From Reuters:
Iran handed over on Tuesday its response to a nuclear package aimed at allaying Western fears that Tehran seeks to build atomic bombs, Iran’s state-run Arabic-language Al-Alam television reported.
It said Ali Larijani, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, had handed the response to envoys representing the six nations in Tehran at the Supreme National Security Council, which handles the nuclear file. It did not give details of the reply.
— Nor did it have to. As recently as yesterday, Khamenei said Iran won’t stop its enrichment program—so for Iran’s official response to prove at all surprising it would have to, say, name Marisa Tomei Best Supporting Actress.
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update: And the winner is… Check Hot Air for updates. More kicking the can down the road, it seems to me. Talk of “new formulas” will only allow the UN and Europeans to defer action longer while they ostensibly take the moral highground by giving Iranian leadership the benefit of the doubt as to their seriousness.
Somehow, I doubt Iran will offer the same courtesies to the west once they have a working nuclear program.
Did anyone really expect them to respond otherwise?
Moreover, the longer they keep this going, the better it gets. In addition to gaining more time to build a bomb, the more they engage in this mock-negotiation, the more points they will earn with gullible members of the western left. They will keep this up forever.
Do I need to re-start my contributions to the 401(k)? Looks like 8.22.06 is gonna be a big fat nothing (thank God). Just more of the same old obsfucation, time wasting, and exchange of diplomatic pouches that constitute the vaunted “International Community” treading water until the Iranian shark bites off a toe or a foot and we finally get serious.
Snore.
Well, they did jack an oil rig. So it’s not like Romanians aren’t converting like catholic schoolboys staring into the glistening patent leather of Mary Sue’s shoes on the day before laundry day.
They don’t seem to be in a conciliatory mood.
Funniest comment credits go to a friend of mine who randomly IM’d:
Random Friend Of Beck: the response has been handed to the envoys in tehran
Random Friend Of Beck: but it needs to be translated
Random Friend Of Beck: apptly, they wrote it in Wingdings format
Apocalypse?
Are we there yet?
Been done.
UN official; “We demand to inpect your nuclewar facilities!”
Iranian Islamic official guy; “No.”
UN official; “Uh. Do you validate parking?”
Whitney Houston would be more surprising.
Oooooh, damn! If THAT doesn’t stop ‘em cold, nothing will.
If you want to have good relations with the Iranian people in the future, you should acknowledge the right and the might of the Iranian people, and you should bow and surrender to the might of the Iranian people. If you do not accept this, the Iranian people will force you to bow and surrender.
-Amalamadingdong 8-13-06
TW: Waiting for the analysis.
Just out of curiosity Jeff… how’s the WiFi connection holding out in your bomb shelter? I assume that’s where you’re blogging from… with it being 8/22 and all.
Effectively, Iran has handed the west a field hockey stick and said, “Instead of a golf club, use this to beat around the bush.”
Europeans decline to comment, saying they needed to study the matter.
The television said? I wonder what the armchair had to say?
TW: If the armchair even heard
If this is the big August 22 surprise I’ve been waiting on pins and needles for then I’m not going to believe anything that man says ever again.
The Islamic version of Y2K.
Coffee break’s over, now back on your heads.
You mean the stealth gunboat with the airplane motor on a gantry way up over the undetectable hull didn’t get you to that point? Or the supersonic submarine?
Admittedly though, even I wasn’t expecting something this wimpy.
Marcus,
I still wonder if the broken-up airline bombing plot was the “lighting up the skies” Ahmedinnermidget had in mind, or if a planned nuke test failed.
TW: failed to perform as advertised…
You want a nuke that badly, Ahmedinnerjacket? Well here! Catch! Uh… uh… don’t drop it!
TW: You just know they’re thinking that at NORAD.
VERY SORRY
Christopher Hill
Patricia Smith
Edward Martinez
Mary King
Helen Johnson
Susan White
Mary Nelson
Mary Brown
Sharon Lopez
John King
Jason Miller
Elizabeth Phillips
Robert Nelson
Steven Smith
Joseph Walker
Sarah Baker
VERY SORRY