I wonder if the president will be walking back Biden's comment or is this the new policy? From "This Week with George Stephanopoulos"
BIDEN: Look, Israel can determine for itself -- it's a sovereign nation -- what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else.OK, a high ranking U.S. government official just gave Israel the green light to take out Iran's nukes. Do they take him up on it?STEPHANOPOULOS: Whether we agree or not?
BIDEN: Whether we agree or not. They're entitled to do that. Any sovereign nation is entitled to do that. But there is no pressure from any nation that's going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed.
What we believe is in the national interest of the United States, which we, coincidentally, believe is also in the interest of Israel and the whole world. And so there are separate issues.
If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But just to be clear here, if the Israelis decide Iran is an existential threat, they have to take out the nuclear program, militarily the United States will not stand in the way?
BIDEN: Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination that they're existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You say we can't dictate, but we can, if we choose to, deny over-flight rights here in Iraq. We can stand in the way of a military strike.
BIDEN: I'm not going to speculate, George, on those issues, other than to say Israel has a right to determine what's in its interests, and we have a right and we will determine what's in our interests.
The big question is: Is this Biden's policy or Obama's?
And then there's this, it looks like the Saudis may be giving them the green light as well:
The head of Mossad, Israel's overseas intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran's nuclear sites.(via)[...]
"The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israeli air force flying through their airspace on a mission which is supposed to be in the common interests of both Israel and Saudi Arabia," a diplomatic source said last week.
Updated to correct the wacked out spelling of Biden's name. I have no idea what's going with my brain and the spelling of names. I can't blame the chemo and I'm not taking any other drugs, so I guess it's just old age.
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Few things are more common than a politician telling his constituents he wants to keep them out of war.
Yeah, happens all the time. *Sheesh.*
Yeah, I recall when Dubya said that he didn't want to go to war with Iraq, even though he and Darth Cheney were clearly looking for an excuse almost from day one of his Administration.
Darn liberal.
Who is this Bideon guy anyway?
May I ask what the "reformed chicks" are reformed from? Are they reformed Jews? That would be my first assumption.
Dean Myrick,
There's a whole family of Protestant denominations that are called Reformed. Some, like the Dutch Reformed churches (Christian Reformed, Reformed Church in America) have it in their name, others, like the Presbyterians, do not. They are doctrinal descendants of Calvin and Knox.
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