Iranian Alert - January 20, 2005 - Condoleezza Rice Voices Tough Line on Iran

Our great president said today, among other fantastic things:

It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.

As I listened to it, I must say that I was stunned. Bush spent roughly 2/3 of the speech - which is usually almost totally domestic in nature - on foreign policy. He got started right away. The whole thing was about freedom. I expected maybe five minutes of foreign policy. No - more like 12+ minutes! WOW!

And what actually said. What a great speech! He basically said it is the policy of the American government to support freedom and democracy in every country on every continent.

That includes Iran!

I can't help but thinking that the Iranian people as a whole are smiling after Bush's speech today. He didn't mention Iran by name (not even Iraq, which surprised me), but I think they know. And so do the mullahs. This is the tough talk I've been waiting for. This is a revision of the "Bush Doctrine." We're against you even if you don't support terrorism. Treat your people right if you want friendly relations with the United States. He wasn't joking when he said that his foreign policy for his second term would mirror The Case for Democracy.

The thing that really capped it off was when he linked our relations with nations, and how they treat their people. I could barely believe I heard him said that.

If the dominance of foreign policy in Bush's 2nd Inaugural address is reflective of the emphasis throughout the next four years, then it is going to be spreading freedom throughout the world, and in our spare time, we'll work on the [huge] domestic agenda. I think it was on September 13, 2001, that Bush said that he was going to become a foreign policy president. He would still do domestic things, but foreign policy would be his focus. Nearly 3 1/2 years later, that is as true as ever.

Bush isn't president just to be president. He wants to get things done. America, and, indeed the world, will look very different on January 20, 2009, than it did on January 20, 2001.

What Bush needs to do next is say much the same thing during the State of the Union address (whenever that will be), but harshly single out Iran. Most encouraging is the talk of getting sanctions imposed on Iran by the UNSC. Not that it is ever going to happen, China and Europe would never go along with it, but it is the next step.

If I ever heard the footsteps of the marching of freedom - it is today.

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