Asia Times: The day the US took a beating over Iran
WASHINGTON - Despite claims that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has regained the diplomatic initiative from Iran with a conditional offer to join multilateral talks with Tehran, the real story behind the policy shift is that the US administration has suffered a decisive defeat of its effort to get international sanctions for possible military action against Iran.
US officials and French and British diplomats have sought to obscure the failure to get the agreement of Russia and China to a hardline United Nations Security Council resolution making Iranian compliance mandatory if it refused to suspend its uranium-enrichment activities.
Nevertheless, details of the proposal finally given to Iran and Russia's subsequent statement both confirm that the US administration has had to accept a package without the threat of Security Council action it had counted on.
Posted by: 3dc 2006-06-12 |