Bush: Tehran Must Stop Enrichment Before Talks

WASHINGTON — After meeting yesterday with the 10-person commission convened by Congress to recommend a new Iraq policy, President Bush ruled out two of the proposals put forward by working groups advising the bipartisan panel.

Following talks with Prime Minister Olmert, Mr. Bush said his administration has no plans to meet with Iran before it suspends uranium enrichment. He also said he wants the Iraq Study Group to recommend a policy to achieve "success" in Iraq, which he defined as "a government which can sustain, govern, and defend itself, and will serve as an ally in this war on terror."

As The New York Sun reported on October 12, expert working groups advising the commission, headed by a former secretary of state, James Baker, said this fall that such a goal is unrealistic and that America should focus instead on stabilizing Baghdad. The working groups also recommended that America open a dialogue with Syria and Iran to persuade the two countries to help stabilize their neighbor.

The recommendations stem from a conclusion among many in the American intelligence community and analyst class that America can do little to stop the violence in Baghdad. One administration official who requested anonymity confirmed yesterday that the Defense Intelligence Agency has begun preliminary planning for an Iraq where at least the Sunni provinces are openly controlled by Al Qaeda. He described it as "a situation where some Iraqi provinces are openly ruled by Al Qaeda leaders, similar to what you have in Somalia under the Islamic Courts Union."

It is expected that the DIA assessment will be incorporated into the assessment and recommendations for Iraq policy from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace.

Nonetheless, Mr. Bush does not appear to be changing his stance on Iran. "If the Iranians want to have a dialogue with us, we have shown them a way forward, and that is for them to verify — verifiably suspend their enrichment activities," the president said yesterday.

"An Iran with a nuclear weapon would be a destabilizing influence. And so we have made it very clear, our position regards Iran, and it hasn't changed," he added.

The world leader closest to Mr. Bush, Prime Minister Blair, delivered a speech yesterday in which he laid out the prospect for including Iran in the international community but also chastised its regime for helping foment "hatred" in Iraq. The conditions Mr. Blair laid out for engagement with Iran, though not restricted to talks alone, were almost identical to Mr. Bush's: ending support for terrorists, supporting the Israeli-Palestinian Arab negotiations, and acceding to the United Nations's demands to give up its nuclear ambitions.

Earlier this month, Mr. Blair sent a high-level envoy to Syria to explore the country's willingness to stabilize Iraq and end its meddling in Lebanon. Syria and Iran signed a mutual defense and intelligence-sharing pact in June.

But the president's rebuke of the experts advising the Baker commission is not necessarily an endorsement of the course he pledged to stay for much of the midterm election campaign. Since August, the State Department and Secretary of State Rice have pushed privately for what they call a "Sunni strategy" to persuade America's Arab allies to help better contain Iran and work toward other goals in the wider war on terrorism.

This pivot will almost certainly require the president to devote more time to negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government. Yesterday, Mr. Bush said he still supports a two-state solution to the conflict and that he expects Palestinian Arab government to adhere to prior agreements to recognize Israel and end terrorism.

Mr. Olmert, however, went further. The Israeli premier expressed hope about recent announcements that Hamas, the terrorist group that won the Palestinian Arab parliamentary elections in January, would agree to a power-sharing government with the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, who also is known as Abu Mazen.

"I will make every possible effort to help Abu Mazen to get into such a dialogue with us," Mr. Olmert said. "Indeed, we hope that the new government will be established soon on the basis of the Quartet and the road map, and that will allow an immediate contact between him and me that I'm sure will lead to extend this negotiation process."

But Mr. Olmert later told Israeli reporters that he would reject a large conference in the Middle East aimed at linking Arab support for Iraq to progress on the Israeli-Palestinian Arab negotiations. He did say he would favor a smaller diplomatic meeting focused narrowly on building up the Palestinian Authority, however.