West can’t allow nuclear-armed Iran, U.S. leader says

PanARMENIAN.Net - President Barack Obama, speaking days before a crucial meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, rejected suggestions that the West could contain a nuclear-armed Iran, and warned that the United States could take military action to prevent it from acquiring a bomb, The New York Times reported.

But the president also said he would try to persuade Mr. Netanyahu, whom he is meeting here on Monday, that a preemptive Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities could help Tehran by allowing it to portray itself as a victim. And he said such military action would only delay, not prevent, Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Mr. Obama’s remarks, in a 45-minute interview with The Atlantic magazine earlier this week, were intended to reassure Jerusalem of Washington’s resolve to protect its ally against an Iranian threat, while making the case that Israel should not take matters into its own hands.

“I think that the Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don’t bluff,” Mr. Obama said in the interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent with The Atlantic. “I also don’t, as a matter of sound policy, go around advertising exactly what our intentions are.”

“But I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say,” the president said.