How not to get Iran to do anything other than what Iran wants.
By Anne Bayefsky
National Review Online
April 2, 2007
The real surprise about Iran’s latest affront to civilized behavior — the hostage-taking of British sailors and marines — is that there should be any surprise at all. For years Iran has received a consistent message from the global gurus at the United Nations: Nobody is prepared to stop you. Groveling is the skill democratic states have honed at the U.N. when confronted with naked aggression and the violation of every right and freedom they supposedly hold dear.
Here is a timeline of the U.N. moves which have progressively emboldened Iran and like-minded terrorist entities the world over.
June 2003: Only after Iran had spent years developing its nefarious nuclear program could the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency finally bring itself to state that Iran had violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
July 12, 2006: Three years of huffing and puffing later — and three days before the start of a G-8 Summit that was to consider pushing Iran harder at the Security Council — Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists infiltrated Israeli territory and kidnapped two Israeli soldiers on routine patrol along the Israel-Lebanon border.
July 31, 2006: The Security Council adopted a resolution granting Iran another time extension for ending its nuclear activities and called for another report a month later.
August 11, 2006: The Security Council adopted a resolution dashing Israel’s hope of retrieving its soldiers and removing the Hezbollah-Iranian threat to its civilian population. The resolution equated a call to release the Israeli soldiers with the release of criminals in Israeli jails and introduced a bargaining chip in the form of a Lebanese land grab (based on a claim which the U.N. itself had decided was bogus years earlier) — thereby guaranteeing the soldiers’ continued captivity. The resolution to end an Iranian-instigated and Iranian-fueled war made no mention Iran.
September 3, 2006: When it appeared the Security Council August deadline on the nuclear front might be taken seriously, Secretary-General Kofi Annan rushed to Tehran and Iranian Prime Minister Ahmadinejad’s side, shook his hand, and announced to the world: “The international community should not isolate Iran.”
October 20, 2006: Worried the U.N. protection racket needed a little more muscle in the face of growing calls for sanctions, Mohammed ElBaradei, the Egyptian chief of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, told Newsweek: [W]e don’t see a clear and present danger that we have to address tomorrow, and we have ample time to negotiate.” When pressed that “Iran’s behavior doesn’t inspire confidence,” ElBaradei responded that “the jury is still out.”
