ON POTENTIALLY NEW GROUND WITH IRAN?

SAY WHAT?

Pretty remarkable speech by President Bush at the United Nations (via the New York Times), regardless of which side of the political aisle one favors.  It tries to speak directly to the people of the broader Middle East, almost country by country. 

I'd recommend reading the whole thing, even if you've watched clips of it on TV.

The sentence that struck me the most, was the following, addressing the people of Iran:

" Despite what the regime tells you, we have no objection to Iran's pursuit of a truly peaceful nuclear power program."

Has this ever been said by the President before, or any U.S. government official?  If so, I missed it.  Is this new? 

Can't seem to get an answer to this question perusing the various traditional media accounts of the speech.  Curious if you've got any input either way.

Comments

[Niko]

Sitting outside of US, to me it sounded like another "we'll come and liberate you, like your happy neighbours in iraq" speech. Hope not.

[CynicalGeek]

I don't have references for it, so this is pretty much a useless comment, but yes, he's said numerous times that he doesn't have a problem with nuclear technology in Iran as long as it's not used for weapons. Considering that Iran was able to hide it's nuclear program from the IAEA for two decades, and now they say that "Addressing allegations that Iran wants nuclear weaponry, Ahmadinejad said his country's program was conducted "under the watchful eye of [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors."" we have to assume that they are still up to no good. We can't just accept that Ahmadinejad always tells the truth.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/09/19/iran.un/index.html

[Yaser Anwar]

The recent cooperation between Iran & EU was a tactic used by Iran to stop the UN from bringing forth any sanctions. Similarly, your quote of Prez Bush, I think it's just a way to reduce tensions, even oil price one may say.

Elections are a month away & Prez. Bush's ratings are going up, I'm not surprised that the Prez is making such comments.