Condi May Be Bush's Expediency Council - by Jim Lobe.htm (fwd)

[Clement Henry <cmhenry@mail.la.utexas.edu>]

Here is an interesting note that may be of interest to our Condi Rice in
the game--CH

           October 11, 2005
             Condi May Be Bush's Expediency Council

             by Jim Lobe
             Just as the theocratic leadership in Iran is trying to rein in the
aggressive nationalism of the new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, so Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice appears to be restraining aggressive nationalists in
Washington who want to escalate rising tensions with Iran and Syria.

             In just the last 10 days, Rice and her State Department have
reportedly not only opposed proposals to carry out military raids inside Syria
as a way of further weakening, and possibly overthrowing, its already
beleaguered President Bashar Assad, but they have also put forward a plan for
directly engaging Iran for the first time since May 2003.

             The latter move, which, according to the Wall Street Journal, also
includes setting up a small "interests section" in Tehran, came even as British
Prime Minister Tony Blair suggested that Iran was behind a series of bombings
by Shi'ite militias in southern Iraq that have killed half a dozen British
soldiers this year. Bush himself was also preparing to deliver a speech in
which he called both Iran and Syria "allies of convenience" of al-Qaeda and
"Islamic radicalism."