Friday, June 09, 2006
Bush to Iran: "We're coming." Maybe.
In today's news:
President George W. Bush said on Friday that Iran has "weeks not months" to respond to a U.S.-backed offer aimed at containing Iran's nuclear ambitions and said Tehran needs to suspend uranium enrichment."Weeks, not months" is, of course, the same bully-boy language that preceded the actual invasion of Iraq. Just one catch for Bush. With this quote, he commits himself (sort of) to "action taken in the U.N. Security Council." Which was, as we'll remember, the same "commitment" made before the invasion of Iraq, until that commitment was rescinded when it became clear that the U.N. Security Council wasn't going to vote his way. In the case of Iran, the U.S. is slightly more likely to get agreement from the U.N., but less likely to get world approval if it chooses to proceed without that agreement.
At a joint news conference with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Bush said that if Iran does not suspend enrichment, "there must be a consequence."
"We've given the Iranians a limited period of time -- you know, weeks not months -- to digest a proposal to move forward. And if they choose not to verifiably suspend their program, then there will be action taken in the U.N. Security Council," Bush said.
Real threat or braggadocio? You make the call.
