President Bush
Last week Mr. Bush arrived in Slovenia at the start of a European tour which would take him to Berlin, Rome, Paris, London and Belfast, Northern Ireland.
A summit meeting with European Union leaders here was part of an effort to persuade them to adopt a stronger line toward Iran, to prevent it from developing nuclear energy. At a news conference after the summit meeting, Mr. Bush said: “The free world is going to say, 'Why didn't we do something about it before they developed it?' And so now is the time for strong diplomacy.”
Ironically, the rhetoric of strong diplomacy of the president is far away from reality.
To discuss an incentive package first offered in 2006 by the United States and other major powers, Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, is scheduled to visit Tehran later this month. And the United States is the only major power not sending a diplomat with Mr. Solana. Speaking for assertive diplomacy without engaging in it is not diplomacy at all.
There is no denying that Iran's nuclear issue is a serious concern for the whole world.
No matter how much he tries to persuade world leaders into accepting peaceful uranium enrichment by Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will not be trusted. In course of time, his ardour would fade away by his failure to attract sympathy from world leaders. Then, like North Korea, Iran could have been tamed as well. On the contrary, it is being provoked by a brazen military threat by Israel. When Shaul Mofaz, Israel's transportation minister, declared that an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites looks “unavoidable”, prospects of peace looked bleak too.
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