US News

Obama’s new ‘red line’ — Iran

WASHINGTON — Here we go again.

President Obama drew another “red line” Sunday, now on Iranian nukes — and insisted that this time, he really means it, despite infamously wavering on his red-line pledge about Syria using chemical weapons.

“My suspicion is that the Iranians recognize they shouldn’t draw a lesson that we haven’t struck [Syria] to think we won’t strike Iran,” Obama said in an interview aired on ABC’s “This Week.”

Obama stressed that he wouldn’t just talk tough but act tough when it comes to nuclear weapons.

“I think what the Iranians understand is that the nuclear issue is a far larger issue for us than the chemical-weapons issue, that the threat against Israel, that a nuclear Iran poses, is much closer to our core interests,” he said.

Obama said his threat of military action had spurred the Russian-brokered deal that would have Syria give up its chemical weapons.

“My view is that if you have both a credible threat of force, combined with a rigorous diplomatic effort, that, in fact, you can you can strike a deal,” Obama said.

Syria has yet to agree to a deal that would require President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to identify all its chemical-weapons stockpiles by the end of this week and begin handing them over.

One of Obama’s former top advisers said Iran might respond to a strike on Syria with a terrorist or cyberattack on the US.

“If there were to be a cyber-response to a US attack on Syria, I would expect it to come from Iran, not Syria,” said Mike Morell, the CIA’s former deputy director.

Obama had vacillated about how to intervene since an alleged sarin gas attack killed more than 1,000 civilians — including about 400 children — near Damascus on Aug. 21.

The president was urging Congress to pull the trigger on a military strike.

Then, with lawmakers on the verge of rejecting military action, Obama turned to a last-minute Russian offer for a diplomatic solution.

Obama boasted that his willingness to shift positions and create foreign policy on the fly demonstrates that he is “less concerned about style points” and “more concerned about getting the policy right.”

“What I’ve said consistently throughout is that the chemical-weapons issue is a problem,” Obama said.

“I want that problem dealt with. And, as a consequence of the steps that we’ve taken over the last two weeks to three weeks, we now have a situation in which Syria has acknowledged it has chemical weapons, has said it’s willing to join the convention on chemical weapons, and Russia, its primary sponsor, has said that it will pressure Syria to reach that agreement.

“That’s my goal. And if that goal is achieved, then it sounds to me like we did something right.”
Obama said critics must move beyond the Cold War rhetoric.

“I know that sometimes this gets framed or looked at through the lens of the US versus Russia,” he said.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Fars news agency reported Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted Tehran’ s invitation to visit and help work out a strategy on its nuclear program.