The Bush administration will stop anything that will make them look bad.
Which means everything that they do!

_{repressive governments mix administrative clumsiness & inefficiency with authoritarian tendencies.}

Leverett: Bush Administration ‘Not Serious’ About Dealing With Iran
Interviewer: Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor
Interviewee: Flynt Leverett

March 31, 2006

Flynt L. Leverett, who served in senior posts at the National Security Council, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency, says that the United States has gotten itself into a diplomatic dilemma with Iran “because we essentially don’t have a strategy” for dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue. Asserting that the Bush administration rejected an invitation made by Iran in 2003 to open a strategic dialogue, Leverett says that Bush “is, on this issue, very, very resistant to the idea of doing a deal, even a deal that would solve the nuclear problem.”

Leverett, a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, at the Brookings Institution, says President Bush considers the Iranian regime “fundamentally illegitimate.” As a result, he says, the administration is stuck with two choices—dealing within the UN Security Council, where Russia and China are effectively blocking serious punitive measures, and unilateral military action, which Washington is not in a position to undertake.

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