NYT and Wapo in their Sunday editions give blow by blow accounts on how Rice convinced Bush to do a U turn on Iran and join the Europeans in talks with Iran. The papers have multiple sources (same sources, if you read both accounts closely), mostly from State.
Both reports give their accounts breathlessly, as if Condi averted a nuclear war or World War III. All she and Bush did was to face the reality, listen to Europeans and act from a position of weakness.
More after the break...
NYT report by Helene Cooper and David Sanger
NYT
On a Tuesday afternoon two months ago, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sat down to a small lunch in President Bush's private dining room behind the Oval Office and delivered grim news to her boss: Their coalition against Iran was at risk of falling apart.
A meeting she had attended in Berlin days earlier with European foreign ministers had been a disaster, she reported, according to participants in the discussion. Iran was neatly exploiting divisions among the Europeans and Russia, and speeding ahead with its enrichment of uranium. The president grimaced, one aide recalled, interpreting the look as one of exasperation "that said, 'O.K., team, what's the answer?' "
That body language touched off a closely held two-month effort to reach a drastically different strategy, one articulated two weeks later in a single sentence that Ms. Rice wrote in a private memorandum. It broached the idea that the United States end its nearly three-decade policy against direct talks with Iran.
Wapo
Wapo's Glenn Kessler begins his report this way:
At the end of March, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew to Europe and had unusual, one-on-one conversations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Jacques Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. She also attended a meeting in Berlin on Iran at which the Russian and Chinese representatives denounced the idea of sanctions to halt Tehran's drive toward a nuclear weapon.
Rice returned to Washington with a sobering message: The international effort to derail Iran's programs was falling apart. Her conclusion spurred a secret discussion among Rice, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley: Should the United States finally agree to join the Europeans at the negotiations with Iran?
NYT going breathless...
Even after Mr. Bush edited the statement Ms. Rice was scheduled to read Wednesday before she flew to Vienna to encourage Europe and Russia to sign on to a final package of incentives for Iran -- and sanctions if it turns the offer down -- Ms. Rice wanted to check in one more time. She called Mr. Bush. Was he sure he was O.K. with his decision?
"Go do it," he responded.
Warrior Rice has put on the war paint and going off to fight the war - or stop the war - and Bush gave her his blessing.
What is this? Why doesn't NYT call this for what it is?
Bush and Rice had no other option. Europeans are weary; talks going nowhere and Iran is going ahead with its nuclear development, giving a running commentary on the progress on almost a daily basis. If we had done this a year ago, how much stronger our position would have been?
Wapo:
Officials said there was essentially no dissent among Bush's top advisers on joining the talks. The Pentagon raised no objections, and the only cautionary tone came from Cheney, who said that the shift should not lead the administration down a "slippery slope," in which they end up retreating from their core red line: an end to enrichment and reprocessing -- the two paths toward fissile material. The group agreed to hold their red line.
Bush made it clear he did not want the United States to be seen as weak in making this move, officials added.
Condi dear, diplomats should play chess game - not bridge.
NYT:
For the first time, her proposal also raised a question the administration had long avoided: Had the time arrived for the United States to play what she and Mr. Bush, both bridge players, called their biggest card -- offering to talk with Iran?
The idea intrigued Mr. Bush, White House officials say, and on May 8, Ms. Rice met with him just hours before flying to New York for a meeting with her European counterparts.
She asked him what kind of body language to display at the United Nations meeting. Should she signal that the United States was considering negotiations with Iran? "Be careful," he said, according to officials familiar with the conversation. "I haven't made up my mind."
Okay, so the deal was hatched. But how to break this news to neo-cons and get their blessing and approval?
Who do we call?
Horse galloping sound, please.
Wapo:
On Tuesday, the day before the announcement, Rice let U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton -- long a skeptic about dealing with Iran -- in on the secret. Bolton then joined Rice, Hadley and Joseph over dinner -- and was asked to call conservative commentators the next day to explain the decision.
And a great time was had by all.
But reality strikes.
Fred Kaplan at Slate:
Ultimately, the hope--the whole point of this sort of arms control--is that, once the rewards start flowing (diplomatic recognition, expanded trade and investment, and so forth), the Iranians will come to value the benefits of forgoing nukes and eventually give up the dream in exchange for a place in the community of nations.
Of course, all this may be a pipe dream. The Iranian leaders--whichever ones are in control this month--may simply want a pocketful of A-bombs. The Bush administration may simply want to destabilize, or even
attack, Iran. The tests of intentions will begin soon.