WASHINGTON: The Russians want him to hold off on installing a missile defense shield in Poland. The Europeans want him to renounce the idea of "regime change" when it comes to Iran, while the Israelis want to be sure he does not give Iran a pass when it comes to nuclear weapons. The Taliban also issued a statement this week urging him to "put an end to all the policies being followed by his Opposition Party, the Republicans, and pull out U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Iraq." There is a world of advice out there for President-elect Barack Obama. Within minutes of his election Nov. 4, the calls from foreign governments began, Obama aides say, and have still not stopped. While the first telephone exchanges between Obama and foreign leaders have been limited to pledges of future cooperation and invitations to visit, those leaders and their underlings have also been targeting Obama's advisers and their surrogates with suggestions for how the Obama administration should conduct, and change, American foreign policy.
WASHINGTON: The Russians want him to hold off on installing a missile defense shield in Poland. The Europeans want him to renounce the idea of "regime change" when it comes to Iran, while the Israelis want to be sure he does not give Iran a pass when it comes to nuclear weapons.
The Taliban also issued a statement this week urging him to "put an end to all the policies being followed by his Opposition Party, the Republicans, and pull out U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Iraq."
There is a world of advice out there for President-elect Barack Obama. Within minutes of his election Nov. 4, the calls from foreign governments began, Obama aides say, and have still not stopped.
While the first telephone exchanges between Obama and foreign leaders have been limited to pledges of future cooperation and invitations to visit, those leaders and their underlings have also been targeting Obama's advisers and their surrogates with suggestions for how the Obama administration should conduct, and change, American foreign policy.
Welcome to our world, Mr. President-elect - International Herald Tribune
British and French officials are urging the Obama team to work on the atmospherics before sitting down to talk with Iran, out of concern that Obama's pledge to open talks with the Islamic Republic without preconditions will not work unless it is delicately plotted. <...> Vice President-elect Joseph Biden Jr. has said in the past that he believes the Bush administration should explicitly assure the Iranian regime that it will not seek regime change, as part of a package of incentives and sanctions that the United States and Europe have been using to pry Iran away from its nuclear program. Obama, for his part, has been a little less clear: He told The New York Times in September that "I think it is important for us to send a signal that we are not hell-bent on regime change, just for the sake of regime change, but expect changes in behavior and there are both carrots and there are sticks available to them for those changes in behavior." <...> The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said over breakfast with reporters in Washington this week that he believed "that the personality of Barack Obama can make a difference" when it comes to Iran. But Kouchner also urged that Obama exercise caution, using a speech at the Brookings Institution to warn that the carefully plotted but so-far-unsuccessful trans-Atlantic effort to rein in Tehran's nuclear ambitions could collapse if the American game changer did not actually change the game. <...> A senior Israeli official said that Israeli officials were in touch with Obama's close aides, in particular Dennis Ross, President Bill Clinton's former envoy to the Middle East. "For us, it's Iran," the official said, adding that Israel wanted to make sure Obama would tackle the Iran issue as soon as he took office. "We can't afford a vacuum."
Vice President-elect Joseph Biden Jr. has said in the past that he believes the Bush administration should explicitly assure the Iranian regime that it will not seek regime change, as part of a package of incentives and sanctions that the United States and Europe have been using to pry Iran away from its nuclear program.
Obama, for his part, has been a little less clear: He told The New York Times in September that "I think it is important for us to send a signal that we are not hell-bent on regime change, just for the sake of regime change, but expect changes in behavior and there are both carrots and there are sticks available to them for those changes in behavior." <...>
The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said over breakfast with reporters in Washington this week that he believed "that the personality of Barack Obama can make a difference" when it comes to Iran. But Kouchner also urged that Obama exercise caution, using a speech at the Brookings Institution to warn that the carefully plotted but so-far-unsuccessful trans-Atlantic effort to rein in Tehran's nuclear ambitions could collapse if the American game changer did not actually change the game. <...>
A senior Israeli official said that Israeli officials were in touch with Obama's close aides, in particular Dennis Ross, President Bill Clinton's former envoy to the Middle East.
"For us, it's Iran," the official said, adding that Israel wanted to make sure Obama would tackle the Iran issue as soon as he took office. "We can't afford a vacuum."
And Iran's POV (at least according to the Washington Post):
Facing Obama, Iran Suddenly Hedges on Talks - washingtonpost.com
"People who put on a mask of friendship, but with the objective of betrayal, and who enter from the angle of negotiations without preconditions, are more dangerous," Hossein Taeb, deputy commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Wednesday, according to the semiofficial Mehr News Agency. "The power holders in the new American government are trying to regain their lost influence with a tactical change in their foreign diplomacy. They are shifting from a hard conflict to a soft attack," Taeb said. <...> President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent Obama a congratulatory letter last week, but by Wednesday his welcoming tone had dissipated. "It doesn't make any difference for us who comes and who goes," he said in a speech in the northern town of Sari. "It's their actions which are studied by the Iranian and world nations." <...> "The U.S. must prove that their policies have changed and are now based upon respecting the rights of the Iranian nation and mutual respect," said Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, the president's closest adviser. Ahmadinejad's media adviser, Mehdi Kalhor, said that "in fair circumstances" Iran would be open to talks. "But that is not when you have a bayonet pressed at your artery," he added, referring to the U.S. forces deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf. <...> Kalhor, Ahmadinejad's media adviser, said Iran's "policies and position towards America have not changed at all." He added: "Our problems with America are strategic." <...> In comments during his first news conference, Obama set some Iranian leaders on edge. "Iran's development of a nuclear weapon, I believe, is unacceptable. We have to mount an international effort to prevent that from happening," Obama said. "Iran's support of terrorist organizations, I think, is something that has to cease." Ali Larijani, speaker of Iran's parliament and a political rival to Ahmadinejad, heard echoes of the past. "Obama's words were tantamount to moving on the previous wrong track," Larijani told reporters.
"People who put on a mask of friendship, but with the objective of betrayal, and who enter from the angle of negotiations without preconditions, are more dangerous," Hossein Taeb, deputy commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Wednesday, according to the semiofficial Mehr News Agency.
"The power holders in the new American government are trying to regain their lost influence with a tactical change in their foreign diplomacy. They are shifting from a hard conflict to a soft attack," Taeb said. <...>
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent Obama a congratulatory letter last week, but by Wednesday his welcoming tone had dissipated. "It doesn't make any difference for us who comes and who goes," he said in a speech in the northern town of Sari. "It's their actions which are studied by the Iranian and world nations." <...>
"The U.S. must prove that their policies have changed and are now based upon respecting the rights of the Iranian nation and mutual respect," said Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, the president's closest adviser.
Ahmadinejad's media adviser, Mehdi Kalhor, said that "in fair circumstances" Iran would be open to talks. "But that is not when you have a bayonet pressed at your artery," he added, referring to the U.S. forces deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf. <...>
Kalhor, Ahmadinejad's media adviser, said Iran's "policies and position towards America have not changed at all." He added: "Our problems with America are strategic." <...>
In comments during his first news conference, Obama set some Iranian leaders on edge. "Iran's development of a nuclear weapon, I believe, is unacceptable. We have to mount an international effort to prevent that from happening," Obama said. "Iran's support of terrorist organizations, I think, is something that has to cease."
Ali Larijani, speaker of Iran's parliament and a political rival to Ahmadinejad, heard echoes of the past. "Obama's words were tantamount to moving on the previous wrong track," Larijani told reporters.
