Susan Rice, who was assistant secretary of state for African affairs, in the Clinton administration weighs in on the Bush administration’s (lack of) Iran policy.
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posted 7:44 PM
Has President Bush quietly concluded that the United States can live with a nuclear-armed Iran? If this seems preposterous, recall the president's words at his year-end news conference. Asked about U.S. policy toward Iran, he said: "We're relying upon others, because we've sanctioned ourselves out of influence with Iran . . . in other words, we don't have much leverage with the Iranians right now.”It’s good to have another foreign policy expert weigh in on the Bush administration’s feckless Iran policy. This op-ed though doesn’t suggest anything particularly innovative or new. But what strikes me is that Rice mentions Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism as well as what the U.S. might offer Iran in return for becoming a “good” actor. Yet this again is another article that seems to have missed what I only recently discovered – Iran’s purported grand bargain offering to do just what Rice proposes in return for normalized relations with the U.S. According to the Financial Times, that offer was rebuffed due to internal disagreements in the White House. Perhaps the answer to Rice’s question “Has President Bush quietly concluded that the United States can live with a nuclear-armed Iran?” is a loud “yes.”
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In response to one of the most urgent threats to the United States, Bush has subcontracted American security to the Europeans. Last week the president confirmed this as his approach, arguing that the United States has no choice. "We've sanctioned ourselves out of influence," the president said, almost echoing Vice President Cheney, who as chief executive of Halliburton pressed for lifting U.S. sanctions against Iran.
Britain, France and Germany recently negotiated a fragile, temporary suspension of Iran's uranium enrichment activities. Some U.S. officials have trashed the E.U. effort as toothless and certain to fail. Others hail it as the cornerstone of the U.S. approach. The logic of this contradiction is that the president expects the Europeans to fail but refuses to help them succeed or to offer an option of his own.
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