DEADLINE MEETS DEFIANCE

The United Nations, which is supposed to be representative of the world, verses Iran.

The U.N. says that Iran must stop refining uranium but Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the President of Iran says, "The Iranian nation will not succumb to bullying, invasion and the violation of its rights.”

The United Nations has set a deadline for Iran to stop its uranium refinement today, Thursday August 31, 2006 and has offered many incentives to this end but Iran has disregarded the deadline and continues to refine uranium.

The United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany offered Iran earlier this summer a package of incentives in exchange for a commitment from Tehran to freeze enrichment so talks could begin.
But Tehran's response earlier this month made clear the country was not willing to suspend enrichment before talks, let alone consider a long-term moratorium on such activity.

My question is what’s next for all the experts that believe in negotiating with terrorists and nation states that support terrorism.

It is plain to see that negotiations only work if there are two parties that are willing to work toward a mutual goal. So what is that goal? To the U.N. it is world peace and the nonproliferation of nuclear weaponry but apparently that is not the case with Iran. And isn’t negotiation supposed to be about compromise?

"At the moment, Iran has no use whatsoever for enriched uranium - unless it is planning to build the bomb," so says German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier

The West has struggled for years with incentives to persuade Iran to roll back its nuclear program. But Tehran has negotiated by its own rules and kept its eyes constantly on a long-term prize: forcing the world to accept its nuclear ambitions.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, defiantly refused to compromise as a U.N. deadline for his country to stop enriching uranium arrived today saying Tehran would not be bullied into giving up its right to nuclear technology.

Today's International Atomic Energy Agency report said that after three years of inspections, the agency still has not been able to confirm "the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program" because of a lack of cooperation from Tehran.

Why this is Saddam Hussein all over again! Maybe Jimmy Carter would like to try his hand at negotiating with Ahmadinejad. The last time Carter negotiated with Iran, Iran was holding 52 American hostages. Iran held them for 444 days but when Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President of the United States suddenly Iran released all 52 hostages.

Then again maybe not Carter… and if the United Nations can’t do this deal what good are they?