NYT: Iran Strategy Stirs Debate at White House (Rice vs. Cheney)

[babylonsister]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/16/washington/16diplo.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=todayspaper&adxnnlx=1182002853-2VMvZ51GStx/mBqWshNt3A

Iran Strategy Stirs Debate at White House


By HELENE COOPER and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: June 16, 2007

WASHINGTON, June 15 — A year after President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced a new strategy toward Iran, a behind-the-scenes debate has broken out within the administration over whether the approach has any hope of reining in Iran’s nuclear program, according to senior administration officials.

The debate has pitted Ms. Rice and her deputies, who appear to be winning so far, against the few remaining hawks inside the administration, especially those in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office who, according to some people familiar with the discussions, are pressing for greater consideration of military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities.

In the year since Ms. Rice announced the new strategy for the United States to join forces with Europe, Russia and China to press Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities, Iran has installed more than a thousand centrifuges to enrich uranium. The International Atomic Energy Agency predicts that 8,000 or so could be spinning by the end of the year, if Iran surmounts its technical problems.

Those hard numbers are at the core of the debate within the administration over whether Mr. Bush should warn Iran’s leaders that he will not allow them to get beyond some yet-undefined milestones, leaving the implication that a military strike on the country’s facilities is still an option.

Even beyond its nuclear program, Iran is emerging as an increasing source of trouble for the Bush administration by inflaming the insurgencies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and in Gaza, where it has provided military and financial support to the militant Islamic group Hamas, which now controls the Gaza Strip.

Even so, friends and associates of Ms. Rice who have talked with her recently say she has increasingly moved toward the European position that the diplomatic path she has laid out is the only real option for Mr. Bush, even though it has so far failed to deter Iran from enriching uranium, and that a military strike would be disastrous.

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[whistle]

1. What new diplomatic strategy toward Iran did Condi Rice announce one year ago?

...I've only heard and seen military style talks and saber rattling by all of the Bushkovites including Condi Rice that keep inching America ever closer to war with Iran.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. So Condi thinks an Iran strike would be disastrous.

When did that kind of argument deter this crowd from doing anything? In fact, it sounds like an argument in favor of an Iran attack, as in, "We need something really disastrous to get people's minds off the collapse of our policies in Iraq."