Obama: Republican candidates are beating the drums of war

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President Obama scolded Republican presidential candidates Tuesday for “beating the drums of war” by demanding that the United States prepare to take military action to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

“When I see some of these folks who have a lot of bluster and a lot of big talk … it indicates to me that that’s more about politics than actually trying to solve a difficult problem,” Obama said during his first press conference since November, giving him a spotlight on the GOP’s Super Tuesday elections.

Presenting himself as the sober, thoughtful leader trying to preserve peace in the Middle East, the president accused his rivals of casually lobbing rhetorical bombs without worrying about the consequences.

If the Republicans so eager for a display of American military might think that “it’s time to launch a war,” Obama said without mentioning his rivals by name, “they should explain to the American people exactly why they would do that and what the consequences would be.”

The pointed criticism was part of a wide-ranging conference touching on housing issues, the controversy over Rush Limbaugh’s diatribe against a female congressional witness, and the brutality of the Syrian government. But the discussion quickly centered on concerns that Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb.

GOP candidates who want war ‘should explain to the American people exactly why they would do that.’

Earlier in the day, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China agreed to resume talks with Iran over the issue. Also, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been in Washington meeting with the administration on how to proceed. Netanyahu has previously indicated that diplomacy and sanctions are not working and some Western observers fear Israel is planning a preemptive strike against its arch-enemy. On Monday, Obama urged the leader to be patient, saying there is still a “window that allows for a diplomatic resolution to this issue.”

The discussion on Iran, which has previously made threats against Israel, is intensifying on the campaign trail. Republican candidates Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum have declared that Obama’s reliance on diplomacy and sanctions betrays a timidity that imperils the United States.

In an op-ed in the Washington Post on Tuesday, Romney called Obama “America’s most feckless president since [Jimmy] Carter” and said that as the president “frets,” the radical regime is developing a bomb.

Romney, saying that the combination of economic sanctions and offers of negotiation with the mullahs in Tehran are bound to fail, laid out some of the steps he would take to confront Iran, including dispatching aircraft carriers to the Persian Gulf and increasing military aid to Israel.

Romney pressed his attack later in the day, via a video feed to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference in Washington, calling Obama’s outreach to Iran naive and vowing to “station multiple carriers and warships at Iran’s door.’’ The committee is a leading pro-Israel policy organization that holds hawkish views on the security of the Jewish state.

Romney’s GOP opponents have been no less relentless in characterizing Obama as dangerously docile. Santorum, who appeared before the conference in person, accused Obama of abandoning Israel, a key US ally.

Obama “says he has Israel’s back,” Santorum said. “From everything I’ve seen from the conduct of this administration, he has turned his back on the people of Israel.”

Newt Gingrich, also speaking to the group by satellite broadcast, dismissed the prospects of diplomacy, saying “The red line is now because the Iranians are now deepening their commitment to nuclear weapons.”

He vowed to do everything in his power as president to “undermine and replace the Iranian dictatorship.”

The only Republican candidate not threatening Iran with aggressive action is Ron Paul, the Libertarian-leaning congressman from Texas.

Obama spoke before the pro-Israeli group on Sunday, urging the influential organization to give sanctions a chance to work while also pledging to order a US military strike to prevent Iran from acquiring atomic arms should current efforts fail to halt the program.

The United States, with the help of other Western powers, is spearheading an international effort to boycott Iranian oil exports. The sanctions are believed to be having an effect, raising prices of meat and other goods and increasing public frustration with the regime.

Republican rhetoric about the need to act quickly against Iran has been countered by intelligence specialists. Recent US estimates have concluded that Iran faces a series of hurdles to successfully enrich enough uranium to make a weapon, let alone be able to deliver it by missile.

The nation’s top spy, James R. Clapper, told Congress in January the nation’s 16 intelligence agencies have concluded that while Iran is laying the groundwork for a bomb, there is no evidence it has made the decision to actually build a weapon.

On the Senate floor Tuesday, Senator John F. Kerry rebuked Romney for his bellicose talk. Romney’s op-ed, the Massachusetts Democrat said, is as “inaccurate as it was aggressive.”

“We should all remember that the nuclear issue with Iran is deadly serious business that should invite sobriety and serious-minded solutions, not sloganeering and sound bites,” said Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Obama emphasized that his policy is not containment, but to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. That said, “Israel is a sovereign nation that has to make its own decisions about how best to preserve its security,” he said.

