The top US diplomat in Iraq sat down with the Washington Post Wednesday to push the Bush administration’s case that harsher action needs to be taken against Iran because of allegations that country’s leaders are funding and training militants in Iraq.Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, coming off two days of congressional testimony, told the Post that the administration was building support for a third United Nations resolution that would impose harsher sanctions against Iran. He accused Tehran of pursuing a “fairly aggressive strategy” on the ground in Iraq, according to the Post.
Crocker’s sit-down with Post editors and reporters appears to be the latest step in what is emerging as a coordinated push against Tehran.
And boy do they love him, you could read this editorial about his congressional testimony (Baghdad envoy Ryan Crocker speaks truth to Washington- as if what he wrote wasn’t scripted by the Whitehouse: No look he’s speaking truth to power, the devil may care tell it like it is maverick!) or just take short version- Ryan’s cock tasted just lovely. Go Empire!
So what gives with the EU? Despite this dubious piece originating at Fox-
Reports emerged Wednesday that Germany’s unwillingness to back new sanctions in particular has pushed Washington to develop broader plans for a military strike against Iran.
The EU caused Mohamed ElBaradei to walk out of a conference because it failed to give him the diplomatic backing he had been told he would receive from the EU-
UN nuclear chief walked out on an afternoon session Tuesday of his IAEA to protest an EU speech which did not fully support his deal for new inspections in Iran, diplomats told AFP.
The European Union speech was given by Portuguese ambassador Joaquim Duarte, as Portugal is the current EU president…The speech only mentioned briefly the timetable the IAEA worked hard to get and did not give it the diplomatic backing ElBaradei expected.
The timetable, in a report ElBaradei submitted to the board on Monday, is to resolve outstanding questions in the agency’s over four-year-old investigation of Iran on US charges that Tehran is using a civilian energy program to hide the development of nuclear weapons.
The speech focused on Iran’s lack of cooperation, including its refusal to provide early design information on new nuclear facilities, and called repeatedly on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment.
Of course ignoring the transnational bodies doing inspection and negotiating with a country was exactly the pattern used in the build up to the Iraq invasion. Just as Hans Blix was marginalised and ultmately ignored, are they after doing the same with ElBaradei? Frolix covers this too and shows how Rice at the State department is being forced around into backing Cheney’s attack option, the level of verbal aggression towards Iran escalating. And Crocker’s sit down with the Post is sickly reminiscent of the sit downs before Iraq where Bush administration figures would meet with major media players and their top hacks. Soon the journos, flattered into being an ‘insider’, were falling over themselves to print any crap they were fed, well the ones who weren’t ideologically on board from the beginning. Go Empire!
