International community…what is it good for?

Absolutely nothing, as we are seeing. However, since that didn’t quite have a good ring to it, I’ll have to wait for someone to come up with a monosyllabic word for the international community before I use it again. Oh well, again at least the last part is right. August 31st was supposed to be a big day. Iran was to stop its uranium enrichment program as decreed by the United Nations. Completely unsurprising to all but the most dedicated internationalist, Iran didn’t. The IAEA also released a report that revealed that highly enriched uranium was found for the third time in Iran, and this time it couldn’t be written off as contamination from Pakistan. To further add insult to injury, Ahmadinejad was also very clear that he did not care what the U.N. said or did (I will give Ahmadinejad credit for that, I wish our president was as forthright about the U.N.’s value, or lack thereof).

Where is the vaunted international community that agreed at the G8 meeting that this was Iran’s last chance? Russia has said no to sanctions or any action; but they do regret Iran’s actions. I'm sure we will also have their regrets when London, or New York, and Iran are radioactive parking lots, but I digress. Europe is demanding…. more talks since 8 years is obviously to short a time to rush to impose visa sanctions on Iran’s leaders. The U.N. didn’t even release a statement as it was the ambassador from Ghana’s last day, and as he told reporters, “give me a break.” What a surprise that the good people of Ghana who can’t provide enough food, clean water, or jobs for their own people think that a nuclear Iran isn’t the biggest threat to their country. What is surprising is that there are people who think such a country should be allowed to head what is supposedly the most important institution to the security and stability of the world.

Well so much for promises from the international community (but then Europe's promises aren't worth the paper they are written on as I wrote about here, and pretty much the same thing with the Russians and Chinese). None of this is helpful to a Bush Administration that is beginning to look a lot like Olmert’s in Israel. Bush accepted the challenge from Iran, losing the challenge through inactivity as he is on his way to doing will be worse for us and the world than never having accepted the challenge to begin with.