Ohh, look- the Beeb say Iranians are all unified behind the Mullahs.

Despite the fact that they must know better, they can't resist this temptation towards 'balance', as they call it. They also can't resist saying things like this:

'The BBC's Frances Harrison in Tehran says those in power want to show they have genuine popular support, and make it far more difficult for the Americans to topple the regime.'

Which is the Beeb's way of calling a spade a spade. Didn't hear about it in Condi's speech recently, though. The Beeb knows even better than the French not to believe the words of a neo-Con.

Paul Reynolds has an article about neo-Condi- where I agree with him that Condi has not changed her position in terms of substance. However, after the successful elections in Iraq, I find it hard to credit that Reynolds thinks that

'The French and Germans have no intention of joining in the Iraq adventure and reckon that the US is now paying the price of a wrong decision.

So they do not feel the need to rub American faces in it.'

This is the sort of casual language Reynolds uses when he wants to pull a fast one. It's not as if Bush didn't scupper all their hopes when he got reelected. It's not as if the election success didn't pull a rug from under the Iraq war critics. Their position, as Steyn has argued cogently, is dribbling away. The only question now is what their exit strategy will be: the attentive audiences for Condi suggested that Europeans in fact know the game is up. They've been contradicted by the stained finger. So has Zarqawi. The game's up- but let's not rub their faces in it.