After the Oil for Palaces scandal, reading articles like this lead me to just one question. Who has Tehran bought in the FRG government?
Germany, Russia's key ally in Europe, threw its weight behind Moscow's call, saying Iran's talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency watchdog and European negotiators were key to ending the stand-off."The Iran negotiations are not yet a topic for the Security Council, rather the negotiations should be revived," said Wolfgang Gerhardt, Germany's most likely next foreign minister after the September 18 election.
Is it honest opinion, or is it paid for by bribes under the table? This, ultimately, is the cost of the international community's acceptance of Saddam's dirty money. Saddam has really narrowed the space that the social democrat left has to differentiate themselves from the center-right as well as the EU to differentiate itself from the US.
Any significant internal dissension in the West will, for the near future at least, raise questions about its sincerity. The worst is yet to come. The vast center has not heard all the details of how corrupt the international political scene became and the dots have not been linked in a way that makes it perfectly clear. What Baghdad did, Tehran could do and might, in fact, be doing right now.
Posted by TMLutas at September 5, 2005 04:15 PM