Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Bibi’s Dilemma — and Barack’s

“Bibi” Netanyahu was disgusted.

"My initial reaction is that Iran has gotten a freebie. It has got five weeks to continue enrichment without any limitation."

The Israeli prime minister was referring to Saturday’s meeting in Istanbul of the P5-plus-1 — the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany — with representatives from Iran.

Subject: Iran’s nuclear program. After a "constructive" meeting of one day, all agreed to meet again in Baghdad, May 23, and departed.

For Bibi, it was a strategic defeat.

For Israel’s goal is a halt to Iran’s enrichment of uranium and the removal of enriched uranium from that country.

But Catherine Ashton, the foreign minister for the European Union who is leading the P5-plus-1, stated that the West accepts Iran’s position that, as a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, she has a right to a peaceful nuclear program and nuclear power.

"Iran’s right to the peaceful use of nuclear power" must be fully respected, Ashton said. No one dissented.