Ooooh! Be careful, Mr. Bush ... we're in that post-August 22 period now and "expedited" sanctions sound a bit premature ...

Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki (photo on left -- pronounce that one, Richard!) said that they simply wanted to talk -- and talk has never been bad in and of itself. Starting to talk (unilaterally) about "expedited sanctions" before the month is even close to ending (Western calendar, which is what was meant in the UN resolution) sounds premature to me. It surely makes the US State Department's spokesman, Gonzalo Gallegos (there's a little competition going on as regards tough-to-pronounce names) sound a bit too aggressive in stating that we are already working with the UN Security Council to adopt the provisions of Article 41 of Chapter 7 of the resolution, doesn't it?

Surely, Secretary Condi Rice's phonecalls to Russia and Germany (and I presume China) are reasonable precautions so as to avoid a hassle at the end of our month, but I think that we just might go a bit slowly on doing anything (in any possible sanctions) that goes beyond not allowing the Iranians to compete in our (baseball) World Series in October ... at least for the time being. I'm not ready for $8.00 per gallon gasoline quite yet.

What does Molly say on this, Richard?