Ya estamos: Alemania y Francia

En este artículo de Olivier Guitta se pueden leer cosas interesantes como estas:

Especially when two of them -France and Germany- happen to be the two largest trade partners of Iran. In light of this, if no deal is brokered, then France and Germany are going to be very reluctant to send the issue to the United Nations Security Council because of the ensuing risk of losing juicy contracts with the mullahs’ regime. Mrs Palacio agreed with that assertion and added: “knowing the Iranians and other data, I am not honestly optimistic on reaching a deal.” She nonetheless said: “we should give it a chance” just only because of the new consensus between the EU-3 and the USA.

It looks like Iran and the EU-3 agree on one thing though: make the negotiations last as long as possible. For Iran, it is a way to avoid a heads-on confrontation with Washington; and for Europe it postpones almost indefinitely any UN Security Council involvement.

Second, because of the enormous commercial interests at stake, the EU- 3 cannot be viewed as an honest broker. And the young Iranians who were demonstrating on March 15 and burnt the French flag, knew that quite well. France and Germany are considered very good friends of the regime. And rightly so.

As in Iraq before Saddam Hussein’s fall, Germany and France happen to be the two largest suppliers of goods to Iran: according to the CIA World Factbook, in 2003, Germany is first, supplying 11% of Iran’s imports, France second with 8.6 %. Indeed France’s investments alone amount to a staggering $35 Billion, not including the very expensive oil and gas ventures. Also, recently the French Ambassador to Iran, Francois Nicoullaud, boasted about the ever- increasing presence of French companies in Iran. Additionnally, these two countries provide 100% of Iranian imports of industrial machines and equipment. The Iranian market is all the more important for Germany and France today because they have lost their lucrative contracts in Iraq.
But keep in mind that even if the EU-3 accepted going to the United Nations Security Council, China and Russia would most probably veto any resolutions punishing Iran - for the same reason: China is the third largest exporter to Iran, and Russia the seventh.


Time is running out and Iran is getting closer by the day to getting the Bomb. The diplomatic option is dead in the water. According to many military experts, the military option is not looking too good either, because of bad intelligence assets on the grounds, dispersed underground sites and potential disastrous repercussions. Two recently formed Washington DC think tanks, the Iran Freedom Foundation and the Iran Policy Committee (IPC), are advocating a third solution: regime change initiated by Iranians. At a recent AIPAC conference, Defense expert Richard Perle advocated a mix of tough economic and diplomatic sanctions combined with help to dissidents. This looks like the only realistic option to solve this thorny, dangerous and most pressing issue.