Bush seen resisting calls to toughen Iran policy

[Up2Late]

(Although I like the premise of this article, I don't know if Reuters should be taking these kinds of shots at *, it just might provoke him into war.)

Bush seen resisting calls to toughen Iran policy

Tue Jan 31, 2006 01:09 AM ET

By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Despite his push for democracy in the Middle East, President George W. Bush is not expected to involve the United States in pressing more vigorously for political change in Iran, according to Republicans who have been urging a stronger approach. Bush will offer words of support to Iranians who want greater freedom in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, even as U.S. diplomats argue for sanctions against the Islamic republic because of its nuclear program.

But Republicans advocating a more muscular policy toward Iran said they expect no new initiatives, such as boosting funding for pro-democracy and civil society groups in Iran, in Bush's speech. "This is a policy that has a future and always will, and never a present" because it is hard to do and requires "the kind of imagination that isn't there" among U.S. officials, said Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy at the American Enterprise Institute.

Officials and experts, including many Bush allies like Pletka, have been quietly debating whether the United States should actively encourage political change in Iran. But the debate has become more public since Iranian President Mohammad Ahmadinejad was elected last year and openly espoused a more anti-western attitude. He has called for Israel be wiped out and defied the United States and Europe in pursuing nuclear activities that the West says is aimed at developing a bomb and Tehran says is only for energy.

In addition to Pletka and Reuel Marc Gerecht, an AEI Middle East expert, others arguing openly for "regime change" in Iran include Robert Kagan and William Kristol, leading pro-Bush neoconservatives who helped lay the intellectual ground for the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

(more at link below)

<http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=11031109&src=rss/topNews>

[maddezmom]

1. duplicate

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2075652