Staying the course

The United States has rebuffed pleas to join a European diplomatic drive to persuade Iran to give up any ambitions to add nuclear bombs to its arsenal, U.S. officials and foreign diplomats say.

For months, Britain, France and Germany have hoped to improve their bargaining power with the Islamic republic by involving Washington in a proposed accord over an end to its uranium enrichment activities.

That effort has intensified since President Bush's re-election in November, culminating last week with ministerial visits to Condoleezza Rice days before she took up her new post as secretary of state, they said.

So far, the Americans show no sign of giving ground.

[...]

The United States takes a harder line than the Europeans and wants Iran, which Bush grouped in an "axis of evil" with pre-war Iraq and North Korea, to be reported to the U.N. Security Council for possible international sanctions.

[...]

The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog on Friday urged the United States to look to join the talks.

The United States has mixed tough talk with a few modest hints that diplomacy may yet work, but few analysts see any fundamental change in Bush administration policy.

"The administration is pleased with its policy and sees no reason to change," said Patrick Clawson, an Iran expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which has close ties to Iran's arch-foe Israel.

The stance was a "gamble" that Iran's hard-line rulers would be overthrown before they acquired a bomb, he said.

On Sunday, Rice told CBS' Face the Nation: "We really do believe ... that this is something that can be dealt with diplomatically. What is needed is unity of purpose, unity of message to the Iranians, that we will not allow them to skirt their international obligations and develop nuclear weapons under cover of civilian nuclear power."
  Yahoo News article

See how that works? We say we believe in diplomacy. She must be talking about that "transitional diplomacy" she mentioned in her confirmation hearings. I didn't understand what that meant. It obviously doesn't mean that we are going to join in diplomatic negotiations. It seems our "message to the Iranians" is going to be delivered on the backs of bombs. Maybe "transitional diplomacy" is what other countries do while we are preparing the ground for invasion.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.