By Jim Lobe
Asia Times
"WASHINGTON - In the harshest speech against Iran given by a top George W Bush administration official to date, Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday warned the Islamic Republic of "serious consequences" if it did not freeze its nuclear program and accused it of "direct involvement in the killings of Americans".....
In his nearly 30-minute speech, an uncompromising defense of the Bush administration's record in the Middle East, Cheney also claimed that, with Washington's "surge" strategy working well against al-Qaeda in Iraq, the "greatest strategic threat that Iraq's Shi'ites face today in consolidating their rightful role in Iraq's new democracy is the subversive activities of the Iranian regime".
And he accused "Syria and its agents" of using "bribery and intimidation ... to prevent the democratic majority in Lebanon from electing a truly independent president".....
The forum chosen by Cheney to deliver his speech was in many ways as significant as its timing and context. WINEP, a generally hawkish think-tank, was founded some 20 years ago by the research director of the highly influential lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and is funded by many of the same donors.....
Cheney's speech was remarkable on several counts, beginning with the fact that it came less than a week after Gates gave a much more restrained presentation on US Middle East policy and the threat posed by Iran to a yet more-hawkish pro-Israel group, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.....
Iran, indeed, dominated the last 10 minutes of the speech. By contrast, Lebanon received only two paragraphs while the administration's efforts to renew US-Palestinian peace talks drew only the briefest of mentions......"
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