On Sunday, President Obama joined ABC’s This Week to discuss the threat of Iranian nuclear development, and emphasized that he had not taken force off the table: “I think what the Iranians understand is that the nuclear issue is a far larger issue for us than the chemical weapons issue, that the threat…against Israel that a nuclear Iran poses is much closer to our core interests. My suspicion is that the Iranians recognize they shouldn’t draw a lesson that we haven’t struck [Syria] to think we won’t strike Iran.” Obama added that Iran should learn from Syria that diplomatic solutions are possible: “My view is that if you have both a credible threat of force, combined with a rigorous diplomatic effort, that, in fact you can…strike a deal.”
Obama’s contention that Iran should believe in a credible American response to its nuclear program comes just weeks after Obama backed down on any military response to Syrian use of chemical weapons in favor of a Russian-brokered non-deal. Russia is a key ally to both Syria and Iran. Last week, reports suggested that Russia had initiated a new nuclear site for Iran, and was selling Iran anti-aircraft ordinance.
The Obama administration has also repeatedly leaked Israel national defense information that could have allowed Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, ranging from Israeli use of an Azerbaijani airbase to a possible deal with Saudi Arabia to use airspace.
Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).
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