Another Backfire in Iraq

"The diplomatic pressure came as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday said Bush's era 'has come to an end' and he has failed in his goals to attack Iran and stop its nuclear program."

Steven Lee Myers and Nazila Fathi write in this morning's New York Times: "Opening a farewell tour of Europe, President Bush won European support on Tuesday to consider additional punitive sanctions against Iran, including restrictions on its banks, if Iran rejects a package of incentives to suspend its uranium enrichment program. . . .

"The communiqué coincided with heightened tensions over Iran's nuclear program. The International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna registered 'serious concern' last month about Iran's suspected research into the development of nuclear weapons.

"The issue became even more pressing after Israel's transportation minister, Shaul Mofaz, warned last week that an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites would be 'unavoidable' if weapons programs proceeded.

"Some analysts said the language of the joint communiqué on Tuesday appeared to try to ease that threat.

"'I think this was a European attempt to show the Bush administration that Europe takes the threat seriously and to try to continue to prevent a situation where Israel or the United States might turn to the military instrument,' said Julianne Smith of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"Mr. Bush expressed sympathy for Israeli concerns about Iran's intentions, telling a questioner at [Tuesday's] news conference, 'If you were living in Israel, you'd be a little nervous, too, if a leader in your neighborhood announced that they -- he'd like to destroy you.'

"But Mr. Bush also appeared to play down interest in a military option, saying he was leaving behind 'a multilateral framework' to address Iran."

Dan Eggen writes in The Washington Post: "National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley told reporters that the United States and E.U. nations are waiting to see Iran's reaction to a new package of incentives and sanctions that will be presented by Javier Solana, the E.U.'s foreign policy head, within the next week.

"If Iran rejects the package, Hadley said, foreign governments could get 'much more aggressive' in enforcing existing U.N. penalties and in moving toward the types of new sanctions mentioned in Tuesday's statement. . . .

"Some foreign policy and nonproliferation experts said it is not clear how far U.S. officials could push the E.U., which has often been more cautious than the United States on the Iran issue. 'I'd say there's a suggestion, but not proof, that they made progress,' said Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington."

Jennifer Loven writes for the Associated Press: "Jon Wolfsthal, an expert in the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said . . . Bush has little leverage left with either Iran or Europe . . . and the chances of getting Russia and China to go along with any new U.N. sanctions proposal are remote."

Steve Clemmons writes in his Washington Note blog that there are signs that Vice President Cheney and his fellow Iran hawks are in ascendance again.

Europe Watch

Nicholas Kulish reports for the New York Times from Berlin: "The young anarchists, middle-aged peace activists and established left-wing politicians here have at least one thing in common: none bothered to keep a six-year tradition alive by organizing a protest against President Bush's arrival here Tuesday.

"'Bush is not even popular in the role of the enemy anymore,' wrote Der Tagesspiegel newspaper."

The editorial writers at the Telegraph write: "There is a certain pathos about President George W. Bush's valedictory visit to Europe this week."

Bush and the Times of London

One place Bush is still getting attention, however, is on the front page of the Times of London, which did its best to turn some familiar responses in an interview with Bush into news. It did so well, in fact, that its story is being picked up all over the place.

Tom Baldwin and Gerard Baker write: "President Bush has admitted to The Times that his gun-slinging rhetoric made the world believe that he was a 'guy really anxious for war' in Iraq. He said that his aim now was to leave his successor a legacy of international diplomacy for tackling Iran.

"In an exclusive interview, he expressed regret at the bitter divisions over the war and said that he was troubled about how his country had been misunderstood. 'I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric.'

"Phrases such as 'bring them on' or 'dead or alive', he said, 'indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace'. He said that he found it very painful 'to put youngsters in harm's way'. He added: 'I try to meet with as many of the families as I can. And I have an obligation to comfort and console as best as I possibly can. I also have an obligation to make sure that those lives were not lost in vain.'"

But for previous, nearly identical expressions of regret for his cowboy rhetoric, see my Jan. 14, 2005, column, Second Thoughts About 'Bring 'em On, and my May 26, 2006 column, No New Contrition.

The Times reporters were also quite taken with Bush's ostensible makeover. In a separate story they write: "On the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, he no longer sounds like a wild-eyed unilateralist, bent on military action.

"Instead, he attacks his critics for being insufficiently multilateralist. Mr Obama's proposal to speak directly to the Iranian President, he suggests, will undermine the careful diplomacy Mr Bush has pioneered in the past few years. . . .

"And he insists that his plan is to have a diplomatic legacy, not only for Iran, but for all the pressing global crises: ' . . . The six-party talks, for example, in the Far East, in dealing with North Korea, the Iranian multilateral framework, hopefully a Palestinian state defined by Israel and the Palestinians.'"

