Secretary of State Kerry: You Just Can't Expect the U.S. to Not Start Another War Forever
Get out those Obama bumper stickers where the "O" is a peace sign, boys and girls, sounds like you might really need 'em during Obama Administration II: The Reckoning.
Not content to further dig us into a Syrian quagmire, Secretary of State Kerry yesterday made it clear that the world can't reasonably expect us to avoid war with Iran forever if it doesn't do everything we want, according to this Reuters report.
Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday there was "finite" time for talks between Iran and world powers on its disputed nuclear program to bear fruit, but gave no hint how long Washington may be willing to negotiate.
Israel, Iran's arch-enemy and convinced Tehran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons, has grown impatient with the protracted talks and has threatened preemptive war against Tehran if it deems diplomacy ultimately futile……
"There is a finite amount of time," Kerry, in the Saudi capital Riyadh on his first overseas trip as the top U.S. diplomat, said of the talks between a group of six world powers and Tehran, Saudi Arabia's main regional adversary.
Kerry was speaking at a news conference with Prince Saud al-Faisal, who suggested Iran was not showing enough seriousness about the discussions, which he said "cannot go on forever."….
"We both prefer — and this is important for Iranians to hear and understand — we both prefer diplomacy as the first choice, the preferred choice," Kerry said. "But the window for a diplomatic solution simply cannot by definition remain open indefinitely."
When you are the hyperpower, "diplomacy" means "you do what we want without making us kill a bunch of people." The mad, backward Iranians, Kerry seems to worry, might not fully understand this.
See also Vice President Biden yesterday assuring the world that Obama is not bluffing with Iran, and Obama's ominious "We will do what is necessary" during his State of the Union speech last month, and, well, get ready for the mighty stimulating powers of war in the Middle East that made the '00s a happy dream for those of us stumbling though the '10s.
The Oscar-winning best picture Argo had some interesting lessons about how our own interventionist foreign policy decisions vis a vis Iran created problems that are worth contemplating today, as I wrote back in November. And Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate, is trying to convince his Party that a nuclear Iran can be contained and need not necessarily be attacked, as I wrote in the New York Times last month.
Steve Chapman here at Reason from last year on "False Fears About a Nuclear Iran."