Bush: "It's the sovereign right of Iran to have civilian nuclear power"

In an unaired portion of the November 20th ABC interview with President Bush, we find that the president believes Iran should be allowed to possess civilian nuclear power. Yet at the same time, this administration is now pushing for more sanctions. How can they punish Iran for something the President believes they should have? At best this is an utterly schizophrenic failure in foreign policy.

The entire transcript of the interview can be found at ABC's website here, or you can find it here (just look at the bottom, its after the article). --I'm giving two links in case one goes down.

Here is the key excerpt:

CHARLES GIBSON: There's been a lot of bellicose rhetoric that has been aimed at Iran, and you yourself, at a news conference recently, raised the specter of, of World War III if there was a nuclear armed Iran. Just my curiosity, why not turn the rhetoric around and smother them with kindness, call their bluff and say, look, if you're seriously interested in nuclear power, we'll build the nuclear power plants for you?

PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH: I've done that. You must have not heard it, but we actually did it with Russia. Russia and, has offered to, you know, construct Bushehr, which is fine. I supported Russia and said that not only should you build it, but uh, the major suppliers group will provide the fuel and collect the fuel. And, so Russia and the United States are in concert on that issue. Matter of fact, I said this in a press conference, that it's the sovereign right of Iran to have civilian nuclear power, and I agree, and I believe that.

This stark omission from Bush wasn't edited out of the ABC interview for no reason, it was forced out. Clearly they believe the American public shouldn't be told that our current strategy toward Iran makes absolutely no sense. So instead of telling the truth about the situation today, Bush continues his public fear mongering. In light of the newest NIE report confirming that the Iranian weapons program was halted in 2003, Bush says this:

"I view this [NIE] report as a warning signal that they had the program, they halted the program."

"The reason why it's a warning signal is they could restart it."

There is no way the President actually believes that. He knows they cannot restart it under the watchful eye of the international community and IAEA inspectors. But he continues his useless rhetoric against Iran. Even though the situation is totally under control by every measure, the administration is still planning for a new round of sanctions. This, for a program President Bush believes they have the right to possess!

We have the European Union singing this same schizophrenic tune, Germany, France, and Britain have supported the administration's newest sanctioning plans. The new leadership in these countries seem to be on the Bush payroll. Its time for real diplomacy instead of more disjointed war propaganda being shamelessly fed to the public.

The MSM needs to do its job as the fourth estate. Where is the professional journalism much needed right now? I haven't seen anything on the news today mentioning that more sanctions against Iran will be, in fact, entirely useless as a diplomatic strategy. Lets hope tomorrow that some major newspapers get it right. Our "diplomacy" with Iran is intended for no other purpose than to further isolate the Iranians (economically and in appearance) from the rest of the world.

As these useless sanctions are encouraged and go unchallenged, the march to another useless war seems more and more imminent. I welcome your comments below.