Obama and Sarkozy - Charged Connection?

NBC News chose to run a story on 30 Mar, 2010 to try to explain why President Obama said that he would like to see new sanctions against Iran in a matter of weeks, and NBC stated that he made the statements due to pressure from French President Sarkozy who was visiting the U.S. with his high profile wife.

Actual transcript of the entire joint briefing is available at link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-obama-and-president-sarkozy-france-during-joint-press-availabilit

In reading the transcript in its entirety, it's difficult to determine exactly how NBC made the determination that President Obama's statement was made under pressure, unless they are possibly going more on what the media has reported on prior conversations and exchanges between the two presidents. There was no proof or explanation offered to back up the overall claim being made by NBC in the piece.

In the transcript in response to a reporter's question, President Obama stated: "My hope is that we are going to get this done this spring. So I’m not interested in waiting months for a sanctions regime to be in place; I’m interested in seeing that regime in place in weeks."

An article in the Guardian ran the same day, at the link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/richard-adams-blog/2010/mar/30/iran-sanctions-obama-sarkozysays the following: "Obama's stance was supported by President Sarkozy, who said the US and French administrations were "inseparable" on the subject."

In reading the transcript of the briefing, I would not have come away with the conclusion that the statement by the U.S. president was made under pressure from the French President, but rather that Mr. Obama genuinely wants to see the sanctions in a timely manner.  In fact when, during the briefing, President Sarkozy took time to identify where he and President Obama have differences, the question of sanctions on Iran was not one that he listed.

During the piece Andrea Mitchell stated that president Sarkozy is "short in stature like Napoleon...", and seemed to be attacking President Sarkozy in general.

The piece by NBC seemed to support and continue the patterns in play during the time when the two presidents were working together as allies on international matters, in that the media in general portrayed Sarkozy as taking the lead against Iran and having to lead or push Mr. Obama on the matters concerning the possibility of a nuclear Iran.