US restates strike-first policy

By Olivier Knox in Washington
March 17, 2006

MAKING no apologies for the war in Iraq, the United States reaffirmed its strike-first policy of preemption and warned Iran could pose the biggest threat to US national security.

"We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran," the White House said in a 49 page blueprint called The National Security Strategy of the United States of America.
The report drew up a balance sheet of what it called US President George W. Bush's foreign policy successes and remaining "challenges" like bloody violence in Iraq and tense stand-offs over nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.

It also warned Russia that its ties with the West depend on democratic reforms, and urged China to embrace greater political freedom - while saying that Washington will "hedge" for the possibility this does not happen.

The report pleaded for patience with what has thus far been a mostly fruitless policy towards ending what it again referred to as "genocide" in Sudan's troubled region of Darfur.

The blueprint made no direct reference to possible UN security council action to punish Iran for refusing to freeze sensitive aspects of its nuclear program, which Washington says hides an atomic weapons project.

Instead, it referred to US-backed diplomacy by Britain, France and Germany, and to efforts by Russia, and cautioned that "this diplomatic effort must succeed if confrontation is to be avoided".
Mr Bush has said he hopes for a diplomatic solution to the North Korean and Iranian crises, while refusing to rule out military options.

The document made clear that Washington does not view the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that were at the core of its public case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq as a blow against its strategy of preventive war.

That strategy was fleshed out in the 2002 version of the document, which built on Mr Bush's position that the September 11, 2001 terrorist strikes made Cold War deterrence obsolete and required bolder action.

"The place of premption in our national security strategy remains the same," the White House said overnight. "We do not rule out the use of force before attacks occur."

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