I'm pretty sure it's self inflicted...what is EU designed to replace the eurocanards?
I'm not suggesting you said we cannot build them, I was just elaborating on your remark.
You did however imply that there is already a need to replace the Eurocanards, I strongly disagree, there is no more need for a Eurocanard replacement then there is need for a F22 (or even F35) replacement.
Your remark about a day 1 weapon is somewhat of a false dichotomy remark, it suggests that there is only 1 way/weapon-type to achieve a successful first day war scenario.
different type of adversaries demand different type of capabilities, lot's of possible adversaries don't need stealthy weapons (MALI/Afghanistan type wars.
Wars against more potent adversaries (for the sake of argument let's say the likes of IRAN or the old IRAQ) can be fought in day 1 with other weapons like UCAV, Tomahawk, Scalp or ,like already specified by US military, better long range (stand off) weapons.
Real large scale wars (think China) will need much more than just a limited amount of difficult to maintain and operate stealth aircraft like the likes of F35 are, numbers will be important and the JSF doesn't have them.
I think that every single manned aircraft stealth program so far has delivered too little because it is too complex and therefore not attainable in sufficient numbers ,F117 (already retired), B2 , F22 and now it seems also the F35.
It seems to be a good thing for small and fairly light UAV's but anything more than that is too much of a compromise for the platform as a whole.