A 'Good-Cop, Bad-Cop' Approach on Iran (says Armitage)

SANTIAGO, Chile, Nov. 20 - It took the bluntest-talking member of the Bush administration - Richard L. Armitage, who is leaving his post as deputy secretary of state - to explain the strategy of suddenly increasing the heat on Iran's nuclear program.

Interviewed on Al Jazeera, the Arab-language television network, on Friday, Mr. Armitage argued that it made sense for Europe to offer incentives to Iran to give up its program while President Bush continues to take a hard line.

"My view would be that the incentives of the Europeans only work against the backdrop of the United States being strong and firm on this issue," he said. "In the vernacular, it's kind of a good-cop bad-cop arrangement. If it works, we'll all have been successful."

That may explain why Iran, which is nowhere near the Pacific Ocean, became a repeated subject of conversation on Saturday as President Bush arrived at his first post-election summit meeting, the annual gathering of leaders of Asian nations and countries from Chile to Canada whose borders touch the Pacific.

http://nytimes.com/2004/11/21/international/middleeast/21tehran.html

enough to think that the rest of those countries. are just going to wait to see if master bush will leave them alone is very naive indeed.

.. it's more like "Good cop, Dirty cop". The Boosh admin is drying out all of Irans nuclear resources, so in 4 years, Cheney can go back to Halliburton and sell Iran some nuclear technology again.

It's good cop, stupid fucking asshole.

In case Europe's tactics work. Just like they say the terrorists caused the outcome of the Spanish elections. They like to tell you what influenced things.