sisyphusshrugged | the reviews are in.

Europe (including England) wasn't impressed by Mr. Bush.

The editorial cartoon in the Times of London newspaper today was derisive: the first panel has President Bush telling the United Nations General Assembly, "Friends, our policy in Iraq is directed solely towards a successful election."

The second panel has him saying which election: "Mine."

European newspapers, including some that supported the American military campaign in Iraq, were largely critical of Mr. Bush's address on Tuesday to the United Nations.
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The Financial Times contended in its lead editorial that the Bush administration "systematically refused to engage with what actually has happened in Iraq" namely, in its view, that American policy "mistakes" have "handed the initiative to jihadi terrorists" who "now have a new base from which to challenge the West and moderate Islam."

The paper said that Mr. Bush's Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, "after being evasive, long-winded and sometimes contradictory," was beginning to speak more realistically than Mr. Bush about deterioration in Iraq. And, the newspaper asserted, that Mr. Bush's "disengagement from the reality of a sinking Iraq is alarming."

and just when his foreign policy is starting to show results, too.

Defiance plays well in Iran. That's one reason why the Islamic republic is now resuming steps toward uranium enrichment - directly flouting a UN agency's demand to stop the development of technology that could be used in a nuclear bomb.

Iran's calculation also shows that Tehran has learned lessons from US policy toward other fledgling nuclear states such as North Korea to Pakistan. In short: The West is more respectful and generous with nuclear-equipped states, rogue or not, experts say.

Iran declared Tuesday that it has "successfully" begun large- scale tests to convert some 40 tons of uranium into hexafluoride gas needed for enrichment, a key step to making nuclear fuel for power plants - or for atomic weapons.

The decision follows Tehran's anger over the tough resolution passed by the 35-member board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna on Saturday, prodded by a hardline US stance and increasingly frustrated European nations, which requires Iran to halt all enrichment-related activities, to show good faith that its program is only for peaceful purposes.

Iranian leaders condemn as "illegal" the IAEA demands, which go beyond Iran's obligations under the nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The NPT permits nations to openly enrich uranium and control the nuclear fuel cycle.

"We clearly demand that our right to enrichment be recognized [as] our legal right," President Mohamad Khatami, a relative moderate in Iran's divisive political scene, said Wednesday. Doing so "will open the way for greater cooperation."

Speaking at a military parade Wednesday - during which he repeated Iran's rejection of nuclear weapons - Mr. Khatami warned that Iran would pursue enrichment "even if it leads to an end to international supervision."