Unpalatable Rice
Condi Rice got herself booked on Today with Matt Lauer. She said "The Iranians need to face an unpalatable choice."
My last post about Condi bemoaned the lack of diplomacy on Iran from Rice. Nothing has changed. Rice is playing lip service to negotiation, and engaging in demonization of Iran. Rice says, "We've offered a pathway of negotiations", if the Iranians acceed to all our demands first, of course. That is not much of a negotiation. Then we get, "the international community needs ... to get tough, to give the diplomacy some teeth." Then we have this gem:
LAUER: ... do you expect the Israelis to sit by and wait for more U.S. sanctions to take hold against Iran or do you expect them to use their military option inside Iran?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, the very fact that we're asking that question shows the instability that would arise in the Middle East if Iran doesn't face consequences for its continued defiance of the international community.
Isn't she brilliant to just leave the threat of Israeli military action hanging there? Did she ever consider the instability that would arise in the Middle East from that non-answer? Did she say that Israel would face consequences for yet again attacking another Middle East country? Is she aware that some countries consider that the concept of facing consequences for continued defiance of the international community applies in spades to the United States? Especially when the defiance has had an enormously destabilizing effect on the Middle East? Even the most junior foreign service officer in Foggy Bottom can see these problems with her reply.
Further evidence of her incompetence is her attempt to spin Russia's Iran policy as supporting us. Rice says "Now the issue is we may have some tactical differences about timing, about how severe sanctions should be. " Newsweek quotes Putin as saying "Threats against Iran [are] harmful for international relations because dialogue with states ... is always more promising. It is a shorter route toward success than a policy of threats, sanctions and, even less so, armed pressure." Clearly we are looking at policy difference, not a tactical difference.
My last post about Condi bemoaned the lack of diplomacy on Iran from Rice. Nothing has changed. Rice is playing lip service to negotiation, and engaging in demonization of Iran. Rice says, "We've offered a pathway of negotiations", if the Iranians acceed to all our demands first, of course. That is not much of a negotiation. Then we get, "the international community needs ... to get tough, to give the diplomacy some teeth." Then we have this gem:
LAUER: ... do you expect the Israelis to sit by and wait for more U.S. sanctions to take hold against Iran or do you expect them to use their military option inside Iran?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, the very fact that we're asking that question shows the instability that would arise in the Middle East if Iran doesn't face consequences for its continued defiance of the international community.
Isn't she brilliant to just leave the threat of Israeli military action hanging there? Did she ever consider the instability that would arise in the Middle East from that non-answer? Did she say that Israel would face consequences for yet again attacking another Middle East country? Is she aware that some countries consider that the concept of facing consequences for continued defiance of the international community applies in spades to the United States? Especially when the defiance has had an enormously destabilizing effect on the Middle East? Even the most junior foreign service officer in Foggy Bottom can see these problems with her reply.
Further evidence of her incompetence is her attempt to spin Russia's Iran policy as supporting us. Rice says "Now the issue is we may have some tactical differences about timing, about how severe sanctions should be. " Newsweek quotes Putin as saying "Threats against Iran [are] harmful for international relations because dialogue with states ... is always more promising. It is a shorter route toward success than a policy of threats, sanctions and, even less so, armed pressure." Clearly we are looking at policy difference, not a tactical difference.
posted by Tommy Times at 7:15 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home