Ross: Obama Won’t Let Iran Get Bomb
Dennis Ross, President Obama’s former top Iran adviser, said the president would strike Iran to keep the Islamic Republic from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
“The Iranians should never think that there’s a reluctance to use the force,” Ross, who has returned to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, told Bloomberg News in an interview published Tuesday.
Obama administration officials in recent weeks have edged closer to warning Iran that a strike is in the cards if it does not make transparent a suspected nuclear weapons program.
“They need to know that if they take that step, they’re going to get stopped,” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said over the weekend.
The United States has increased its military presence in the Persian Gulf and in the coming weeks will launch its largest-ever joint anti-missile defense exercise with Israel. The Obama administration also has ratcheted up sanctions, targeting Iran’s Central Bank.
On Tuesday, the administration condemned Iran’s declared intention to launch uranium enrichment at a site it had kept secret until recently.
“This step once again demonstrates the Iranian regime’s blatant disregard for its responsibilities and that the country’s growing isolation is self-inflicted,” said a statement by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. “Iran only declared the Qom facility to the IAEA after it was discovered by the international community following three years of covert construction.”
Obama revealed the existence of the facility near Qom, a holy city, in late 2009, forcing Iran to convey some of its particulars to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog.
Iran this week said it would activate centrifuges to enrich uranium to 20 percent, for medical research – all short of the 90 percent needed to manufacture nuclear bombs.
“We call upon Iran to immediately cease uranium enrichment and to comply with its international nuclear obligations,” Clinton said in her statement.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
