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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| United States and Europe Differ Over Strategy on Iran |
| 2005-01-28 |
| President Bush's second term has barely begun, and Iran is already shaping up as its most serious diplomatic challenge. But conflicting pronouncements by Mr. Bush and his national security team have left Iran frustrated and angry about the direction of American policy, and the Europeans more determined than ever to push Washington to embrace their engagement strategy. It's called strategic ambiguity. To the outside world, the administration seems divided over whether to promote the overthrow of Iran's Islamic Republic - perhaps by force - or to tacitly support the approach embraced by the Europeans, which favors negotiations and a series of incentives that would ultimately require American participation. "You need to get everybody to read from the same page, the Europeans and the Americans," said Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in an interview in Davos on Friday. "This is not a process that is going to be solved by the Europeans alone," he added. "The United States needs to be engaged. If you continue to say they are going to fail before you give them a chance, it will be a self-fulfilling policy." France's foreign minister, Michel Barnier, echoed those remarks in an interview in Paris on Friday. "I cannot explain American policy to you," he said. "That would be French arrogance and I am not someone who is arrogant. But I think that the Americans must get used to the fact that Europe is going to act. And in this case, without the United States we run the risk of failure." Psst: This is Euro-speak for "we are writing checks to Iranian Mullahs we can't back up without the US." |
| Posted by:Duke Nukem |