Offerings to Iran

This is just pathetic.

The European Union will make Iran a generous offer of technology, economic and other incentives for Iran to abandon sensitive nuclear activities, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said on Monday.

"It will be a generous package, a bold package that will contain issues related to nuclear, economic matters and maybe if necessary security matters," Solana told reporters before a meeting of EU foreign ministers due to work on the offer.

He gave no details but said the EU wanted to present it to Iran in the coming weeks simultaneously with the approval of a U.N. resolution calling on Tehran to halt enrichment of uranium or face consequences such as sanctions.

Especially in light of the Iranian President's statements from the weekend.

Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said yesterday that it was pointless for Europe to devise an incentive program if the package required Tehran to stop enriching uranium. This effectively thwarted the latest international diplomatic effort before it began.

Ahmadinejad spoke on state television after returning from Indonesia. He said proposals for a political and economic package being shaped by the European Union were ''invalid" if ''they want to offer us things they call incentives in return for renouncing our rights."

What rights exactly are the EU and the US demanding that they renounce? The right to build a nuclear weapon? I would have sworn that the fact that Iran signed the NPT would have made that a clear renunciation of that plan. In fact I'd also guess that the EU and Russian offers to provide nuclear fuel and disposal of spent fuel was part of the original incentives.

Can anyone doubt that the UN and EU will continue to spin around talking to Iran right up until the point Iran has finished a nuclear weapon? I'll be very surprised if they can manage to do anything of any value for those who hope to prevent nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists.