In Geneva, Dina Ezzat witnesses the escalating US offensive against Iran Permanent Representative to Vienna and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Ambassador Gregory L Schulte stopped short of calling Iranian President Ahmadinejad a psychopath -- something that the Israeli defence minister had done recently -- but only just. During an hour-long briefing in Geneva Tuesday before journalists, diplomats and a wide range of political analysts, Schulte, who is doubtless one of the very few US diplomats to sit around the same table as an Iranian counterpart -- given that in the UN Americans and Iranians have to rub shoulders whether they like it or not -- indicated clearly that his government is planning to give "this Iranian" president a very hard time. Nonetheless, in his presentation and the following question and answer session, Schulte was very careful not to use the words "attack" or "military" at all. Indeed, he seemed keen to impose the phrase "diplomatic solution" often. The briefing came but hours after President Ahmadinejad sent his American counterpart the first letter between the two states in three decades, proposing therein a solution for the deadlock over Tehran's nuclear programme. Regardless, it was predictable to hear Schulte saying that his country does not "understand the psychology of the president" who raises questions about the Holocaust, threatens Israel and other Middle Eastern countries and then expects the "international community" to exercise the sensibility required to "dissuade him" from acquiring nuclear weapons. "Israel is not a member of the NPT [Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty] but Iran is," the US diplomat said in a firm tone in answer to a question on the discrepancy between the tolerance demonstrated regarding Israel's policy of "nuclear ambiguity" when even US research centres assess that Tel Aviv commands no less than 200 nuclear warheads, and Iran's desire to develop a nuclear programme for peaceful uses. The US, he suggested, believes it necessary for Israel to be able to live within "secure borders" before discussing any proposal to make the Middle East a "nuclear-free zone", a goal that Washington supports. Meanwhile, Schulte added that if Tehran has security concerns it can assuage them "not by building nuclear deterrence but by engaging with the international community". To do otherwise, he said, might lead the international community to move to impose sanctions against Tehran within a few months. And should Iran undertake its threat to pull out of the NPT, following the lead of North Korea, Schulte warned: "The Iranians need to think of what is happening in North Korea," inferring the country's descent into poverty and destitution. Schulte did not pause to reveal what the letter that Ahmadinejad addressed to US President George W Bush contained. As some representatives of anti-war organisations noted, it is not in the interest of the US to admit that Tehran's "regime" -- one that Schulte repeatedly stressed was unworthy of the "great Iranian people" -- is talking peace and proposing solutions to that effect. However, informed Western sources in Geneva asserted that in his letter, Ahmadinejad offered a large degree of freedom to IAEA inspectors to ascertain the peaceful nature of his country's nuclear programme. This contradicts the accounts offered by US officials, including US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, that the letter of the Iranian president had nothing new. For his part, Schulte seemed more interested in stressing what he qualified as the "joint will" of the international community, including the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- unlike previously, with regard to Iraq, he alluded -- to prevent Iran from continuing with uranium enrichment. "The challenge of Iran," Schulte said, will be firmly addressed. And the Iranian people, he added, have the right to be freed from being "held hostage of a small clerical elite" and from a "regime that supports terrorism, opposes Middle East peace... and wants to exercise regional influence." At the end of his presentation, Schulte got the traditional round of applause. He may have been diplomatic, if firm, but several diplomats and political scientists in attendance left with the impression that the offensive against Iran is likely to increase -- and some warned to the point of military action -- except by a miraculous breakthrough.
