La Vita è Bella Life is Beautiful. La Vita es Bonita. 美麗人生　

242愛的鼓勵 7訂閱站台

911事件後，美國總統布希以反恐戰爭為名，大行白色恐怖之實。雖然美國侵略阿富汗與伊拉克沒有像紐約雙子星大樓倒塌那像的聳動畫面，但是這兩個國家與其人民所受到的迫害絕不亞於紐約市民，和在華盛頓五角大廈上班的人。

戰爭也是一種外交政策，布希編一個理由就出兵侵略伊拉克，(好像以前課本裡說：日本藉口士兵失蹤，要求進入宛平縣城搜尋，因而發生了蘆溝橋事變。－似乎有異曲同功之妙。)結果國家都被美國滅了，並扶植新的政權(依照我以前受教育時的歷史課本，這應該稱為「偽政權」或「偽政府」)，「大規模毀滅性武器」也還沒找到。英國已經組成了調查庭(Iraq War Inquiry)由徹爾寇特爵士(Sir John Chilcot)擔任主席，要好好調查英國對伊拉克的侵略戰爭。前後任首相布萊爾與布朗都被傳到庭說明。

以前唸書的時候，提到的近代的外交政策，先是一次大戰後英法等國採用的「綏靖政策」(appeasement)，然後二戰爆發，美英俄等國有「秘密外交」簽訂雅爾達密約；然後二戰結束後，是一連串的戰爭，民主陣營對抗共產赤化，亞洲就有中國的內戰，南北韓戰爭，越戰...以美國為首的「民主政營」外交政策就是「圍堵」(containment)共產勢力擴張。對抗(confrontation)的型態從真槍實彈的戰爭(熱戰)，轉為軍備競賽與組成跨國聯合陣營的冷戰(cold war)。

隨著政策改變為「交往」(engagement)，國際的緊張關係逐漸消融，而這「交往」的政策也結束了冷戰。但隨著兩大集團對抗的結束，原本受制於蘇聯共產勢力的東歐國家也獲得解放，但是區域的衝突也因此而起。因此「對抗」又成為檯面上的外交政策，但美國基本上還是維持「交往」的政策，一直到布希總統上台。而現在的歐巴馬總統又走回溫和開放的「交往」路線，上周宣布停止設在波蘭與捷克的反飛彈基地計畫，就是具體的行動。

布希對伊拉克發動侵略戰爭；現在歐巴馬總統面臨一個發展核武的伊朗，從總統以降，副總統與國務卿都口徑一致的表示，美國政策是「交往」(engagement)。十月初美國將會和伊朗舉行會談(英、法、德、俄、中也會參加)，我真想看看這個交往的劇本如何寫下去，也衷心希望有好的結果。這或許可以給台灣一些靈感或啟發，－－要如何面對中國。 
 





Clinton Lays Out Iran Requirements       

By MARK LANDLER  
September 16, 2009     

WASHINGTON — When the United States sits down with Iran early next month for face-to-face talks, the Iranian nuclear program will be at the top of the American agenda, even though Iranian officials insist it is off the table, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday.       

“Iran says it has a number of issues it wishes to discuss with us,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters. “But what we are concerned about is discussing with them the questions surrounding their nuclear program and ambitions.”       

She said the meeting, to be held Oct. 1, would fulfill President Obama’s pledge to engage with Iran. But she insisted that the United States would not be drawn into a lengthy and fruitless diplomatic dance with Iran, as some analysts have warned.       

“We have no illusions about the Iranian government,” Mrs. Clinton said. “The point is to meet and explain to the Iranians, face to face, the choices that Iran has, and to see whether Iran is prepared to engage.”       

In its proposal, Iran said it wanted to talk about a broad range of issues, including the Middle East peace process and universal nuclear disarmament. But it said nothing about its own nuclear program, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said his country will never relinquish its rights to enrich uranium for what he insists is a peaceful nuclear energy program.       

In addition to the United States, the talks will involve Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. Possible locations for a meeting include Geneva, Vienna and Istanbul, according to a senior State Department official.       

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, who has acted as a middleman between the West and Iran, told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday, “I think very likely it will be Turkey.”       

The timing of the meeting may deflect some pressure off Iran during the United Nations General Assembly session, which will bring Mr. Obama, Mr. Ahmadinejad and other world leaders to New York next week. American officials said they were ready to meet the Iranians as early as this week.   

The United States has already offered Iran an arrangement known as “freeze for freeze,” in which Iran would halt its production of nuclear fuels in return for the United Nations’ halting new sanctions against it.       

While that remains a viable option, a senior American official said, the primary purpose of the meeting next month will be to determine whether Iran is serious about negotiating at all over its nuclear program.       
       
       
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company       

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/world/middleeast/16diplo.html?scp=2&sq=Iran%20Nuclear&st=cse       



Despite Crisis, Policy on Iran Is Engagement        

By DAVID E. SANGER        
Published: July 5, 2009        

President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., in separate interviews this weekend, said that the accelerating crackdown on opposition leaders in Iran in recent days would not deter them from seeking to engage the country’s top leadership in direct negotiations.        
       
