Azerbaijan, Baku, 9 January /corr. Trend A.Gasimova / The US President George Bush's tour to Middle East aims to rebuild regional confidence in American policy, said one of the leading experts in Washington, Ilan Berman.
Today, George Bush, the US President begins the eight days tour to the six countries in the Middle East. For the first time in the past seven years after his coming to the White House, Bush made a visit to Israel, as well as will visit Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
" Iran will be one of the most important issues on the agenda of President Bush's trip to the Middle East this week. There is no question that the new U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, which was released late last year, has dramatically altered U.S. policy toward Iran," the Vice President of the US Council for Foreign Relations, Ilan Berman reported to Trend via e-mail on 9 January.
The summary report of the US National Intelligence Estimate published in December stated for the first time that already in 2003 Iran terminated realizing military component of its military program. In addition, the report says that the Iran is continuing the uranium enrichment in such a volume, which will enable in creating the nuclear war-heads by 2010-2015. The document makes a conclusion, that Iran is less interested in devising the nuclear weapons than it was considered formerly and is more sensitive to the international pressure.
According to the expert, in the process, it has raised serious questions among the countries of the Persian Gulf about America's commitment to confronting Tehran.
"The message we can expect from the President is that Iran remains a threat, and needs to be contained. Such a strategy, however, requires the assistance of Iran's Arab neighbors, and this will be the constituency that the President will be reaching out to," the expert added.