Asked about Romney’s calling him “feckless’’ Obama smiled, tilted his head, and directed a message for the Super Tuesday elections. “Good luck tonight. Really.”

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Comments

35 responses to “Obama: Republican candidates are beating the drums of war”

  1. I can say Obamas bein a b*tch on this and just vote pandering but he doesn’t matter,Congress has the power to ruin Iran completely . But every republican that spoke today and yesterday, plus the entire Senate and House are on board and demanding action, so it can and will be forced regardless of what Obama wants to do.. we are preparing sanctions that will target every bank in Iran, and they have overwhelming support, alot of them for air strikes BEFORE capability is reached let alone when you think your gonna build one..No containment means soon..And Syria dont think your going to skate either, your times coming too.Summers going to be here soon enough

    1. Nopressure Avatar
      Nopressure

      You are one angry person, have considered joining anger any managment classes?
      Your comments always represent bigotry and hatred, we have enough problems of our own to resolve but we certainly do not need people with your atittude adding wood to the fire. I would say to you go spread your poison somewhere else!!

    2. dabshaleem Avatar
      dabshaleem

      yu zionists r hav no man to fight mr yu crys wen boom boom comed yu way mr

  2. I can say Obamas bein a b*tch on this and just vote pandering but he doesn’t matter,Congress has the power to ruin Iran completely . But every republican that spoke today and yesterday, plus the entire Senate and House are on board and demanding action, so it can and will be forced regardless of what Obama wants to do.. we are preparing sanctions that will target every bank in Iran, and they have overwhelming support, alot of them for air strikes BEFORE capability is reached let alone when you think your gonna build one..No containment means soon..And Syria dont think your going to skate either, your times coming too.Summers going to be here soon enough

    1. Nopressure Avatar
      Nopressure

      You are one angry person, have considered joining anger any managment classes?
      Your comments always represent bigotry and hatred, we have enough problems of our own to resolve but we certainly do not need people with your atittude adding wood to the fire. I would say to you go spread your poison somewhere else!!

    2. dabshaleem Avatar
      dabshaleem

      yu zionists r hav no man to fight mr yu crys wen boom boom comed yu way mr

  3. wargame1 Avatar
    wargame1

    It’s not recent they have been hyping in for 30 years, people just forget. Read a few newspapers frm 2006-2008 how Bush was supposedly trying to bomb Iran but the democrats werent letting him, Then we were told the democrats wan to bomb Iran and the republicans  were against bombing Iran  and now the republicans want to bomb Iran lol !!! so who is trying to bomb Iran? I thought the rebublicans were against it!!!

    its all a game their playing on our minds, they have been saying that they wanted to bomb Iran for 30 years but they never will because Iran is helping them in Iraq in Afghanistan in Libya.As long as they give their service to Israel and America and NATO the word of war attacking Iran will continue as it has been happening for the last 30 years

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      Shifts in thinking, wargamer. Many would like to just follow the simplistic path of levelling the middle-east.
      I suppose the basic problem – especially with what we see Assad doing to women and children – is a perception that the ME generally produces nothing but heavy expenses, death, repression, and weird religious edicts, like stoning, whipping, beating, acid-in-face for women trying for education …. that sort of thing. Many people are tired of hearing about it, or attempting to ‘make peace’ with small adventures into the place. Now it looks like Iran is willing to flatten it too. And the oil will still be in the ground anyway … as it seems to be in many places in the world, now that technology allows us to find it more easily. The need for dessert oil is more of a myth than a reality these days … and we continue to work on making oil less of a need. Considering that cows and people beltch out more methane and carbon than cars, the ‘warm-earth’ people have pushed the need for oil-use reduction on rather false premise, but it’s working anyway. That’s basically why the price keeps going up, while the ME rulers still rake in the biggest profits for simply sitting on the land.
      The attempt by Syrians (and some others) to have a ‘peaceful’ protest and transition to less despotic lifestyles seems once again to have simply been impossible to achieve. Maybe eliminating all of it for a while would be a good thing. Could be done in a less-messy and more ‘humane’ way than Assad does it.
      What do you think?  😉

      1.  the facebook page is a fan page and they dont limit thos to 5000 friends. the link is next to my user name. go and see the amount of fans my page has.

