Would you like some tactical nuclear warheads with your supersized order of reactors, sir?

From tomorrow's New York Times, this leaves me almost dumbstruck:

Europe will resist an American effort to bring the suspected Iranian development of nuclear weapons before the United Nations Security Council, hoping to lure Iran into compliance with negotiations and incentives, European officials said Tuesday.

The stand was a rebuff to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who met in Brussels with European foreign ministers and sought a forceful response to a United Nations report that Mr. Powell said proved Iran was defying its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Later, he flew here to London to join President Bush.

The Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency is scheduled to take up a resolution this week by France, Germany and Britain that seeks to compel Iran to halt the enrichment and reprocessing of uranium and holds out the lure of future cooperation, including sharing nuclear technology for civilian use.

(Boldface by BeldarBlog.)  At best this is pernicious stupidity.  But it's genuinely hard to believe anyone is that stupid, and the alternative explanation is knowing wickedness.

I would very much like to see each Democratic presidential candidate asked the following yes/no question:   "Do you support the notion of 'sharing nuclear technology for civilian use' with Iran?"