Behind the smiles

The Times (UK):

The issue that concerned many EU leaders before Dr Rice’s arrival is how Washington intends to proceed towards Iran. To those given to selective interpretation, a US army march on Tehran is now inevitable. ...

[But President Bush] said firmly: “We are working with European allies to make clear to the Iranian regime that it must give up its uranium enrichment programme and any plutonium reprocessing, and end its support for terror.” This is hardly unilateralism.

It is that approach which Dr Rice reaffirmed yesterday. She argued flatly that military intervention in Iran was “simply not on the agenda”. She made it clear that the Bush Administration is willing to back the present efforts by Britain, France and Germany to persuade Iran to pull back from its nuclear ambitions and hoped that these will succeed. The White House and the State Department will, quite properly, want to be assured that the EU three has acquired cast-iron commitments from an unpredictable Iranian government. ...

It is, though, nonsense to suggest that the US is about to launch a war and unfair to pretend that it is not in dialogue with EU political leaders. Whether listening works both ways is another matter. ...