        1. Fadi81 Avatar

          the masons OWN your facebook page brother, just join the NWO and call it a day lol…

        2. dabshaleem Avatar
          dabshaleem

          yu and 50000 salafites wiht nose job follow yu mr 10000 deid wahabis r to join yu mr somes zionists folow to yu mr 

        3.  fadi81,  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

          you cant just join the nwo or illuminati you have to bee from a ertain bloodline or get invited in.

        4. Dab, I hate you! I really do! Youre like the dog that won the ugliest dog show. People pack the ugly dog show because they want to see the ugliest dog. They still think youre cute only because your so dam stupid and ugly. I dont think I understand what you said below but I can imagine. On the other hand I seem to enjoy your comments and truth is most of them make me smile and I find them amusing even though your vocabulary seems to only consist of about 15 words ( salafites, wahabi, Zionists, mr, yu and a few others ) You actually spelled Zionists correct but not yu (you).

        5. Prophettttt Avatar
          Prophettttt

          BaadAsss, One thing you will learn from the dab experience is,As Hubbard put it”   Don’t take life too seriously, you’ll never get out of it alive.”lol 

        6. bad ass,
          dab is a long time champion, out of millions of sperm cells he was the fastest to get the egg 😉  the guy next  to him swore he heard dab say “let go my eggo salafist wahabi slopoke zionizte”

        7. bad ass,
          dab is a long time champion, out of millions of sperm cells he was the fastest to get the egg 😉  the guy next  to him swore he heard dab say “let go my eggo salafist wahabi slopoke zionizte”

  4. wargame1 Avatar
    wargame1

    It’s not recent they have been hyping in for 30 years, people just forget. Read a few newspapers frm 2006-2008 how Bush was supposedly trying to bomb Iran but the democrats werent letting him, Then we were told the democrats wan to bomb Iran and the republicans  were against bombing Iran  and now the republicans want to bomb Iran lol !!! so who is trying to bomb Iran? I thought the rebublicans were against it!!!

    its all a game their playing on our minds, they have been saying that they wanted to bomb Iran for 30 years but they never will because Iran is helping them in Iraq in Afghanistan in Libya.As long as they give their service to Israel and America and NATO the word of war attacking Iran will continue as it has been happening for the last 30 years

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      Shifts in thinking, wargamer. Many would like to just follow the simplistic path of levelling the middle-east.
      I suppose the basic problem – especially with what we see Assad doing to women and children – is a perception that the ME generally produces nothing but heavy expenses, death, repression, and weird religious edicts, like stoning, whipping, beating, acid-in-face for women trying for education …. that sort of thing. Many people are tired of hearing about it, or attempting to ‘make peace’ with small adventures into the place. Now it looks like Iran is willing to flatten it too. And the oil will still be in the ground anyway … as it seems to be in many places in the world, now that technology allows us to find it more easily. The need for dessert oil is more of a myth than a reality these days … and we continue to work on making oil less of a need. Considering that cows and people beltch out more methane and carbon than cars, the ‘warm-earth’ people have pushed the need for oil-use reduction on rather false premise, but it’s working anyway. That’s basically why the price keeps going up, while the ME rulers still rake in the biggest profits for simply sitting on the land.
      The attempt by Syrians (and some others) to have a ‘peaceful’ protest and transition to less despotic lifestyles seems once again to have simply been impossible to achieve. Maybe eliminating all of it for a while would be a good thing. Could be done in a less-messy and more ‘humane’ way than Assad does it.
      What do you think?  😉

  5. wargame1 Avatar
    wargame1

    It’s not recent they have been hyping in for 30 years, people just forget. Read a few newspapers frm 2006-2008 how Bush was supposedly trying to bomb Iran but the democrats werent letting him, Then we were told the democrats wan to bomb Iran and the republicans  were against bombing Iran  and now the republicans want to bomb Iran lol !!! so who is trying to bomb Iran? I thought the rebublicans were against it!!!

    its all a game their playing on our minds, they have been saying that they wanted to bomb Iran for 30 years but they never will because Iran is helping them in Iraq in Afghanistan in Libya.As long as they give their service to Israel and America and NATO the word of war attacking Iran will continue as it has been happening for the last 30 years

