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Bush gets hard with Iran

President George W. Bush raised the possibility Wednesday of a military strike against Iran’s presumed nuclear weapons ambitions, speaking bullishly on that approach while admitting to having been unwise to use it in Iraq.

Bush’s host for two days of meetings at a baroque castle, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, made clear her views without directly countering her guest. “I very clearly pin my hopes on diplomatic efforts,” Merkel said, reflecting the deeply held European opinion that military action against Iran is nearly unthinkable.

Iran’s leader weighed in, too. Speaking before thousands in the central Iranian city of Shahr-e-Kord, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Bush “won’t be able to harm even one centimeter of the sacred land of Iran” and promised continued defiance over Iran’s nuclear activities.

Iran has said that it is enriching uranium to generate electricity, not build a bomb — a claim the West doubts is true.

“In the past two, three years, they employed all their might, resorted to propaganda … and sanctions,” Ahmadinejad said. “If the enemy thinks they can break the Iranian nation with pressure, they are wrong.”

Bush has alternated lately between slightly more conciliatory and slightly more forceful language on Iran.

Within the coded language of the U.S. attitude toward Iran, several small changes in Bush’s rhetoric Wednesday added up to a difference:

• Three times, he called a diplomatic solution “my first choice,” implying there are others.

• He said “we’ll give diplomacy a chance to work,” meaning it might not.

• He also offered, without being asked a question about Iran, that “all options are on the table” — a longtime standard refrain that neither confirms nor denies an intention to use military force.

Last week, Bush talked tough on Iran with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel, where fears of Iran’s growing might run high, and discussion of military action to keep Iran in check is becoming increasingly common.

But in Slovenia on Tuesday at a summit with the European Union, Bush’s approach was milder. He emphasized the need for tough new sanctions but made no mention of “all options” being on the table.

There is no indication the United States actually plans any sort of military action, and experts said it would be an extremely difficult feat tactically for many reasons. Bush’s back-and-forth talk appears designed more to remind Iran that the United States is serious about keeping it from developing a nuclear bomb and to try to finally corral sometimes-reluctant allies behind a common stand.

Judy Ansley, Bush’s chief aide on Europe, said Bush and Merkel did not discuss a military option in their meetings, only the diplomatic route.

But the German leader was strong on the need for new sanctions — through the United Nations, but also possibly unilaterally by the EU — if a package of incentives and penalties does not persuade Iran to halt its enrichment program. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, is visiting Tehran soon to present the offer, an updated version of one developed five years ago by the United States, Germany, Britain, France, Russia and China and ignored by Iran.

Merkel pointed to a recent report by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency as proof that Iran is a problem. The group said that Iran has stonewalled its attempts to delve into allegations that several Iranian projects appear to represent different components of a nuclear weapons program.

“We need to react to this … with further sanctions, if necessary,” she said.

On Iraq, Bush repeated his lack of regrets about waging the war.

But he publicly acknowledged a mistake, saying that in the time leading up to the invasion, he had not explained well enough that he had tried to exhaust all diplomatic options first, and that he didn’t like the idea of war.

“I could have used better rhetoric,” he said, referring to terms such as “dead or alive” to describe Osama bin Laden and “bring them on” in reference to Iraq.

Over dinner Tuesday and then breakfast, meetings, a stroll around the castle’s formal gardens and lunch, Bush and Merkel further developed U.S.-German ties that have mostly flourished since she succeeded Gerhard Schroeder, with whom Bush had stormy relations.

Other top topics besides Iran included efforts to secure a new, global pact to combat climate change, the Middle East, Afghanistan and trade. The leaders emphasized their similarities when they appeared together before reporters in a stately cobblestone courtyard.

Angela Merkel and George Bush