Germany's conservatives attack Schroeder on Iran

Yahoo News:

Germany's conservative opposition said on Sunday Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's warnings against using military force to make Iran give up its nuclear program risked undermining international solidarity for electoral gain.

"The Chancellor is creating the fatal impression in Tehran that the world community is not united anymore," Wolfgang Schaeuble, senior foreign policy specialist of the opposition Christian Democrats told the daily Die Welt.

"In doing so, he is accepting the consequence that the danger of an Iranian atom bomb will grow," he said, according to an extract of an article from Monday's edition. READ MORE

Iran angered the European Union and the United States by resuming work at a uranium conversion plant last Monday, rejecting an EU incentives package offered in return for giving up its nuclear program.

Tehran says it aims only to produce electricity and denies Western accusations it is seeking a nuclear bomb.

Speaking on Saturday at a rally ahead of next month's general election, Schroeder rejected using force against Iran.

He was apparently responding to comments aired a few hours earlier from President Bush, who said military force remained a last resort to press Tehran to abandon its nuclear program.

Echoing his earlier opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq, Schroeder said: " … let's take the military option off the table. We have seen it doesn't work."

Schaeuble said Schroeder was exploiting the Iran issue to tap into Germany's deep-seated opposition to U.S. military action in Iraq ahead of the coming election.

"Schroeder is acting completely irresponsibly for electoral purposes. He's acting as though the problem were in Washington, rather than Tehran even though he knows that isn't so."

Schroeder's opposition to military action against Iraq in the run up to the 2003 war was seen as one of the main factors behind his unexpected victory in the 2002 election, when he accused the conservatives of toeing Washington's line.