'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

Euros getting it together

One little-noted feature of the deal signed in Teheran yesterday between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the foreign ministers of Britain, France, and Germany has been precisely the make-up of that trilateral alliance of interveners.

Intra-European relations were of course badly on the skids earlier this year after Britain (and Spain, and a few members of Bombs-Away Don's much-vaunted "new Europe") decided to join Bombs-Away Don's assault on Iraq while France and Germany led the resistance to giving that adventure any international legitimacy.

But now, here are the three of them undertaking the significant overture to Iran together. Good for them!

I don't know whether this collaboration came about more through flexibility on the British side, or on the side of the French and Germans. Quite possibly, in the wake of the recent unanimous resolution at the UN over Iraq, a little bit of both.

What it means is that if the unreconstructed neo"con"s in the Bush administration try to proceed much further with their plans to ramp up the esclation against Iran, they can no longer count on Blair's crowd to give them the kind of international cover they got from them in the push against Saddam.

It also means that London has decided to restate its longstanding affiliation with the general European approach of using constructive engagement toward Iran, rather than the made-in-the-US approach of gratuitously prancing around and provoking that country's leaders.

What? You mean the lap dog has finally jumped off the lap? Whatever next!