Iran, So Far Away, Part 14

With Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu visiting the US on Sunday as the AIPAC conference meets this weekend in Washington DC, President Obama gave a strongly-worded interview to The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg on Iran and its nuclear program.

"Without in any way being under an illusion about Iranian intentions, without in any way being naive about the nature of that regime, they are self-interested," Obama said. "It is possible for them to make a strategic calculation that, at minimum, pushes much further to the right whatever potential breakout capacity they may have, and that may turn out to to be the best decision for Israel's security."  

The president also said that Tehran's nuclear program would represent a "profound" national-security threat to the United States even if Israel were not a target of Iran's violent rhetoric, and he dismissed the argument that the United States could successfully contain a nuclear Iran.

"You're talking about the most volatile region in the world," he said. "It will not be tolerable to a number of states in that region for Iran to have a nuclear weapon and them not to have a nuclear weapon. Iran is known to sponsor terrorist organizations, so the threat of proliferation becomes that much more severe." He went on to say, "The dangers of an Iran getting nuclear weapons that then leads to a free-for-all in the Middle East is something that I think would be very dangerous for the world."

The president was most animated when talking about the chaotic arms race he fears would break out if Iran acquired a nuclear weapon, and he seemed most frustrated when talking about what he sees as a deliberate campaign by Republicans to convince American Jews that he is anti-Israel. "Every single commitment I have made to the state of Israel and its security, I have kept," he told me. "Why is it that despite me never failing to support Israel on every single problem that they've had over the last three years, that there are still questions about that?"

Know your audience.  Expect more tough talk at AIPAC's conference this weekend...but as Churchill once said, "'Jaw, jaw' is better than 'war, war.'"  The Israel hawks will ignore the tough talk because iran still exists.  The Puritopians will point to the interview as proof that the President will lead us into a war that even Dubya (now their hero) wouldn't tolerate.

Realists will figure out what Churchill knew, and that President Obama not only knows it, but is rope-a-doping both sides.