Obama: "No guarantee" Iran will fall in line
President Obama said Wednesday that he has made clear to Iran "that there are consequences to them continuing to flout the international community" - but added that there is no guarantee that the nation will respond in a way that averts a possible war.
Mr. Obama's comments, made at a brief joint White House press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, come nine days after a meeting between Mr. Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which the president urged his Israeli counterpart to hold off on military action against Iran.
Israel is openly considering military action designed to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. (Iran says it is not seeking to do so.) It is not clear what role the United States would play if Israel, by far the United States' closes ally in the region, were to attack Iran.
Echoing earlier comments, Mr. Obama said his administration is "determined to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon." He added, however, that he believes there is still time for diplomatic efforts to work, thanks in part to the tough (and increasing) international sanctions that have been imposed on Iran as well as a coming European Union embargo on Iranian oil.
The president said he has "sent a message very directly to [Iran] publicly that they need to seize this opportunity of negotiations" with the so-called "P-5 plus 1" nations - the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China) as well as Germany.
"Do I have a guarantee that Iran will walk through this door that we're offering them? No," he acknowledged. "In the past there's been a tendency for Iran in these negotiations of the P-5-plus-1s to delay, to stall, to do a lot of talking but not actually move the ball forward."
He went on to say that Iran should understand that "the window for solving this issue diplomatically is shrinking."
"I am determined not simply to contain Iran that is in possession of a nuclear weapon, I am determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon," he said. A nuclear-armed Iran, he added, "would trigger a nuclear arms race in the most dangerous part of the world, it would raise nonproliferation issues that would carry significant risks to our national security interests, it would embolden terrorists in the region who might believe that they could act with more impunity if they were operating under the protection of Iran."
"And so this is not an issue that is simply in one country's interests or two country's interests. This is an issue that is important to the entire international community," he said. "We will do everything we can to resolve this diplomatically, but ultimately we've got to have somebody on the other side of the table who's taking this seriously. And I hope that the Iranian regime understands that: That this is their best bet for resolving this in a way that allows Iran to rejoin the community of nations and to prosper and feel secure themselves."