Wish I'd seen this article *last* week

...before I finished writing out this paper. It was sorta the point I tried to make, but I wound up babbling for two and a half pages where Krauthammer gets the point across in two sentences. Sigh. Charles Krauthammer - Britains Humiliation -- and Europes - washingtonpost.com

Why was nothing done? The reason is simple. Europe functions quite well as a free-trade zone, but as a political entity it is a farce. It remains a collection of sovereign countries with divergent interests. A freeze of economic relations with Europe would have shaken the Iranian economy to the core. "The Dutch," reported the Times of London, "said it was important not to risk a breakdown in dialogue." So much for European solidarity. Like other vaunted transnational institutions, the European Union is useless as a player in the international arena. Not because its members are venal but because they are sovereign. Their interests are simply not identical.