Obama: U.S. not giving Israel green light to attack Iran

[ProSense]

Obama: U.S. not giving Israel green light to attack Iran

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) – The United States is "absolutely not" giving Israel a green light to attack Iran, U.S. President Barack Obama told CNN Tuesday.

"We have said directly to the Israelis that it is important to try and resolve this in an international setting in a way that does not create major conflict in the Middle East," Obama said, referring to Iran's nuclear ambitions.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday appeared to leave the door open for Israel to attack Iran if it saw fit.

"Israel can determine for itself — it's a sovereign nation — what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else," Biden said on ABC's "This Week."

Obama said Tuesday that Biden had simply been stating a fact, not sending a signal.

"I think Vice President Biden stated a categorical fact, which is we can't dictate to other countries what their security interests are. What is also true is that it is the policy of the United States to resolve the issue of Iran's nuclear capabilities in a peaceful way through diplomatic channels," he said.

link

[masuki bance]

1. No red light either. nt

[Cant trust em]

2. Somebody's gotta clean up this mess.

Biden needs to remember that everything he says is going to be played all over the world.

[ProSense]

3. Some people are not

afraid of facts. Glad Obama expounded.

[Cant trust em]

5. I mean from Biden's point of view.

Why did he bother to get into that?

I'm going to edit my previous post to better communicate the point.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. So much for "change," Mr. Obama.

[Thrill]

6. Every time Biden has an interview, they have to clean up behind him

I'm pretty convinced Hillary will be Obama's re-election running mate.

[ProSense]

7. "I'm pretty convinced Hillary will be Obama's re-election running mate." Dumb.

Yeah, he'll have a better time explaining statements about obliterating Iran. Biden's comment was about sovereignty, not destroying a country.

[Thrill]

8. She would know better not to say certain things while

holding the title of Vice President.

Democrats are going to have to spend time the next two elections defending Biden's comments on the stimulus. They can't wait to put him in their ads.

Don't forget to tell your family not to ride the trains and subways either

[ProSense]

9. Nonsense,

I have no problem with Biden's statement and Obama emphatically reiterated it.

[karynnj]

11. She didn't while a candidate for President and Secretary of state

The fact that she spoke of it being unlikely that we could deal with Iran through negotitations - said when that was the President's policy - pre the election in Iran - is not good.

The difference was that Biden said something in a way where misinterpretation was likely -- HRC was speaking of the President's policy as likely not working. That is worse.

[Beacool]

12. You should know better than that.

Hillary responded to a straight forward question of what we would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons.

Besides, that was said during the primaries. But of course, you knew that already.

:eyes:

[Jennicut]

13. I like them both very much and think they are both where they should be.

Hillary is perfect as SOS and Obama needs someone to tell him like it is as VP. Besides, Joe is Joe and you can't change him and we all know that. Same with Hillary.

Its obvious that both of their answers have been twisted. Stephanopoulos asked Biden what should Israel do if they felt threatened by Iran's nuclear weapons and Hillary was asked a similar question. Israel is a sovereign nation. Obviously, we don't want them to attack Iran tomorrow. It would cause all sorts of problems and Biden already said that in April it would be ill advised. Really, I am tired of people's words getting twisted around to fit the freakout of the day, week, month or year.

[Beacool]

14. I don't know that I agree that they are where they should be.

I still would have preferred Hillary to be president now and Obama in the next cycle.

But, it is what it is......

:shrug:

As for Biden, he tends to shoot from the hip a little too much. I like the guy and he's a decent man. Although sometimes he speaks before he seems to remember that he's now the VP and is not representing himself, but giving the administration's position on any issue.

:-)

[Jennicut]

15. Well, I voted Obama for Prez in the primaries

But I still love ya. :hug:
To me, Hillary being SOS means she does not have to answer all the questions about her ambitions or Bill's interfering like she would as VP so...
And Joe, yeah, he does need to learn that but he is a good guy.

[Beacool]

33. Well, I voted for Hillary in the primaries.

But I like you too.

:pals:

[Cha]

29. It's corporatemediawhores

we have to do away with.

[karynnj]

10. Hillary has had her little mistakes as well - and she has rarely

spoken at the level of depth on issues that Biden has - especially on foreign poolicy issues.

[invictus]

17. .

.

[Cha]

26. No, she won't..you're forgetting about

all the good Biden does..this is nothing.

