Iran Attack "...not on the agenda." - Condi

The New York Times reports today that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the US will try diplomacy with Iran, but military force was not ruled out.

LONDON, Feb. 4 - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today that an attack on Iran by the United States "is simply not on the agenda," despite Iran's "abysmal human rights record" and suspicion that it harbors ambitions to produce nuclear weapons.

She added: "We believe particularly in regard to the nuclear issue that while no one ever asks the American president to take all his options, any of his options, off the table, that there are plenty of diplomatic means at our disposal to get the Iranians to finally live up to their international obligations."

Ms. Rice also this, which the mullahs may find ominous:

"I don't think anybody thinks that the unelected mullahs who run that regime are a good thing for the Iranian people or for the region," Ms. Rice said to reporters on her plane to London. "I think our European allies agree that the Iranian regime's human rights behavior and its behavior toward its own population is something to be loathed."

The successful election in Iraq should have sent a message to the Iranian regime, if its leaders are bright enough to listen.

Update: The Sydney Morning Herald reports Iran's response:

"America is like one of the big heads of a seven-headed dragon," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in Iran's capital.

I see.