Obama on Iran: 'I don't bluff'

[steve2470]

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-obama-interview-iran-20120302,0,7234351.story

President Obama's goal in upcoming talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to persuade him that the United States "has Israel's back" so that Israel has no need to rush toward air strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, the president said in a newly published interview.

In a meeting at the White House on Monday, the president told journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, he will try to persuade the Israeli leader that an attack now would backfire at a time when Iran is under increasing international pressure.

In an interview granted earlier this week and posted on the Atlantic magazine's website Friday morning, Goldberg reported that Obama is dismissive of a strategy of containment as unworkable and called it "unacceptable" for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

Obama said he plans to tell Netanyahu that he will order military strikes against Iran's nuclear program if the current international sanctions are not successful in deterring its pursuit of nuclear weapons. The possibility of an American strike against Iran is a serious one, Goldberg reported.

[surfdog]

1. Israel will not strike Iran

I don't think they can accomplish their mission

Why start a war with Iran when your mission is going to fail ?

[HopeHoops]

2. They have the capacity. They just don't want the backlash.

And keep in mind, the shrub destabilized the region by taking out Iraq. It had been at parity in the same way that the US and USSR were. We wiped out one side of the chess board.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. Was he wearing a cowboy hat when he said it?

[Fawke Em]

4. Sure. Why not?

[n2doc]

5. He's channeling Spock

From the episode Doomsday Machine:
Decker, You wouldn't Dare! Youre Bluffing.
Spock, Vulcans never bluff.
Decker, No, I dont suppose that they do. Very well MR. Spock, the bridge is yours.

[Hutzpa]

6. I hope he doesn't let the war hawks

talked him into starting another war, because it looks like they're using the high price
of oil to negotiate bombing Iran which imo is despicable but has also shown their
hand in this game of poker.

[gratuitous]

7. Oh goody, more bellicosity

Ready to go kill and die for Iranian oil, 16 and 17 year olds? There aren't any jobs for you to earn a living, but you can join the military in the next couple of years and go off to exotic, faraway lands. Because that's how we prioritize things in the United States.

[frylock]

8. gonna smoke em out

[The Northerner]

9. I suppose he's no longer extending a hand to Iran? n/t