In an interview with The New York Times, a day before his scheduled departure for Moscow on Sunday, Mr. Obama said he had “grave concern” about the arrests and intimidation of Iran’s opposition leaders, but insisted, as he has throughout the Iranian crisis, that the repression would not close the door on negotiations with the Iranian government.       

       
“We’ve got some fixed national security interests in Iran not developing nuclear weapons, in not exporting terrorism, and we have offered a pathway for Iran to rejoining the international community,” Mr. Obama said.        
       
Mr. Biden echoed the same themes in an interview conducted in Iraq and broadcast Sunday on the ABC News program “This Week.” But in a rare foray into one of the most sensitive issues in the Middle East, the vice president argued that the United States “cannot dictate” Israel’s decisions about whether to strike the plants at the heart of Iran’s nuclear program. He said only Israelis could determine “that they’re existentially threatened” by the prospect that Iran would gain nuclear weapons capability.       

       
The emphasis was different in a separate appearance by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, who warned that any military strike on Iran “could be very destabilizing.” Asked to choose between military action and permitting Iran to gain nuclear weapons capability, he said both would be “really, really bad outcomes.”        
       
Before Iran’s disputed election on June 12, the president’s top aides say, they received back-channel indications from Iran — from emissaries who claimed to represent the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — that the country would respond to Mr. Obama’s overtures this summer. But the crackdown and the divisions among senior clerics about the legitimacy of the election and Ayatollah Khamenei’s credibility have changed the political dynamics. Senior administration officials said they have heard nothing from Iran’s leaders.       


The administration, meanwhile, has been preparing for two opposite possibilities: One in which the Iranian leadership seeks to regain a measure of legitimacy by taking up Mr. Obama’s offer to talk — a situation that could put Washington in the uncomfortable position of giving credibility to a government whose actions Mr. Obama has deplored — or one in which Iran rejects negotiations. Mr. Obama told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in May that if there were no progress on the Iranian nuclear issue by the year’s end, the administration would turn to other steps, including sanctions. Mr. Obama hinted at an even shorter schedule during the interview on Saturday.       


“We will have to assess in coming weeks and months the degree to which they are willing to walk through that door,” he said.        

Mr. Obama declined to talk about the preparations for a tougher line. But as he prepared to leave on Sunday for Moscow, he said the United States now had more leverage to pressure Iran because he had succeeded in getting “countries like Russia and China to take these issues seriously,” noting that both had approved stricter sanctions on North Korea.        


In his interview, Mr. Biden ventured into what is usually forbidden territory by discussing the possibility that Israel may decide it cannot wait to see if Mr. Obama’s diplomatic overtures work.        

“Israel can determine for itself — it’s a sovereign nation — what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else,” he said. But he added that the United States would not let any other nation determine its approach to national security, including the wisdom of engagement. “If the Iranians respond to the offer of engagement, we will engage,” he said.        

Israeli officials have been deeply uncomfortable with Mr. Obama’s engagement offer, arguing that Iran is still adding centrifuges to its plant at Natanz, where it can enrich uranium. The last report of the International Atomic Energy Agency indicated roughly 7,000 centrifuges are now enriching uranium into fuel, but without further enrichment it is suitable only for nuclear power.       


Last spring, when President George W. Bush was in office, Israeli officials approached the White House seeking bunker-busting bombs, refueling ability for its military aircraft, and overflight rights over Iraq necessary to strike Natanz. Mr. Bush deflected those requests.       


American officials have said it is unlikely that Mr. Netanyahu would ask Mr. Obama for similar help. But that does not mean Israel cannot look elsewhere to develop and obtain that ability.        

In comments on the CBS News program “Face the Nation,” Admiral Mullen seemed to underscore the Pentagon’s concern that an Israeli strike could start a broader conflict, and might simply drive the Iranian nuclear efforts deeper underground. He said any strike on Iran could be “very destabilizing — not just in and of itself but the unintended consequences of a strike like that.”       


The implication was that following an attack on its nuclear plants, counterstrikes could be expected by Iran or its proxies, aimed at the United States, its troops in the region or its allies.        

In the Saturday interview, Mr. Obama seemed to acknowledge that the administration was still struggling for the right strategy to stop nations from obtaining nuclear weapons capacity, after so many mixtures of inducements and threats had failed.       


“You know, I don’t think any administration over the last decade has had the perfect recipe for discouraging North Korea or Iran from developing nuclear weapons,” he said, in what was clearly intended as droll understatement. “We know that it is going to be a tough slog.”        
       
Reporter Released in Iran        
       
A freelance reporter for The Washington Times detained in Iran almost three weeks ago was released Sunday, according to news reports.        
       
The reporter, Iason Athanasiadis, who has British and Greek citizenship, had been arrested on June 17 and accused of “illegal activities” during the protests that followed the June 12 election.        

Thom Shanker and Brian Knowlton contributed reporting from Washington.        
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/world/middleeast/06policy.html

---

The stories were taken from the websites of The New York Times, and the copyright belongs to The New York Times Company.  The authors of these stories and The New York Times are not involved with, nor endorse the production of this blog.