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      Shifts in thinking, wargamer. Many would like to just follow the simplistic path of levelling the middle-east.
      I suppose the basic problem – especially with what we see Assad doing to women and children – is a perception that the ME generally produces nothing but heavy expenses, death, repression, and weird religious edicts, like stoning, whipping, beating, acid-in-face for women trying for education …. that sort of thing. Many people are tired of hearing about it, or attempting to ‘make peace’ with small adventures into the place. Now it looks like Iran is willing to flatten it too. And the oil will still be in the ground anyway … as it seems to be in many places in the world, now that technology allows us to find it more easily. The need for dessert oil is more of a myth than a reality these days … and we continue to work on making oil less of a need. Considering that cows and people beltch out more methane and carbon than cars, the ‘warm-earth’ people have pushed the need for oil-use reduction on rather false premise, but it’s working anyway. That’s basically why the price keeps going up, while the ME rulers still rake in the biggest profits for simply sitting on the land.
      The attempt by Syrians (and some others) to have a ‘peaceful’ protest and transition to less despotic lifestyles seems once again to have simply been impossible to achieve. Maybe eliminating all of it for a while would be a good thing. Could be done in a less-messy and more ‘humane’ way than Assad does it.
      What do you think?  😉

      1.  the facebook page is a fan page and they dont limit thos to 5000 friends. the link is next to my user name. go and see the amount of fans my page has.

        1. Fadi81 Avatar

          the masons OWN your facebook page brother, just join the NWO and call it a day lol…

        2. dabshaleem Avatar
          dabshaleem

          yu and 50000 salafites wiht nose job follow yu mr 10000 deid wahabis r to join yu mr somes zionists folow to yu mr 

        3.  fadi81,  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

          you cant just join the nwo or illuminati you have to bee from a ertain bloodline or get invited in.

        4.  Dab, I hate you! I really do! Youre like the dog that won the ugliest dog show. People pack the ugly dog show because they want to see the ugliest dog. They still think youre cute only because your so dam stupid and ugly. I dont think I understand what you said below but I can imagine. On the other hand I seem to enjoy your comments and they truth is most of them make me smile and I fing them amusing even though your vocabulary seems to only consist of about 15 words ( salafites, wahabi, Zionists, mr, yu and a few others ) You actually spelled Zionists correct but not yu (you).

        5. Prophettttt Avatar
          Prophettttt

          BaadAsss, One thing you will learn from the dab experience is,As Hubbard put it”   Don’t take life too seriously, you’ll never get out of it alive.”lol 

        6. bad ass,
          dab is a long time champion, out of millions of sperm cells he was the fastest to get the egg 😉  the guy next  to him swore he heard dab say “let go my eggo salafist wahabi slopoke zionizte”

  6. any one who thinks bombing Iran is the answer is nothing but a criminal. Bush thought that Bombing Iraq was the answer… What happened there!!!!!! For years and years after the deposed Shah, there has been talks of bombing Iran… All this crap is a game. When Israel and iran show hostilities, they should remember what they did during the Iraq-Iran war when Israel was supplying Iran with weapons and spare parts. Israel keeps blowing the same horn about how they are threathened by the Middle East in general… But its okay for them to have WMD’s and okay to what they ae doing to the Palestinains. They even allow their settlers to carry arms and use them against the Plaestinians.

  7. any one who thinks bombing Iran is the answer is nothing but a criminal. Bush thought that Bombing Iraq was the answer… What happened there!!!!!! For years and years after the deposed Shah, there has been talks of bombing Iran… All this crap is a game. When Israel and iran show hostilities, they should remember what they did during the Iraq-Iran war when Israel was supplying Iran with weapons and spare parts. Israel keeps blowing the same horn about how they are threathened by the Middle East in general… But its okay for them to have WMD’s and okay to what they ae doing to the Palestinains. They even allow their settlers to carry arms and use them against the Plaestinians.

  8. Prophettttt Avatar
    Prophettttt

    geo must be a happy man,dab has finally reappeared. I thought He was missing for couple of days. 

    1. you now me too well prophet, dab is my crack cocaine lol, did he chew out   jewy mcjew yet? i have not read all his comments yet ? the night is still young and hopefully we get to have a dab encore 🙂 

      1. Prophettttt Avatar
        Prophettttt

        He’s making the round ….He’ll get a bit out of him sooner or later.lol

  9. Prophettttt Avatar
    Prophettttt

    geo must be a happy man,dab has finally reappeared. I thought He was missing for couple of days. 

    1. you now me too well prophet, dab is my crack cocaine lol, did he chew out   jewy mcjew yet? i have not read all his comments yet ? the night is still young and hopefully we get to have a dab encore 🙂 

      1. Prophettttt Avatar
        Prophettttt

        He’s making the round ….He’ll get a bit out of him sooner or later.lol

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