Quote Of The Day: Slapping Mullahs Edition

"So today, Britain will urge Europe and Europe will agree to take further sanctions against Iran. First of all we will take action today that will freeze the overseas assets of the biggest bank in Iran, the bank Melli."
-- UK PM Gordon Brown

So Bush is a foreign policy dolt? Too stupid to do anything but alienate Europe and other far more sophisticated allies? Once again, has proved himself smarter than this critics, this time touring Europe as a lame duck and achieving all the policy goals set forth for the trip.

While the policy elite thought nothing much would come of this trip, Bush was able to convince Europe's big three -- England, France and Germany -- to drop their happy faces and admit that they have nothing to show for years of diplomacy with Tehran. If they were ton continue on this course, all that would happen is that Tehran would be granted years to move forward with its nuke program.

The latest round of rumors of a US attack on Iran, surfacing in tandem with the trip, no doubt helped to convince the Europeans to tighten up sanctions. Reuters reports that sanctions on oil and gas will likely follow.

The wiley Bush has once again shown that diplomacy works best when there's a big stick involved.