Amb. Shapiro: Military Option for Iran “Ready” and “Fully Available”

David Streeter — May 17, 2012 – 11:33 am | Barack Obama | Foreign Policy | Iran | Israel Comments (0) Add a comment

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said recently that the Obama Administration is fully prepared to exercise a military option to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Israel’s Makor Rishon reported:

US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro recently spoke in a way that no other American diplomat has done before. In the course of a meeting that Shapiro held this week with representatives of the Tel Aviv and central district of the Bar Association, he said that the American military option was ready and that the necessary preparations had been made to allow for it to be executed if need be.

Ambassador Shapiro said: At a certain stage we are going to have to decide whether diplomacy isn’t going to work. We want to give it every chance of succeeding, since Israel and the US agree that it would be better to resolve this diplomatically and by means of pressure than by means of the military option. But that doesn’t mean that the military option isn’t available. Actually, it isn’t merely an available option, it is ready. The necessary plans have already been made to make sure that is truly ready.  

Reuters also noted:

In January, Shapiro told an Israeli newspaper the United States was ‘guaranteeing that the military option is ready and available to the president at the moment he decides to use it.’

 

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