[Peace-discuss] Would It Kill Us to Apologize to Iran for the Coup?

[C. G. Estabrook]

Marti Wilkinson wrote:
> ...it would be a tremendous step forward if the United States apologized for 
> the wrongs that have been done to Iran...

[Note that on foreign policy the current administration is at least as bad as 
the (the late phase of) the last: there's been a deterioration in relations with 
Russia.  And for a generation there's been little change, except perhaps for the 
worse, in USG policy toward Iran. --CGE]

	Biden Rejects Russian Sphere of Influence
	By HELENE COOPER
	Published: February 7, 2009

MUNICH—Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. rejected the notion of a Russian 
sphere of influence, promising that America’s new government under President 
Obama would continue to press NATO to seek “deeper cooperation” with like-minded 
countries.

Mr. Biden, in a much-anticipated speech at an international security conference, 
also said that the Obama administration would continue to pursue a planned 
missile-defense system that has angered the Kremlin, provided the technology 
works and isn’t too expensive. The missile defense shield, Mr. Biden said, is 
needed to “counter a growing Iranian capability.”

In the Obama administration’s first outline of how it will conduct America’s 
relations with the rest of the world before an international audience, the vice 
president signaled a tough line on Iran. “We will be willing to talk to Iran,” 
Mr. Biden said, in a departure from the Bush administration. But Mr. Biden 
quickly tacked back to a refrain common during the last years of the Bush 
presidency, and spoke of offering Iran’s leader a choice: “Continue down your 
current course and there will be pressure and isolation; abandon the illicit 
nuclear program and support for terrorism and there will be meaningful incentives.”

Mr. Biden’s speech was the highlight of a high-powered security conference that 
attracted a host of global leaders and diplomats, most of whom seemed primed to 
hear how the United States and its new leadership viewed the world. They erupted 
into spontaneous applause when Mr. Biden walked onto the stage.

But for all the talk of a new era in relations between the United States and the 
world, old sores remained, and with no sign of healing soon. For instance, while 
Mr. Biden’s wording virtually echoed the stance on missile defense that Mr. 
Obama took during the presidential campaign, it was notable because Mr. Biden 
did not announce a strategic review of the issue, which administration officials 
had considered as a way to diffuse tensions between Washington and Moscow.

Instead, Mr. Biden hewed to a line long expressed by the Bush administration, 
and said that the administration would pursue it “in consultation with our NATO 
allies and Russia.”

“We will not agree with Russia on everything,” Mr. Biden said. “For example, the 
United States will not recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent 
states. We will not recognize a sphere of influence. It will remain our view 
that sovereign states have the right to make their own decisions and choose 
their own alliances.”

Mr. Biden said that the United States and Russia can disagree but should still 
look for ways to “work together where our interests coincide.”

Mr. Biden’s speech came a day after Deputy Russian Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov 
told the same group that Moscow would not deploy its own missiles on the Polish 
border if the United States reviewed its missile defense plan, which Russia 
believes is meant to counter Russian ballistic missiles.

But any chance for a rapprochement between Washington and Russia at this 
conference all but evaporated, foreign policy experts said, after Obama 
administration officials concluded that Russia pressed Kyrgyzstan, a former 
Soviet Republic, to close the American base in that country. The base is crucial 
to the American-led fight in Afghanistan that Mr. Obama has identified as his 
central national security objective. Mr. Obama plans to deploy as many as 30,000 
additional troops to Afghanistan over the next two years; shaky overland supply 
routes through Pakistan would make it difficult for the United States to adjust 
to the loss of the base, in Manas, Kyrgyzstan.

Russia’s relations with NATO were a center of discussions.

“Let’s be frank about it. There’s more and more distrust between the European 
Union and Russia,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy said.

It was at this same Security Conference two years ago that the new tension 
between the United States and Russia leapt to the fore when Russia’s 
then-President, Vladimir Putin, lashed out against the United States over its 
use of force.

On Saturday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel struck a conciliatory note. “It is 
in our interest to incorporate Russia in this new security architecture,” Mrs. 
Merkel said.

On Friday, the opening day of the conference, Iran’s Ali Larijani, the speaker 
of the parliament, told the audience that Mr. Obama’s decision to send George 
Mitchell, his new envoy, to the Middle East to listen and not to dictate was “a 
positive signal” but also said that, in terms of Iran, “the old carrot and stick 
cliché” — ironically, the very strategy that Mr. Biden outlined — ”must be 
discarded.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/washington/08biden.html?hp