Rick Santorum Says He Would Order Airstrikes to Keep Iran From Obtaining Nuclear Weapon
So much for being the party that's "pro-life." On this week's Meet the Press, after some hedging and trying to change the subject after being asked what he would do differently than the current administration of whom he's been very critical of, GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum said that he would order airstrikes on Iran in order to keep them from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Here's the end of the back and forth where Gregory finally pinned him down:
GREGORY: But I asked you about disarming Iran. There is no material difference in terms of how the Bush administration sought to disarm Iran and what the Obama administration has done.
SANTORUM: There's a material difference in, in this respect. Number one, the Bush administration worked with me in passing the Iran Freedom Support Act, which I authored, which imposed tough sanctions on the Iranian nuclear program and provided funding for the prodemocracy movement. When President Obama came into office, he cut that funding. President Obama did not provide funding into Iran to help those folks who wanted to overthrow this democracy. And when the time came to support them, he chose not to. That is a substantive difference between my policy, which I was a leader on in the Senate, and what President Bush tried to do when he was president.
GREGORY: The reality is, there is no good option to disarm Iran.
SANTORUM: Yes, there is.
GREGORY: The Bush administration knew that, this administration knows that. Tell me what you would do differently, then.
SANTORUM: I put forth a five-point plan that said fund the pro-democracy movement, use covert activities to disrupt...
GREGORY: Which is already being done, Senator. You know that. There's covert activity to, to set back their program by the Israelis, by the United States.
SANTORUM: Well, we know by the Israelis. We, we don't have any evidence--if you look at what's being done, most of the evidence actually trails back to the Israelis and the methodologies that they use. There's no evidence the United States is at all complicit in working at that. That's what--I would be very direct that we would, in fact, and openly, talk about this.
Why? Because I want to make sure that Iran knows that when I say that Iran is not getting a nuclear weapon, that we will actually effectuate policies that make that happen. This president has not done that. He has opposed tough sanctions on Iran, on their oil program.
Why? Because he's concerned about this--the economy and his re-election instead of the long-term national security interests of this country. I would say to every foreign scientist that's going into Iran to help them there's--with their program, you'll be treated as an enemy combatant like an al-Qaeda member. And then finally, I would be working openly with the state of Israel and I would be saying to the Iranians, you either open up those facilities, you begin to dismantle them and, and make them available to inspectors, or we will degrade those facilities through airstrikes and make it very public that we are doing that. The president has done none of those.
GREGORY: So you would lay out a red line and if they passed it, airstrikes by President Santorum.
SANTORUM: Iran will not get a nuclear weapon under my watch.
GREGORY: Well, two previous presidents have said that. You would order airstrikes if it became clear that they were going to...
SANTORUM: Yes. That's, that's the plan. I mean, you can't go out and say--this is, this is the problem with this administration, you can't go out and say this is what I'm for and then do nothing. You become a paper tiger and people don't respect our country and our allies can't trust us. That's the problem with this administration.
Oh, I'm sure he is pro-life. Just not, to paraphrase Family Guy Adam West, "the smelly, brown life."
There are no covert operations going on because the moment you mention said operations is the moment they cease being covert.
The chicken hawk is not an endangered species
When he says he would bomb,he didn't actually mean HE would do the bombing. Great warrior.
An attack on Iran starts the Final War To End All Wars 3.0. China says No. And,poor Rick forgets that China is the only nation to destroy an orbiting satilite with a ballistic missile. Ya know,Rick-those sattilites our Super Power depends on?
Rick Santorum apparently does not understand what his oath to the United States Constitution means.
His duty is to protect the Constitution and the American people in the Homeland.
Iran has a legal right to possess nuclear power. It is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It has been allowing inspections by the IAEA.
In the meantime Israel already possesses 300-500 nuclear weapons with the missiles to deliver them all over the world (according to former president Jimmy Carter and others). In Seymour Hersh's book, "The Samson Option" it details how Israel has promised that, if attacked with nuclear weapons, it would bring the rest of the world down with it.
That sounds like extreme terrorism to me.
Rick Santorum, rather than considering using a military strike against Iran (with Israel as the driving force behind it), should be demanding that in order to protect the planet from WW III ISRAEL should allow inspections of all it's nuclear weapons by the IAEA, and should be compelled to become a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and if they continue to refuse they should be threatened with a cut off all financial and military aid until it they do so. I doubt there would be one country in the world that would not welcome such a move by the United States.
We all need to realize that Russia and China have MAJOR business dealings/investments with Iran and consider Iran to be an ally. Rick Santorum is either a complete ignoramus or he has really lousy advisers. And perhaps considering how China owns us economically I feel diplomacy with Iran should be looking better and better every day.
