements of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, conflating his ill-conceived personal ranting with the country's nuclear ambitions. This may not, of itself, be an entirely unfounded concern but if it is an overriding one, why is EU even negotiating in the first place?

The sense one gets from this is that the EU was not intent on seeing any fruitful negotiation come to pass. And I cannot help but get the feeling that, after being pummeled by the Bush administration over Iraq and despite a strong stance against the trumped-up invasion, the EU-3 seem now fully invested in towing the White House line. After seeing what a debacle Iraq has become, I can't imagine why this should be happening.