Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
16 December 09
It may well be that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has given the signal for the new phase of U.S. policy toward Iran. On December 14, she said that the engagement policy with Tehran hadn’t worked and now it needs to press for additional sanctions.
Either this is her attempt to lobby for a tougher line against other administration officials or it's the long-awaited start of the sanctions made necessary by the looming of the administration’s own end-of-the-year deadline to get a deal with Iran or impose more sanctions.
Trying to negotiate, she said, has "produced very little" so "additional pressure is going to be called for."
Her phrasing was interesting, almost as if she was taking a poke at rivals in the administration who are reluctant to take action. "I don't think anyone can doubt that our outreach has produced very little in terms of any kind of a positive response from the Iranians," Clinton said, as if daring someone in the White House to disagree?
So what is the administration going to do? Try to get the UN and EU to support more sanctions. Here the administration likes to claim that its popularity and patient (arguably too patient) coalition-building will bring broad support.
Either this is her attempt to lobby for a tougher line against other administration officials or it's the long-awaited start of the sanctions made necessary by the looming of the administration’s own end-of-the-year deadline to get a deal with Iran or impose more sanctions.
Trying to negotiate, she said, has "produced very little" so "additional pressure is going to be called for."
Her phrasing was interesting, almost as if she was taking a poke at rivals in the administration who are reluctant to take action. "I don't think anyone can doubt that our outreach has produced very little in terms of any kind of a positive response from the Iranians," Clinton said, as if daring someone in the White House to disagree?
So what is the administration going to do? Try to get the UN and EU to support more sanctions. Here the administration likes to claim that its popularity and patient (arguably too patient) coalition-building will bring broad support.
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