Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post cops the booby prize:

In the past year Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has quietly corrected several of the Bush administration's most self—defeating first—term foreign policies —— such as its insistence on obstructing European diplomacy on the Iranian nuclear program rather than focusing pressure on the Iranians themselves. But a couple of shoot—yourself—in—the—foot practices linger from the days when a high—riding Bush team felt it could afford to champion unilateralism and narrow U.S. interests even if it meant damaging relations with important allies.

It is truly amazing how the same columnists and politicians who were "instructing" Bush to follow European diplomacy are now attacking him for outsourcing diplomacy to those same Europeans. This zinger goes beyond even that amnesia. Diehl actually claims Bush was "obstructing" European diploamcy without pointing out how this was supposedly done. If the Administarion was indeed "obstructing" European diplomacy doesn't this logically imply that they were indeed pressuring  the Iranians?

Ed Lasky   3 10 06