Israel and the US are considering a joint surgical strike targeting Iranian uranium enrichment facilities, according to a report in Foreign Policy that appeared Monday soon after Republican candidate Mitt Romney slammed US President Barack Obama’s Iran policy.
“Iran today has never been closer to a nuclear weapons capability,” Romney said in a foreign policy address delivered at the Virginia Military Institute. “And it has never acted less deterred by America.”
Soon after those comments, David Rothkopf – who wrote unflatteringly of Romney that this was one of the first times recently he addressed foreign policy without “tripping over his own misstatements” – reported that the White House and Israeli officials “assert that the two sides behind the scenes have come closer together in their views [regarding Iran] in recent days.”
Rothkopf, who was an undersecretary of commerce in the Clinton administration, wrote that “while there may not be exact agreement on what constitutes a ‘red line’ – a sign of Iranian progress toward the development of nuclear weapons that would trigger military action – the military option being advocated by the Israelis is considerably more limited and lower risk than some of those that have been publicly debated.”
