How'd We Lose Brazil, Turkey and Lebanon?

After 17 months of diplomacy, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice was only able to get 12 of the 15 countries on the United Nations Security Council to vote to place increased sanctions on the Islamic Republic's illegal pursuit of nuclear weapons. Yesterday, on Fox News Sunday, Rice jumped to defend the Obama Administration's lackluster performance by claiming that previous Iran resolutions were not unanimous during the Bush Administration and that there were "abstentions". Her strategy to minimize the Bush team's performance in order to make her own poor performance look better isn't factual. After so much hype about President Barack Obama's foreign policy engagement strategy, the Obama UN resolution was remarkably weak, took too long to get and received less support than Bush's team got in producing FIVE Security Council resolutions on Iran.

Wednesday's vote was the first Iran resolution for the Obama team but not the first time the Security Council pressured the government of Iran to suspend all nuclear enrichment-related and reprocessing activity. In September 2008, President George W. Bush and his team wrote, negotiated and forced a vote of the 15 nations that sit on the Council. That resolution passed unanimously, including with the support of Russia and China. It was one of three Iran resolutions the Bush team got passed unanimously. Rice would lead you to believe otherwise. Two other resolutions passed with only one country voting against sanctions and one country abstaining (singular abstention, not plural as Rice claimed). Not a bad accomplishment for a team that the Obama Administration labeled devoid of friends around the world.

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