Did the US make a trade to get Iran to release the hostages?
I really hope Krauthammer is wong....
The quid pro quos were not terribly subtle. An Iranian "diplomat" who had been held for two months in Iraq is suddenly released. Equally suddenly, Iran is granted access to the five Iranian "consular officials" -- Revolutionary Guards who had been training Shiite militias to kill Americans and others -- whom the United States had arrested in Irbil in January. There may have been other concessions we will never hear about. But the salient point is that American action is what got this unstuck.
Where then was the European Union? These 15 hostages, after all, are not just British citizens but, under the laws of Europe, citizens of Europe. Yet the European Union lifted not a finger on their behalf.
Europeans talk all the time about their preference for "soft power" over the brute military force those Neanderthal Americans resort to all the time. What was the soft power available here? Iran's shaky economy is highly dependent on European credits, trade and technology. Britain asked the European Union to threaten to freeze exports, $18 billion a year of commerce. Iran would have lost its No. 1 trading partner. The European Union refused.
Why was nothing done? The reason is simple. Europe functions quite well as a free-trade zone, but as a political entity it is a farce. It remains a collection of sovereign countries with divergent interests. A freeze of economic relations with Europe would have shaken the Iranian economy to the core. "The Dutch," reported the Times of London, "said it was important not to risk a breakdown in dialogue." So much for European solidarity.
posted by GayandRight @ 5:42 PM
3 Comments:
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fred... don't be naive, of course Blair sold out... he doesn't give a shit about Brit soldiers...
he's out of office in a couple of months and he just wants to look majesterial and diplomatic in his official biography.
and his oily obeisance gives the iranians a green light to keep on killing british soldiers in iraq as we speak...
"In the deep south of the country, the Basra police commander said the type of roadside bomb used in an attack that killed four British soldiers on Thursday had not been seen in the region previously."
Since that raiding party was so successful, what will the savages do next?
"The Dutch," reported the Times of London, "said it was important not to risk a breakdown in dialogue." So much for European solidarity.
The Dutch had insisted it was important to remain neutral in WW2, right up until the Nazis invaded. Just as then, European solidarity seems to be on the side of appeasement.
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