Iran bars senior IAEA inspector
Reading the news these days is like having front row seats to a game of toss the hand grenade.
The Iranian diplomat quoted by IRNA said the inspector gave confidential information to "inappropriate countries and their media.""Iran's cooperation with the IAEA will continue in the framework of the NPT ..., which means inspections and supervisions will continue," IRNA quoted the diplomat as saying.
Of course, this inconvenient fact will be buried beneath hysteria on tonight's talk shows.
Asked about the report, Alisasghar Soltanieh, Iran's IAEA ambassador, told Reuters: "It means we expect Charlier will not have anything to do with Iran any more. There are plenty of impartial experts in the IAEA secretariat to do the job."
IRNA's diplomat also said there would be no place for inspectors from countries behind measures against "Iran's peaceful nuclear activities." He appeared to be referring to Britain, France and Germany, which authored the U.N. sanctions.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei appealed to Iran and the West to declare a "timeout."
He told invited journalists that face-saving gestures of goodwill, not preconditions for talks set by the council, were needed to stave off conflict that could inflame the Middle East.
"(A) military solution ... is absolutely bonkers. It would only strengthen the hand of (Iranian) hardliners. They would simply go underground. If you have the knowledge (to enrich), you cannot bomb the knowledge."
Leave it to Bush to try.
