Posted on 04/22/2007 8:02:51 PM PDT by freedomdefender
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Iran to take part in a meeting on Iraq next month, telling the Financial Times it would be a "missed opportunity" if Tehran failed to attend.
In an interview published in Monday's edition of the newspaper, Rice also denied the Iran policy of President George W. Bush's administration had been directed at "regime change".
Egypt will host the high-level meeting of a group of countries that includes Syria, Turkey and the United States in the first week of May to discuss how to stop the violence in Iraq. The conference is a follow-up to one in Baghdad in March.
Iran has not yet decided whether Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki will participate.
"It will be a missed opportunity if he doesn't, but obviously it's up to the Iranian government," Rice told the Financial Times.
As for Syria, another of Iraq's neighbours, the secretary of state said: "We have diplomatic relations with Syria. And it is not a matter of having an allergy to talking to certain states.
"But we have the neighbours' conference coming up. We'll have a chance to, in a sense, test the proposition that Iraq's neighbours have more to lose from an unstable Iraq than to gain from it."
Rice also rejected the idea that Washington sought a change of government in Iran.
"It (regime change) was not the policy of the U.S. government. The policy was to have a change in regime behaviour," she said.
"It is very clear in the package of proposals that were put forward would open up some possibilities of economic and political dialogue, even advantage. We removed our WTO (World Trade Organisation) objection so that Iran could apply for WTO membership. I think (America's stance) is perfectly clear."
Her comments were published after an Iranian official said on Sunday the United States was showing signs of softening its attitude towards Iran.
Is that Condi Rice - or James Baker - talking?
Looks like it wasn’t a slip of the tongue when Olmert said diplomacy is the way to go, re. Iran. Rice seems to be taking that path - and she doesn’t do anything without Bush’s approval.
Then they've both lost their minds.
WTH is Rice thinking?
incoherent
weak
pathetic
if you were to ask me anymore: what do bush and condi stand for?
i swear to god on earth i could not answer you
no wonder libs think they’re morons
The money quote... distinction without a difference. I love her diplo-speak.
"We'll have a chance to, in a sense, test the proposition that Iraq's neighbours have more to lose from an unstable Iraq than to gain from it."
Another money quote, i.e., that's where we'll tell you exactly how much more you will have to lose if you keep this up.
...Iranian official said on Sunday the United States was showing signs of softening its attitude towards Iran.
Yep, that's what Saddam was thinking and saying before... big oops...
They actually stand for doing the smart thing: letting the enemy, in this case, the Persian, take the first overt hostile act.
Because of our inept, Inspector Clouseau-ridden CIA, we have virtually zero credibiilty when it comes to WMD claims in Iran. So, we have to engage the Iranians in a fashion which provokes them to cross the Rubicon.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
Don't think so. We never invited Saddam to sit down and talk. We never outwardly softened our stance toward him prior to the invasion.
Things are never identical in things like this, just very similar.
WTF knows anymore.
Rice is carrying out the President's policy. They are close friends. She would do no other, and would do nothing to betray his trust. Conservatives and assorted a**tards over at The American Spectator and National Review Online do not have this basic understanding of reality.
They might as well be posting grabastic screeds at Daily Kos.
Condi fully understands that the Iranian leadership wants and needs war. She also understands that we have limited diplomatic maneuvering room due to the failure of George Tenet's Clown Car Agency to find the WMD in Iraq (he's about to publish a Poison Pen Memoir blaming everyone else but him for this fiasco, btw).
As a consequence, the Iranian Fascists are feeling their oats. That is good. They will attack first. Like Hitler and Goering after Pearl Harbor, they believe that we have no fight left in us That is also good. They have no understanding of what can be done to them.
They must make the first overt hostile move, and they will. This is a scorpion and frog moment. We would rather not have a conflict with Iran. Rice's preferred solution is diplomacy, but the Iranian diplomatic objective is to create a Persian condominium over the entire Persian Gulf area based on possession of the atomic bomb. This cannot and will not be allowed to happen. Her greatest ally in her diplomacy is Ahmadhi-Nejad himself and his coterie of ambitious Revolutionary Guards Corps Officers, who can be counted on to overreach. It is not in the nature of George W. Bush to leave this kind of problem to his successor.
He is not Bill Clinton, and she is not Madeleine Albright. Thanks be to God.
Here’s hoping you got the stratergy on Iran correct...looks like a hot summer and not due to Globull Whining.
The real job of Condi is (and should be) done behind the scenes, not like Madeleine just running her mouth on TV in absence of real progress or actions. That's a good sign... Also she has to fend off that pest Waxman and his comrades from the Fifth Column.
Thanks for the reality jolt, I have to admit you do make a point, it is too easy to be a nattering bob of negativity....
I have also been a proponent of The Iraq Plan, flawed as it may be. Iraq, was and is the mission. Introduce ourselves, kill bad guys, stabilize the region and make friends. I think the mission was and still is the best course. Iran”s mullahs will try, are trying to start a war and without one will not be able to hold power.
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