WASHINGTON — President 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.
But the president also said he would try to persuade Mr. Netanyahu, whom he is meeting here on Monday, that a pre-emptive 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.
But the president also said he would try to persuade Mr. Netanyahu, whom he is meeting here on Monday, that a pre-emptive 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.
Mr. Obama’s remarks built on his vow in the State of the Union address that the United States would “take no options off the table” in preventing Iran from acquiring a weapon. But he was more explicit in saying that those options include a “military component,” albeit after a list of other steps, including diplomatic isolation and economic sanctions.
While administration officials have signaled that the United States is not contemplating a “containment” strategy toward Iran, Mr. Obama had not been as unequivocal in rejecting it. Such a strategy, he said, would run “completely contrary” to his nuclear nonproliferation policies and raise a host of dangers the United States could do little to control.
The president spoke at length about how he believed Iran’s acquisition of a weapon would trigger an arms race in the Middle East, offering his most robust case for why the West could not successfully contain Iran the way it did the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
There is a “profound” danger that an Iranian nuclear weapon could end up in the hands of a terrorist organization, Mr. Obama said, and several other nations in the region would feel compelled to push for nuclear weapons to shield themselves from a nuclear Iran.
While the president noted that Israel understandably felt more vulnerable to an Iranian threat because of its geography and history, he said, “This is something in the national security interests of the United States and in the interests of the world community.”
Israeli officials have said that they may feel compelled to strike Iran before its nuclear program becomes effectively impregnable by sheltering its key uranium-enrichment facilities in a fortified complex under hundreds of feet of granite in a mountainside.
Mr. Obama, who made diplomatic outreach to Iran a hallmark of his first year in office, said he still believed that Iran’s leaders could make a rational calculation, under the pressure of international isolation and harsh sanctions, to give up their nuclear ambitions.
“They recognize that they are in a bad, bad place right now,” the president 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 be the best decision for Israel’s security.”
Pointing to Libya and South Africa, Mr. Obama noted that countries tend to relinquish nuclear weapons on their own, rather than as a consequence of military action. The United States, he said, was seeking a permanent, not a temporary, solution to the problem.
Taking note of the violent uprising in Syria, Mr. Obama also said an Israeli military strike could deflect attention from other forces in the region that were eroding Iran’s power and influence.
“At a time when there is not a lot of sympathy for Iran and its only real ally is on the ropes,” he said, “do we want a distraction in which suddenly Iran can portray itself as a victim, and deflect attention from what has to be the core issue, which is their potential pursuit of nuclear weapons?”
Still, with Mr. Netanyahu coming to Washington and supporters of Israel gathering for a conference of the most influential pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Mr. Obama sought to project solidarity between the United States and Israel. He also said that the two were largely in sync in their appraisal of Iran’s nuclear program.
“Our assessment, which is shared by the Israelis, is that Iran does not yet have a nuclear weapon and is not yet in a position to obtain a nuclear weapon without us having a pretty long lead time in which we will know that they are making that attempt,” he said.
The New York Times
The New York Times
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