If there is one thing you can count on, it is that Europe is 100% weak and impotent when faced with existential threats. WW II only happened because Europe failed to nip the Nazi threat in the bud. With Iran, Europe behaves in exactly the way one would expect, reluctantly imposing an ultimatum and then begging the aggressor to create some blatantly duplicitous facade of compliance that Europe could then point to as a rationale to do nothing.

The European Union said Friday it was too early to impose sanctions on Iran for its failure to halt uranium-enrichment by a U.N.-imposed deadline.

Yes, it is too early. Iran has only hidden its nuclear program for decades and only strung along the "international community" with delays and treaty violations for years. Only a unilateral cowboy would want to impose sanctions after mere years of deceit.

"For the EU, diplomacy remains the No. 1 way forward," said Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, whose country holds the EU presidency.

Because diplomacy has worked so well for the EU so far with Iran, not to mention stopping genocide in Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Iran has crossed every single line drawn in its path with no consequences whatsoever. What idiot in the EU thinks that Iran feels any need to comply with the UN or any credible threat of negative ramifications of its intransigence.

He said "this is not the time or place" for the international community to hit Iran with sanctions.

He's right that the UN is not the right place for sanctions, as Saddam Hussein so capably demonstrated. As for the right time, if the EU does not push for sanctions now, after Iran clearly snubbed its nose at the August 31 deadline, then there is no reason to think it has any semblance of a spine to do it ever.

"We are still, all of us, wanting to engage Iran seriously," he said at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Finland.

Keep on waiting, Erkki, because that is exactly Iran's plan. They've kept everyone waiting for years and will continue to do so, until they have a bomb and then there will be nothing that can be done. It's amazing that people with the peanut-sized intellect of Erkki Tuomioja can have such an important role to play in such vital matters of global security.

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