President George Bush has come out and said it: military force is an option in the case of Iran:
US President George W Bush refused to rule out the use of force against Iran over the Islamic republic’s resumption of nuclear activities, in an interview with Israeli television.
When asked if the use of force was an alternative to faltering diplomatic efforts, Bush said: “All options are on the table.”
“The use of force is the last option for any president. You know we have used force in the recent past to secure our country,” he said in a clear reference to Iraq.“I have been willing to do so as a last resort in order to secure the country and provide the opportunity for people to live in free societies,” he added.
Bush was speaking from his ranch in Crawford, Texas to a reporter from Israeli public television. The Jewish state has accused Iran of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons and believes it is the prime target of the alleged arms program.
This is likely to spark a slew of reaction — positive and negative — domestically and internationally but the Reuters report notes that Bush in his comments was saying that he would not ruling it out as a last resort.
It comes within the context of rising international tensions due to an increasingly defiant — almost taunting — attitude from Iran. Iran re-started uranium conversion at the Isfahan plant earlier this week after rejecting the EU’s offer of political and economic incentives in exchange for giving up its nuclear program. Tehran insists it only wants to produce electricity and denies Western accusations it is seeking a nuclear bomb.
Islam Online pointedly has some other points such as:
Despite a lingering standoff, the US has ruled out the use of force against North Korea, which boasts having nuclear weapons and reprocessing spent fuel at its controversial Yongbyon nuclear plant…
Tehran maintains that its nuclear program is only designed to produce electricity and refutes Western accusations of seeking a nuclear bomb.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei had underlined that there was no evidence Iran was developing nuclear weapons.
The right to peaceful nuclear technology is enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that for 35 years has governed efforts to contain the spread of atomic weapons.
The New Yorker’s award-winning reporter Seymour Hersh revealed in January 2005 that American commandoes have been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran.
“The goal is to identify and isolate three dozen, and perhaps more, such targets that could be destroyed by precision strikes and short-term commando raids,” he wrote citing well-placed CIA and Pentagon sources.
The sources said the “Iranian campaign” is next on the agenda of the administration of wartime Bush.
Indeed, there are some in the U.S. who also fear that the ground is being set for the administration to take on Iran next. Some believe, in fact, that the administration is looking for a reason to take on Iran.
However, that hasn’t been proven to be true — and even if that was the case realistically speaking it’d be a tough sell for the administration if the goal eventually was more than just a military operation or two. The reason: the Iraq war has now become so intensesly politicized, with quintessential political polarization springing up from it, that it there would have to be an ironclad case for military intervention to achieve widespread American support. The adminstration now faces a bigger credibility problem than it faced when it pushed for military force in Iraq.
But Iran is clearly of concern to the EU, the US and to Israel. So if the standoff continues — or events increase and worsen tensions — it would not be surprising to see some kind of military action from some quarters against Tehran.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.