February 5th, 2010
By Morton M. Kondracke, Roll Call Contributing Writer
Just how seriously does the White House take the threat of Iran’s nuclear program? It’s hard to tell.
In his 71-minute State of the Union address last week, President Obama devoted just five lines to what may emerge as the top foreign policy issue of 2010.
“The international community is more united, and the Islamic Republic of Iran is more isolated,” he said.
“And, as Iran’s leaders continue to ignore their obligations, there should be no doubt: They … will face growing consequences. That is a promise.”
The good news comes with the word “as.” It replaces the previous “if,” indicating that Obama has finally concluded that diplomacy is failing to stop Iran’s work on a bomb and that it’s time to move to “consequences.”
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says the administration will now, finally, seek international agreement on “crippling sanctions” against Iran, but the process is going to be slow and there’s reason to doubt that the Iranian regime really will be crippled.
Congress, to its credit, is far ahead of the administration. In December, the House passed, 412-12, the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, authorizing steps to cut off Iran’s imports of gasoline.
Last week, the Senate passed a similar bill on a voice vote with no dissent. Though Iran is oil-rich, it lacks refining capacity and has to import 40 percent of its gasoline. When the government rationed gas in 2006, riots ensued.
In a speech Jan. 24, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.), chief sponsor of the House measure, declared, “In my view, there is no greater threat to the world than the prospect of a nuclear Iran.”
You don’t hear that kind of talk from the administration — and, according Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.), original sponsor of the gasoline-cutoff legislation in 2006, the administration seems reluctant to impose any sanctions that might adversely affect the Iranian people.
Adm. Dennis Blair, the administration’s director of national intelligence, buried Iran deep in his annual worldwide threat assessment this week.
And he pointedly did not reverse a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate — reportedly disputed by both foreign and U.S. intelligence agencies — that Iran stopped its nuclear weaponization program in 2003.
“We continue to assess [that] Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that bring it closer to being able to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so,” he told the Senate Intelligence Committee. “We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.”
As all the world knows, Iran has been secretly enriching uranium, defying international demands that it stop, building missiles capable of carrying warheads and threatening the existence of Israel.
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