US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice escalated US President George W. Bush administration’s anti-Iran rhetoric on Tuesday, accusing its government of pursuing nuclear weapons and calling any dialogue with its leaders pointless until they suspend the country’s enrichment of uranium.
While Rice’s message was familiar, the tone of her speech, before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), was unusually sharp, taking oblique aim at Senator Barack Obama and other Democratic leaders who have called for the US to engage Iran diplomatically.
“We would be willing to meet with them but not while they continue to inch toward nuclear weapons under the cover of talks,” she told the group, a pro-Israel lobby.
“The real question isn’t why won’t the Bush administration talk to Iran. The real question is why won’t Iran talk to us,” she said.
Rice stopped short of calling for consideration of military strikes against suspected Iranian nuclear targets, as some national security conservatives in US Vice President Dick Cheney’s office have advised.
But, in a pointed nod to her pro-Israel audience, Rice called on US allies in Europe to look for ways to further press the Iranian government.
“For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” she said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, on the other hand, put all options on the table.
“The Iranian threat must be stopped by all possible means. International economic and political sanctions on Iran, as crucial as they may be, are only an initial step, and must be dramatically increased,” he said on Tuesday evening, speaking to the same group.
“The international community has a duty and responsibility to clarify to Iran, through drastic measures, that the repercussions of their continued pursuit of nuclear weapons will be devastating,” he said.
“Israel will not tolerate the possibility of a nuclear Iran, and neither should any other country in the free world,” he said, in the strongest remarks the Israeli leader has made on the issue
Olmert was scheduled to meet with Bush at the White House yesterday. The Iranian issue was to figure prominently in Olmert’s talks with US officials, Israeli news media said.
Israel and the US claim that the Islamic republic is using its civilian nuclear program as a front to conceal development of atomic weapons technology, a claim vehemently denied by Tehran.
The issue of opening high-level diplomatic talks with Iran has come under the spotlight this political season, and that has played out at AIPAC’s 2008 policy conference in Washington.
On Monday, Senator John McCain allied himself firmly with the Bush administration and charged that Obama’s calls for diplomacy with Iran were misguided and insufficient.
And on Tuesday, Howard Friedman, AIPAC’s president, used his introduction of Rice to implore her “to use your remaining time in office to ensure that Iran does not get a nuclear weapon.”
Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton were scheduled to address AIPAC yesterday.
Rice’s speech was also notable for what it did not contain.
She did not say that the Israeli-Palestinian peace deal that the Bush administration has been pursuing could be achieved by the end of the year.
“We still believe that we have a chance to reach an agreement on the basic contours of a peaceful Palestinian state,” Rice said. “But if we can pursue this goal by the end of the year, it will be an historic breakthrough.”
The difference seems small, but in the past Bush and Rice have both spoken of sealing a deal by the end of the year, rather than simply pursuing one.
Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told the Israeli parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday that it was important to keep the threat of a military option on the table for stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
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