Bush legacy: Iranian fizzle
Published 03 November, 2008, 07:00
Relations between the U.S. and Iran have gone from bad to worse over the eight years that Bush has been in power. Washington insists that Tehran's nuclear programme is aimed at making weapons. But Iran remains defiant, saying its enrichment efforts are peaceful.
Taming Iran and forcing it to abandon its nuclear programme has been one of the top priorities of George Bush's foreign policy.
Over the last eight years, Iran has been labelled 'a rogue state', 'a member of the axis of evil' and 'an outpost of tyranny'.
“The regime in that country sponsors terrorists in the Palestinian territories and in Lebanon and that must come to an end. The Iranian government is defying the world with its nuclear ambitions and the nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons,” Bush insisted in February 2006.
However, the relations between Tehran and Washington turned hostile long before George Bush came to power. The diplomatic ties between the countries were severed after the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 and the embassy hostage crisis that followed.
In the last eight Bush years, relations haven't improved. The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 contributed to the election of Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was the only candidate speaking out against mending ties with Washington.
In 2007 a declassified U.S. intelligence report claimed that Iran had halted its effort to produce nuclear weapons in 2003. But Washington is still demanding that Tehran stops uranium enrichment and is calling for the international community to impose more sanctions on the Islamic republic.
But Iran, a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, has been defending its right to develop a peaceful atomic programme.
Whatever the outcome of November 4 election, for the next president of the United States soft power may be a more efficient tool in dealing with the Islamic republic as compared with military pressure and threats.
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