WASHINGTON, March 16: Making no apologies for the invasion of Iraq, the United States on Thursday reaffirmed its strike-first policy of pre-emption and warned that Iran may pose the biggest threat to US national security.

“We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran,” the White House said in a 49-page blueprint called ‘The National Security Strategy of the United States of America’.

The report drew up a balance sheet of what it called President George Bush’s foreign policy successes and remaining ‘challenges’ like bloody violence in Iraq and tense standoffs over nuclear programmes in Iran and North Korea.

It also warned Russia that its ties with the West depend on democratic reforms, and urged China to embrace greater political freedom — while saying that Washington would ‘hedge’ for the possibility this does not happen.

And the report pleaded for patience with what has thus far been a mostly fruitless policy towards ending what it again referred to as ‘genocide’ in Sudan’s troubled region of Darfur.

The blueprint made no direct reference to possible UN Security Council action to punish Iran for refusing to freeze sensitive aspects of its nuclear program, which Washington says hides an atomic weapons project.

Instead, it referred to US-backed diplomacy by Britain, France and Germany, as well as efforts by Russia, and cautioned that ‘this diplomatic effort must succeed if confrontation is to be avoided’.

Mr Bush has said that he hopes for a diplomatic solution to the North Korean and Iranian crises, while refusing to rule out military options.

The document made clear that Washington does not view the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that were at the core of its public case for the invasion of Iraq as a blow against its strategy of preventive war.

That strategy was fleshed out in the 2002 version of the document, which built on Mr Bush’s position that the Sept 11, 2001, strikes made Cold War deterrence obsolete. —AFP