Iran and Diplomacy

From The Opinion Journal

How the negotiating strategy is working so far.

"For two years now, the Bush Administration has willingly taken a back seat to European diplomacy to induce Iran to abandon its nuclear-weapons program. In the last few weeks, the world has been able to see what this non-cowboy strategy has achieved:

• Iran's new president has called for "a wave of Islamic revolution."

• Last week, Iranian police opened fire on a peaceful demonstration of Iranian Kurds in the city of Mahabad, reportedly killing four of the protestors.

• On the nuclear issue, denouncing The EU's offer, Tehran has resumed an early-stage uranium enrichment process at its nuclear site in Isfahan.

Recently, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Hosein Musavian, said on Iranian TV: "Thanks to the negotiations with Europe, we gained another year, in which we completed" Isfahan. Iran suspended enrichment "in Isfahan in October 2004, although we were required to do so in October 2003. . . . Today we are in a position of power. We have a stockpile of products, and during this period we have managed to convert 36 tons of yellowcake into gas and store it."

The Iranians themselves are now admitting that all of this is no happenstance but is a calculated effort to exploit what the mullahs perceive to be American weakness and Europe's lack of will.

And why shouldn't the mullahs believe this, given Europe's reaction to President Bush's routine recent comments that "all options are on the table" regarding Iran's nuclear ambitions? German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, facing an uphill election campaign, seized on the remark as an opportunity to repudiate even the possibility of using force. "We have seen it doesn't work," he declared, in a reference to Iraq. (Saddam Hussein might argue from his holding cell that it does.)"

See the entire commentary here.