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Lieberman: Iran strike should be considered |
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By Chris Good
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Posted: 06/10/07 02:25 PM [ET] |
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Sunday the U.S. should be prepared for a military strike against Iran, proclaiming that “we cannot let them get away” with training anti-U.S. forces for operations in Iraq.
“I think we’ve got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq,” Lieberman said. “And to me, that would include a strike … over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers.”
Lieberman said the U.S. presented Iran with that evidence last month when the two nations opened diplomatic talks for the first time since 1979. According to Lieberman, who appeared on CBS’ Face the Nation, if Iran does not respond to U.S. demands, military action is the logical recourse.
“If we’re going to sit and talk with the Iranians, tell them what we want them to do, which is to stop doing that because it’s killing Americans, we can’t leave it at that,” Lieberman said. “If there’s any hope of the Iranians living according to the international rule of law and stopping, for instance, their nuclear weapons development, we can’t just talk to them.”
The former Democratic vice presidential candidate clarified his statements, saying he was “not talking about a massive ground invasion” of Iran, but added that he would leave the logistics of a strike to the generals in charge.
Lieberman said Iran cannot believe it is immune to retaliation for training anti-U.S. forces, and that it will see a lack of U.S. action “as a sign of weakness on our part and we will pay for it in Iraq and throughout the region and ultimately right here at home.” |