Baldwin and Baker even relate without comment Bush's astonishing excuse for why he is not held in higher esteem: "Mr Bush says the arrows aimed in his direction over the past seven years are the consequence of taking 'tough decisions' and are 'what comes with the position I'm in'.

"'There are going to be moments when the world becomes fatigued, or those of us who are responsible for trying to protect our citizens from international terrorism get tired,' he says. 'It's easy for negativism to creep in, and there's kind of an exhaustion that comes with staying on offence.'

"But not this President, not yet. While critics are impatient for the Bush era to end, and most of his initiatives appear to be running into the sand, Mr Bush sneers at the hundred would-be 'secretaries of state in the United States Senate that think they can do a better job'."

And to top it off, the Times reporters were quite smitten with Bush's ride. In yet another story, they write: "Even for a president on his last lame legs, Air Force One remains the biggest and shiniest symbol of virility in global politics. . . .

"When the waving President bounds down the stairway, even the most robust egos among the leaders who wait below to greet him must feel a little diminished."

McCain's Jab

Sasha Issenberg writes in the Boston Globe about John McCain's first major television ad of the general election.

"'Only a fool or a fraud talks tough or romantically about war,' McCain says over mournful strings against a bleak backdrop, including the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. 'I hate war, and I know how terrible its costs are.' . . .

"'To me, the ad is much more playing off Bush than playing off Obama,' said Jeremy Varon, a historian at Drew University in Madison, N.J., who has studied antiwar movements. 'The point of this is for McCain to say: "I'm very different from my predecessor even if I want to fight the same war." '"

Cheney's Role

Jonathan Martin writes in the Politico: "Vice President Dick Cheney is unlikely to share a stage with McCain anytime soon--and may not be called on to play any role at all in the 2008 presidential campaign.

"In part, it's a reflection of political expediency. Though Cheney is one of the nation's most influential and talked about vice presidents ever, his favorability ratings are near toxic lows.

"But Cheney and McCain also have had a rocky relationship. . . .

"Asked about what role Cheney would have in the campaign, McCain communications director Jill Hazelbaker only said: 'John McCain will always treat the vice president with respect.' "

Cheney's Motorcades

Dale McFeatters writes in a Scripps Howard News Service opinion piece: "The House has just passed a bill that would give Vice President Dick Cheney and his successors up to six months of Secret Service protection after leaving office. . . .

"That's fine both on general principle and on the basis that Cheney was a controversial figure. . . .

"However, we would insert one caveat: The protection should be at considerably less than the imperial levels he has enjoyed while in office. And that means no more motorcades.

"The vice president's motorcades are notorious in Washington for their size and disruption as major arteries like Massachusetts Avenue are blocked off so the vice president can roar between his home and office. . . .

"One reporter protested at a White House briefing after she was nearly run off the road by the vice president's motorcade tearing through the narrow, twisty confines of Rock Creek Park. She got the brush-off but not before observing, accurately in the opinion of locals, that Cheney's motorcades seem 'so much louder and aggressive than the others.'

"And it's not just here. A quick check of the Web shows complaints about his motorcade in the Twin Cities, Atlanta, Portland, Chicago, Toledo and as far away as Australia. And there's even a small but very noisy collection of videos on YouTube.

"A two-car motorcade should do it. And if extra security is called for, the former vice president could always ride shotgun."

Twilight Watch

Over at NiemanWatchdog.org, where I am deputy editor, we're out with part three of my series on what top administration officials might be doing to make it as difficult as possible for their successors to roll back their policies. Today's focus is on how the time for a national conversation on pardons is before, not after, they're granted.

Bush's Food Obsession Continues

The Associated Press reports: "After discussing pressing problems such as Iran's nuclear program with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the issue at the front of U.S. President George W. Bush's mind Wednesday was . . . German asparagus."

Country Song Watch

Mario Tarradell writes in the Dallas Morning News that Texas singer-songwriter James McMurtry's new CD, Just Us Kids, "offers three piercingly potent numbers. . . . During 'Cheney's Toy,' the usually soft-spoken artist doesn't hem and haw. 'You're the man/Show 'em what you're made of/You're no longer daddy's boy,' he sings in the song's chorus. 'You're the man/That they're all afraid of/But you're only Cheney's toy.'"

Late Night Humor

Jay Leno, via U.S. News: "You know, I'll tell you, things are not good. The price of oil doubled in less than a year. Home foreclosures are at a record high. Unemployment is surging. But yesterday . . . we saw a ray of hope. President Bush left the country. So maybe things will get better."

Cartoon Watch

Tom Toles on Bush in Europe; Stuart Carlson on Bush and history; Ed Stein on Bush's end-of-the-administration clearance; and Bruce Plante on the 29 percenters.