The Barack Obama administration is demonstrating a “fundamental misreading” of Iran and its nuclear ambitions by not pushing for stronger sanctions, Sen. John McCain says in an interview with Newsmax.TV.
The Islamic Republic could be within a year of developing a nuclear weapon. Why then is Obama not pushing to make sanctions stronger and setting a deadline for Iranian cooperation, the Arizona Republican was asked.
“I don’t know,” he concedes. “There’s been this continuous outreach to the Islamic Republic of Iran. We have pending sanctions in the Congress that obviously the administration is holding up.
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“They continue to chase this illusion that the Chinese and Russians will cooperate with us on meaningful sanctions. They haven’t. They won’t.
“It’s a fundamental misreading of the nature of the Iranian regime. We have to speak out on behalf of the human rights of the Iranian people, and understand that this regime is bent on the acquisition of nuclear weapons.”
McCain adds that Israel is faced with “two terribly difficult choices” regarding the Iranian nuclear program.
“One is to allow the Iranians to continue and thereby proliferate the Middle East with nuclear weapons, and sooner or later a terrorist organization will get a nuclear weapon. Second, to attack unilaterally, and that of course brings the whole world down on them.
“If we could act on really tough sanctions, I think there is still an opportunity” Israel won’t have to face those choices.
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