Iraq:US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice has rejected a call for Washington to seek help from Iran and Syria on Iraq, warning that the price demanded for such co-operation could be too high.
In her first public response to the report of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, Dr Rice said Tehran and Damascus would act according to their interests, regardless of a US request for help.
"I think the problem is that you have to ask if Iran and Syria, in fact, have decided that it's in their interest to have an Iraq that is more stable than the one now . . . I assume they'll act. I assume they'll do it. And that we aren't the ones who have to tell them to do it," she said in an interview with the Washington Post.
Dr Rice said that both countries were likely to seek compensation for entering into talks with the US over Iraq and that their demands would almost certainly be unacceptable.
"The Iranians have been pretty upfront about it. They're not going to talk about Iraq over here and their nuclear programme over there. And so do you really want to get yourself into a situation in which you're talking about allowing the Iranians to continue to acquire the nuclear technology that will allow them to build a nuclear weapon to try and achieve or try to get their support in Iraq where, if they have an interest in a stable Iraq, they'll do it anyway," she said.
The Iraq Study Group chairmen, former secretary of state James Baker and former congressman Lee Hamilton, have argued that talks with all of Iraq's neighbours are essential to secure the country's future.
They point out that the US talked to the Soviet Union throughout the cold war, but Dr Rice, a former Soviet expert, rejected the comparison.
"I don't ever remember sitting down and talking to the Soviet Union about how they could help us secure stability in western Europe, you know, defending western Europe. That's not the conversation we had with the Soviet Union," she said.
Dr Rice's flat rejection of a key recommendation of the Iraq Study Group has reinforced speculation in Washington that President Bush is unwilling to accept the change of course in Iraq the group has called for.
Mr Bush was due to outline a new policy for Iraq this week, but he postponed the speech until the new year.