Monday, November 15, 2004

Progress: Within weeks after Bush's re-election, Iran has pledged to abandon its ambition of nuclear weapons. Europe has been negotiating with Iran for quite some time and won concessions from the Axis of Evil member. At the very end of a Washington Post article about this issue, we find this little nugget:

European diplomats said Bush's reelection helped the negotiations by limiting Iran's options. Had Democrat John F. Kerry won, Iran might have tried to play for time or probe what policy shifts a new administration was considering, they said.

Bush actually isn't happy with the final results, reports indicate. He wanted to take a tougher stance and concede less to Iran. But as a result, this really puts him in the best situation. He has a promise from Iran to stop seeking nuclear weapons. But if Iran strays from the agreement even a little, Bush can still act forcefully against that country, because the U.S. was never officially party to the agreement.

The situation is far from settled, and we have a lot of problems to overcome. But this shows that the United States can take a hard line against nations that support terrorism and still won't lose the help from our European allies.