All this, along with some good old-fashioned diplomacy and military common sense (the Iranian military and the U.S. military have not communicated since the late '70's!) would go a lot further to protect the U.S. "Homeland" from a nuclear attack by either Russia or China once the militarism got out of control.
Ron Paul is absolutely right when he says that the NDAA signed in "secret" by Obama on New Year's Eve, which contains further crippling sanctions against Iran, IS an act of war! All this at the behest of Israel, AIPAC and the Neocons!
Please take a moment to read this article by former CIA analyst Ray McGovern regarding what not only Obama, but all the candidates running for president should be advocating:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/arti...
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
Frothy, [and Baaachmann] sees progressive America as a failure, and would rather destroy her, and remake her in his own image. The republicans would literally destroy America if it would allow them to establish a Christian plutocracy in its place. Kinda reminds me of the far left anarchists in a way.
Frothy and the republicans are obsessive compulsive ideologists, and they are willing to become master criminals to reach their goals. WWIII might be exactly what they are looking for...
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Like they say over a my face, I "like" this entry.
If not now, when?
support for Ron Paul puts you out of my respect,good lady. Sorry. I respected you up and until you lost your mind. IF my not voting for ANYONE is worse than You voting for Ron Paul,then i don't give a fuck what anyone thinks.Anymore. Take that,good lady. And good luck.
All of you fools on my Face are geting 'followed'. Why don't you'twitter' when you go to an ATM and some guy 'following you' robs you blind. Assholes.
girl
Rick seems like a nice enough guy. Looks like a young Chevy Chase. Kind of like milk toasty average. But then all this bile and lies comes flowing out of that dumb face and it just makes you want to slap his mama.
If not now, when?
'I was so ugly the doctor slapped my momma when I was born. Took out his pocket knife and cut off my horns' Waylon Jennings
Exactly. Frothy is a real sociopath. He can't be bargained with. He can't be reasoned with. He doesn't feel pity, or remorse. He is a republican.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Islam and democracy cannot co-exist ergo all muslims are bad.
He's resolute that abortion's are never acceptable, even to protect the life of the mother, but he's okay with saying that it's in our national interest to make sure that some Iranians die in a fire?
"Number one, the Bush administration worked with me in passing the Iran Freedom Support Act, which I authored, which imposed tough sanctions on the Iranian nuclear program and provided funding for the prodemocracy movement".
Lest We Forget: The Bush administration cared so much about Iranian nuclear proliferation that it outed Valerie Plame.
we don't need another fucking
ignorant gop/teabagger for president.
we suffered enough from the bushes.
Bag
Mmmm....
'Santorum Salad' in Boone Iowa... Nom, nom, nom!
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
the citizens of America should realize that bombing people is creating more economics problem than doing them good while china and Brazil is building their Economy America is destroying theirs .Attacking Iran will lead to 3rd world war as simple as that.
Shoulda 'realised' that 40 years ago. No stopping it now. Boom Boom Pretty.
One thing that bombing Iran is guaranteed to do, is raise the profits of Oil companies as oil cruises up to $150 dollars a barrel. So who is more anti-nuclear weapons for Iran, Israel (with all of it's nukes) or the Oil companies.
Right wing politicians have continually hammered the attack Iran theme and the basis, nothing more that Israeli and Oil company campaign dollars.
Nothing to do with defence, nothing to do with threat of attacks and nothing to do with Iran's politics.
Iran is pretty much behaving as you would expect a country to behave who is under threat of attack simply to cut of it's oil supply and raise the profits multi-national oil corporations and Israel seeking greater power in the middle east as it basically destroys country after country via it's zombie puppet the US.
Bomb, bomb, bomb your mother's house. Go fuk yerselves.
ANYBODY who would make a young child, especially their own children, handle a dead foetus ought to have the crap beaten out of them. Sanitarium is One Sick Puppy. Seriously, Rick- STFU, before people take too close a look...
Santorum the Ugly American.
Tilly
The ironic thing is these lunatics are always saying Iran can't be trusted with nukes yet they're actually willing to risk touching off a nuclear holocaust just for the sake of higher profits. These maniacs should be locked away somewhere for their safety and ours.
But from the moment of birth forward, you're fair game: an object of exploitation, cannon fodder, a target, just something to be used and discarded after being used-up, broken or destroyed.
and enjoy all the rights and privileges of real americans.
just like our emperor did in libya..............................
sounds like a sovereign in training, very good, we all know we need direction. Richard the Lionheart, yeah, sounds good, that's it, yeah, plus, i'm a movie producer, yeah, and i'm married to............. scarlett johanssen!
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