‘Military action likely’ if Iran talks fail, US spokeswoman says
‘Military action likely’ if Iran talks fail, US spokeswoman says | JPost | Israel News.
( Meaningless pap from a low-level nobody to assuage the Dem Senators worried about their futures after bailing on the sanctions. – JW )
LAST UPDATED: 02/01/2014 02:41
WASHINGTON- State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said on Friday that a resolution to the longstanding nuclear crisis with Iran, should current diplomatic efforts fail, “is likely to involve military action.”
“I’m not predicting that we would take military action right away,” Harf said. “It’s more of a broad statement that, look, if we can’t get this done diplomatically in six months or a year or at any time, we will– we are committed to resolving it. And that involves less durable and, quite frankly, riskier actions.”
In his fifth State of the Union address this week, US President Barack Obama said that negotiations between Iran and the P5+1– the US, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Germany– were the world’s best chance to resolve the standoff “peacefully” and to avoid “the risks of war.”
But rather than directly stating that war was the potential risk of diplomatic failure, Obama said that, should talks fail, he would be “the first” to pursue additional sanctions against the Islamic Republic from the US Congress.
Harf was asked by The Jerusalem Post whether the administration considered war or additional sanctions as more likely if diplomacy, now at a critical juncture, does not achieve a comprehensive solution in a time frame agreed upon by world powers and the Obama administration.
“I’m not saying in six months we’re going to go to war if we don’t get a deal done. Broadly speaking, the alternative to resolving this diplomatically is resolving it through other means,” Harf said.
“There are only a few scenarios that come out of this: either we resolve it diplomatically or we resolve it a different way,” Harf continued. “It’s just common sense that that different way could involve– is likely to involve military action.”
Thus far, negotiations have achieved a six-month freeze in Iran’s expansive nuclear program, which includes over 20,000 centrifuges used to enrich uranium in multiple nuclear plants as well enough stockpiled fissile material for 5-6 nuclear warheads.
Iran agreed to freeze most of its enrichment work and to begin diluting its stockpile of near-20 percent enriched uranium– a key threshold in the enrichment process– in exchange for sanctions relief from world powers amounting to roughly $7 billion.
The interim agreement, reached in Geneva on November 24 and formally known as the Joint Plan of Action, is intended to cap international sanctions pressure on Iran and its nuclear work for six months while the parties negotiate a permanent end to the decade-old impasse. The parties may extend that deadline an additional six months if all nations agree the negotiations are progressing.
Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has called the interim agreement “a very bad deal” that has made the world “a much more dangerous place.”
In recent weeks, the White House has repeatedly warned that war might be a consequence of a collapse in the talks. But those inferences came in the context of a warning to the US Senate, where a bipartisan group of legislators have been mulling a bill that would trigger new sanctions tools against Iran if talks fail, or if the JPOA is not properly upheld.
Obama has threatened to veto the bill, which was introduced by Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Robert Menendez, a Democrat.
“I don’t think Americans want a march to war,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said in his daily briefing on January 14. “We share the desire to make sure that Iran is held to account. But we need to do so in a way that allows maximum flexibility to achieve a resolution here peacefully.”
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WarSclerotic 
February 1, 2014 at 1:42 PM
Thats what the pentagon are saying the senator is just repeating that,but before that there is talk now of action on syria asap,there is now a enormous rift between the west and russia its all about to become unmanageable and someones nerve will go,Iran plans to subvert the Saudis before attacking Israel you can see the shit storm coming,the things going on now are a symptom of this,Whats ironic is our enemy’s dont understand capitalism and perceive the recession to be debilitating or weakening they have miscalculated in a disastrous way,No one can predict the outcome of having tens of thousand of terrorists,Russian NATO and Chinese all within a few hundred miles of each other,the Ukraine on the verge of civil war and all kinds of quagmires spring up in the china sea,I have heard hints that the usa is planing on sending a task force back to syria ,with the Russians and Chinese amphibious group waiting in the eastern med,Well lets face it that’s the fuse, that will light them all up in the biggest firework display the middle east has ever witnessed,Iran will be history.
February 1, 2014 at 3:53 PM
The Russians do not need a confrontation with anyone at this time. Even to the point of tolerating US warships in the Black Sea in advance of the Sochi Olympics.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-warship-sets-sail-for-black-sea-in-advance-of-sochi-olympics/
February 1, 2014 at 5:22 PM
we now the news is manipulated in the US Putin is spiting poison at europe with all kind of militery threats and movements your not here so i cant see how you would know very much about it and on top of this putin has just readied ten divisions of spitznaz in case of cival war in the Ukraine which he is blaming on the USA and europe there has never been a more dangerous in the last 50 years,why do you think people like me are saying this,you think about it steve everything i told you last year has come true,we knew what our enemy’s strategy was from the start,your country has gone to sleep and ours is paralised though a corrupt government,i preyed that israel would attack iran for 7 years
February 1, 2014 at 5:30 PM
The US navy has invited itself the presence of warships in the black sea is a tactical move,nothing else,a warning if you like and nothing to do with the Olympics i told you this is the cold war MK 2,The russians are having there own tactics used back on them they can hardly refuse,as this would lead to most country’s pulling out of the games,and yes that cbs article is nice piece of justification but thats not the underlying motive
February 1, 2014 at 6:07 PM
“why do you think people like me are saying this”
Because you’re paranoid?
February 1, 2014 at 9:01 PM
we there the reasons being quoted behind the scenes every one has the jitters about parallels between 2014 and 1914 and it doesn’t help with 2 major think tanks predicting war between japan and china and the us has already said the mutual defense pact stands,the next day the Chinese reiterated there defense pacts with iran and the Ukraine,i am not paranoid your just in denial which wont change anything the writing is clearly on the wall only the blind could not see the truth,i hope that israel attacks iran asap as they might get away with it them selves but what wont happen is a near term USA attack.This is not going to happen this year
February 1, 2014 at 10:57 PM
We’ll reconvene this line of discussion 2/1/15, I have it in my calendar and there will still be no action by Israel toward Iran. It was always a bluff by Israel’s Churchill (what a joke) to get America to once again do his dirty work.
February 1, 2014 at 11:11 PM
Yes, I know John. Israel and Netanyahu are clearly manipulating poor Obama and Kerry.
You wrote your own headline, “What a joke ! “
February 2, 2014 at 12:31 AM
The whole things a debacle at every stage Obama has made critical mistakes along with the uk french and Germans,
February 2, 2014 at 1:32 AM
“Yes, I know John. Israel and Netanyahu are clearly manipulating poor Obama and Kerry.”
Netanyahu played chess with Obama, each side trying to out maneuver the other. The levers Netanyahu could pull in the past did not work this time and Obama and Kerry are about turn over Israles King.
Israel has no manifest-destiny and is being put into an increasingly tinier box, soon disappear from this earth. Who do I blame? Netanyahu, who has failed to act decisively at any point along the way.