US:Struggling to maintain international pressure on Iran after this week's admission by US intelligence agencies that Tehran abandoned its nuclear weapons programme four years ago, President George Bush demanded yesterday that Iran "come clean" about its nuclear activities.
"The Iranians have a strategic choice to make. They can come clean with the international community about the scope of their nuclear activities, and fully accept the longstanding offer to suspend their enrichment programme and come to the table and negotiate, or they can continue on a path of isolation," the president said.
As the administration rushed to shore up support from European allies for more sanctions against Iran, secretary of state Condoleezza Rice stressed that the new intelligence report, which contradicts a 2005 assessment, does not mean that the US no longer sees Iran as a threat. She appeared to acknowledge, however, that the threat of US military action against Iran has receded, emphasising the importance of maintaining diplomatic pressure on Tehran.
"It doesn't mean you should take the pressure off. It puts a premium on diplomatic efforts. I continue to see Iran as a dangerous power in international politics. At this moment, it doesn't appear to have an active weaponisation program. That frankly is good news. But if it causes people to say, 'Oh, well, then we don't need to worry about what the Iranians are doing', I think we will have made a big mistake," she said.
In Tehran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the US intelligence report a "a great victory" for Iran and said the country would need to aim for 50,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium.
The director of UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Association, Mohamed ElBaradei, said the US report is in line with his agency's appraisal. "The report now opens a window of opportunity for Iran, as the latter has been vindicated in a way, when it stated that it was not engaged in a nuclear armaments programme, at least for the coming years," he said.
The White House announced this week that Mr Bush will visit the Middle East in the new year to promote peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis but Democrats warned that the intelligence services' about-face on Iran had further undermined Mr Bush's credibility.
Senate foreign relations committee chairman Joseph Biden said it beggared belief that Mr Bush did not hear about the intelligence services' revised view, which dates back to August, until last week, as he has claimed.
"If that's true, he has the most incompetent staff in modern American history, and he's one of the most incompetent presidents in modern American history," Mr Biden said.
Norman Podhoretz, a neoconservative who advises Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani on foreign policy, accused the intelligence community of "leaking material calculated to undermine" the president.
Writing in the Washington Post, Robert Kagan, another prominent neoconservative, argued that the intelligence report had not only made a military strike impossible but also limited Mr Bush's diplomatic options.
"Fear of American military action was always the primary reason Europeans pressured Tehran. Fear of an imminent Iranian bomb was secondary. Bringing Europeans together in support of serious sanctions was difficult before the NIE. Now it is impossible," he wrote. Mr Kagan said that, instead of pursuing further sanctions, the US should open talks with Iran, not only on the nuclear issue but on terrorism and human rights.