The Associated Press reports: The U.S. has plans in place to attack Iran if necessary to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons, Washington’s envoy to Israel said, days ahead of a crucial round of nuclear talks with Tehran.
Dan Shapiro’s message resonated Thursday far beyond the closed forum in which it was made: Iran should not test Washington’s resolve to act on its promise to strike if diplomacy and sanctions fail to pressure Tehran to abandon its disputed nuclear program.
Shapiro told the Israel Bar Association the U.S. hopes it will not have to resort to military force.
“But that doesn’t mean that option is not fully available. Not just available, but it’s ready,” he said. “The necessary planning has been done to ensure that it’s ready.”
Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, like energy production. The U.S. and Israel suspect Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, but differences have emerged in how to persuade Tehran to curb its program.
Washington says diplomacy and economic sanctions must be given a chance to run its course, and is taking the lead in the ongoing talks between six global powers and Iran.
Israel, while saying it would prefer a diplomatic solution, has expressed skepticism about these talks and says time is running out for military action to be effective.
President Barack Obama has assured Israel that the U.S. is prepared to take military action if necessary, and it is standard procedure for armies to draw up plans for a broad range of possible scenarios. But Shapiro’s comments were the most explicit sign yet that preparations have been stepped up.
In his speech, Shapiro acknowledged the clock is ticking.
“We do believe there is time. Some time, not an unlimited amount of time,” Shapiro said. “But at a certain point, we may have to make a judgment that the diplomacy will not work.”
THE OBAMA CONUNDRUM!
In the end Obama’s only good luck is that Romney is such a low-life; because otherwise, Obama hasn’t got much to get re-elected on. He has sucked up to one interest group after another and has said anything to get various discordant interests to tell him: “I love you.”
He’s been running a three years re-election campaign led by the nose by the Cintonistas who were hoping to destroy him in time for Hillary to “save the day.” As much as he disgusts me superficially, however, more deeply, I do think that there’s a lot he prevented from happening and that he did which his campaign considers better left unsaid. So, in the end, like a Las Vagas high roller, I’m betting that free of re-election he’ll be free of Bill Clinton and will become his own man. As Ted Kennedy’s marionette, he suffered the death of the puppeteer before coming to office so he went to the Clintons to lead him as if a blind president. So far it shows and I’m disgusted. Yet, there’s a flavor to things that make me thing: yea, he’s a plitical whore for four years….but, re-elected, I can’t help feeling strongly that he’ll be his own man. Anyway, Romney is a crook from a shyster cult with a history that most people should study before voting for a man who gives $5millons/yr to that cult and, therefore, that may be far more of an issue that the laughable JFK and the Pope.
At least one thing is clear. Despite all the bravado, Obama has not bowed to Israel to make america, once again, Israel’s killer attack dog. But one thing is sure: Israel, even if Obama tightens his grip on America’s $billions, will be able to say: how is it that in the second four years we’re so terrible while in the first four we were your darling?
That’s why I’m so grateful when WAR IN CONTEXT provides us with Brazilian music, scientific news or wiggles the focus momentarily off the Middle East. It is unimaginable that the country that betrayed America by selling its secrets to the Soviets and Chicoms had the chutzpah to demand that we liberate the perpetrator of the treason that made all those sales possible. We were indeed “sold out” by our “best ally.” The idea that we’re funding its nukes program while it forces our nose into its mess rattles me no end. I want Israel to survive, but it doesn’t have to put its foot on the neck of Lady Liberty to do that.