US gives up military option, non-UN sanctions against Iran
DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.
US deputy defense secretary Michele Flournoy said Wednesday, April 21: “The US has ruled out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program any time soon.” This is the first time a senior administration official has publicly admitted that America has dropped its military option against Iran. Instead, said Flournoy, the US is hoping that “negotiations and United Nations sanctions will prevent the Middle East nation from developing nuclear weapons.”
Addressing a news conference in Singapore, she said clearly: “Military force is an option of last resort, it’s off the table in the near term.”
A few hours later, the Pentagon spokesman denied that a military strike against Iran was off the table, indicating confusion and polarization at the top of the Obama administration on its Iran policy.
debkafile‘s military sources report that Flournoy’s statement contradicts every public assertion by president Barack Obama, defense secretary Robert Gates and the chairman of the joint Chiefs of staff Adm. Mike Mullen, all of whom have insisted that all options are on the table if Iran fails to curb its current nuclear activities. Deputy Secretary Flournoy is regarded as a senior, serious and responsible Pentagon official who is too experienced to go out on a limb with a key policy statement to reporters without the highest authority.
The policy reversal amounts to a beckoning finger at America’s open door for Iran to return to the negotiating table.
Monday and Tuesday, April 19-20, Iran’s foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki announced his government is willing to go back to talks with the United States and other powers on a deal for its enriched uranium. Turkey has offered its services as broker between Washington and Tehran.
But if anything, Iran’s position on its nuclear program has hardened since the first round of negotiations ended in nothing, and the next round is likely to waste more precious months and end the same way. Tehran’s only object in seeking to discuss an agreed outcome for the nuclear controversy is to buy time and push away Washington’s drive for tough sanctions. This the Iranians have now achieved.
Fourney’s statement that the United States is counting on UN sanctions to deter Iran likewise plays into Tehran’s hands, because it removes the second bludgeon hanging over Iran’s heads, that of US penalties outside the world body. This is the only remaining option since most of the informed sources quoted by US media in the past week view the administration’s hopes of Russia and China coming around to tough UN sanctions as non-starters.
This wholesale US retreat on Iran leaves Israel as the only country still holding to a military option for putting the brakes on Iran’s progress toward a nuclear bomb.
However, Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel’s political and military leaders are divided on the wisdom of executing this option and attacking Iran without US support.
WarSclerotic 
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