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U.S. Encounters Limits of Iran Engagement Policy

(New York Times) Helene Cooper - As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama declared himself open to dialogue even with intransigent states like Iran. But there is little diplomatic nicety to be seen these days, as the administration presses tough new sanctions aimed at the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in Iran, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Monday of a drift toward a military dictatorship in Iran. White House officials maintain that they have not abandoned Mr. Obama's pledge of engagement, but the administration is now coming to terms with the limits of its engagement policy, many foreign policy experts say. Ray Takeyh, a former Iran adviser to the Obama administration, said, "There was a thesis a year ago that the differences between the United States and Iran was subject to diplomatic mediation, that they could find areas of common experience, that we were ready to have a dialogue with each other," but "those anticipations discounted the extent of how the Iranian theocracy views engagement with the United States as a threat to its ideological identity." Administration officials say the biggest benefit of Mr. Obama's engagement policy now is a defusing of a worldwide view that the U.S. is part of the problem, and a demonstration that the problem is Tehran's intransigence. "What the president has achieved is that he has outed Iran," a senior administration official said Friday. He said Iran, by refusing to respond positively, had exposed itself as uninterested in a better relationship with the U.S.
2010-02-16 08:18:58
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