Appeasing Iran
The Gathering Storm, July 22, 2008
July 22, 2008
In a disappointing and abrupt reversal of policy, the Bush Administration dispatched Undersecretary of State William Burns to join envoys from France, Britain, Germany, Russia, and China, to meet with Saeed Jalili, Iran's nuclear negotiator in Geneva.
The decision marks a departure from the long-held and sensible Bush Administration policy that any direct discussion with Tehran would occur only if Iran suspended its uranium enrichment activities. Not to mention the fact that this new position is the same as the one presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has established and has been widely criticized for.
As AEI scholar Michael Rubin points out in a Wall Street Journal piece, in May 31, 2006, Secretary of State Rice Condoleezza Rice articulated this policy, "The Iranian government's choices are clear," she said. "The negative choice is for the regime to maintain its current course. . . . If the regime does so, it will incur only great costs.....As soon as Iran fully and verifiably suspends its enrichment and reprocessing activities, the United States will come to the table with our EU-3 colleagues and meet with Iran's representatives."
And now, just two years later, despite Iran's continued defiance including the installation of 3,000 centrifuges in a facility designed for 50,000 and the testing of missiles powerful enough to reach Israel, the Bush Administration decided to attend the meeting hosted by Javier Solana, the European Union's diplomatic chief. "It is, in fact, a strong signal to the entire world that we have been very serious about this diplomacy and we will remain very serious about this diplomacy," Rice said.
The meeting was described as unproductive and resulted in a new two-week deadline for the Iranians. " Iran has a choice to make: negotiation or further isolation," said U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack." [Italics added for emphasis.]
The choice, however, should not be between negotiation and isolation. Iran is killing American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, fueling problems in Lebanon and Israel, proceeding full-speed ahead with their nuclear and missile development programs, stoking record-high oil prices with the help of Hugo Chavez, and issuing threats to Israel and the U.S.
Writing in The Weekly Standard, Stephen Hayes, describes this disappointing change in position this way.
Two weeks before the Bush administration announced it would be crossing the final red line in diplomacy with Iran, and sending a senior U.S. official for direct meetings with a terrorist-friendly regime, Mahmoud Ahmad-inejad predicted that the United States would acquiesce. "They know that they cannot use the language of force against Iran," he said, "and must bend in the face of the will of the Iranian people."
And bend they did.