[JTFrog]

28. You were probably convinced she was running from sniper fire too.

:eyes:

[Beacool]

35. Not nice............

:spank:

[invictus]

41. LOL!

[invictus]

16. Leave it to Israel to try to drag the US into yet another illegal and immoral war.

As if the two we are already fighting are not doing enough harm to this country.

[Hippo_Tron]

18. IMO, Biden's statement was completely intentional

When you're trying to convince an enemy to disarm and you have a very hawkish ally, it's sometimes a good idea to signal to your enemy that you may or may not be able to keep your ally on the leash.

Obama then of course came in and "cleaned up" after Biden. But as we all know, a gaffe is when a politician accidentally tells the truth. Biden made a "gaffe" in order to send a message to Khamenei.

[invictus]

19. Israel is incapable of attacking Iran without American help. It would also need America to clean up

its messes as usual.

[Jennicut]

22. Israeli leaders stated just a few days ago that they won't even ask the US for help

for fear they will be turned down. Its not gonna happen, not in the next 4 years anyway. If they need our help, they are not getting it.

[Hippo_Tron]

25. They can count on us helping them to clean up whether we approve it or not

Allies are sometimes just as much of a menace as enemies. And since they just got approval to use Saudi airspace, it's becoming more and more likely that they can do it without us.

[invictus]

31. Israel did NOT get permission to use Saudi airspace.

nt

[Hippo_Tron]

32. More likely than not they did, both sides are of course denying it

Because King Abdullah certainly doesn't want to be seen as helping the Jews. But I'm sure he has no problem with his airspace being used to drop some bombs on the Persians so long as he can deny that he allowed it.

Either way, somebody leaked that story to send a message to the Iranians and you can bet that they are certainly taking it seriously.

[invictus]

37. That is completely made up. Show me a reliable source. nt

[Hippo_Tron]

39. Here...

This is an article from when the story first broke

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6638568.ece

Here's where the Saudis then deny it

http://sev.prnewswire.com/publishing-information-services/20090707/DC4258806072009-1.html

And then here's where the Israelis also deny it

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1097882.html

The fact remains that Saudi Arabia and Iran are adversaries and King Abdullah would likely have little problem with the west weakening an adversary for him. He just can't be seen as coordinating with the Jews.

[invictus]

40. It looks like the head of Mossad just made up a lie to try to scare Iran. What a bullshiter!

nt

[Hippo_Tron]

42. Certainly possible, but the Iranians can't be sure if it is a lie or not

The bottom line is that we're seeing a lot of hawkish signals about the possibility of Israeli strikes as Obama makes overtures to Iran for negotiations. This leads me to believe we're seeing a good cop/bad cop strategy being employed with Obama as the good cop and Netanyahu as the bad cop.

The Saudis letting Israel use their airspace to strike Iran is a serious possibility. Whether or not they actually let them use it doesn't change that fact and that means its something the Iranians have to take into consideration.

[invictus]

20. Iran has no nuclear "arm" to disarm, so that theory you are trying to propagate is BS.

nt

[Hippo_Tron]

24. We don't know whether they are pursuing them or not, we want the inspectors in to find out

BTW, I don't support war with Iran even if they do acquire nuclear weapons.

[Jennicut]

21. True. And Biden did say the US is still open to negotiating with Iran.

IMO, neither Hillary nor Biden ever took the McLame position. He thought it was a joke to bomb Iran. Thankfully, he is not President.

[Hippo_Tron]

27. The idea is that Obama presents Iran with an opportunity to negotiate

And Netanyahu provides the ramifications if they are unwilling to negotiate.

[Cha]

30. Well, I wasn't quite going the

intentional route but I was thinking..this is all good, anyway.

You may be right.

[Hippo_Tron]

34. All of these statements are coordinated to consider both international and domestic politics

We absolutely use the media to send signals to other nations under the guise that we are using it to communicate with our own public. Obama sanitized the statements so that people here will freak the fuck out less. Biden "the notorious gaffe machine" made the initial comment a lot more blunt so that Khamenei would get the message. I don't use the chess analogy much, but in foreign affairs it's definitely more pertinent.

[Cha]

36. Better to use

the corporatemedia than to be used by them.

[Cha]

23. So once again..words were read

into what was really said and a brouhaha ensued on corporatemedia and DU.

[depakid]

38. Just keep Biden off the Sunday shows

and there won't be any worry about this stuff.

[Hippo_Tron]

43. A large part of the Vice President's job is to be a high level spokesperson for the administration

It's totally unrealistic to keep your Vice President away from the media.