Lieberman, Other Lawmakers, Write Bill To Bar Refined Product Sales To Iran, Pushing Tehran To Abandon Nukes
Military Strike On Iranian Nuclear Facilities Must Remain An Option, Though Not Preferred: Lieberman
Continued Iranian intransigence, flouting global proscriptions against its nuclear program, shows the need for building the proposed European Missile Defense system, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) said this afternoon.
Lieberman, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who caucuses with Democrats controlling the chamber, responded to a question from Space & Missile Defense Report at a forum of the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank.
He also announced that he and several other senators tomorrow will unveil legislation that would pressure Iran to stop its nuclear materials production program by giving the U.S. president the power to bar oil companies from shipping refined petroleum products to Iran. It lacks the capacity to produce all the refined product it needs for its domestic uses.
“I’ve been a very strong supporter of the European Missile Defense system,” Lieberman noted. “I’ve been a very strong supporter of the missile defense program generally since its beginning.”
Development of multilayered missile defense systems has come a long way over the past decade, he recalled. “It’s gone through a transformation itself, from a time when it was very politically controversial, to a time when it is (chuckling) less politically controversial — not supported by everybody.”
While critics once said missile defense was fantasy, because one cannot hit a bullet with a bullet, it still is true that “as increasing numbers of successful tests have shown, we’ve done just that,” the Connecticut lawmaker said.
Lieberman quoted Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, who last month stepped down as the Defense Intelligence Agency director. Maples warned of the virulent and growing missile threat the United States faces around the world.
“He put particular emphasis on what he described as the growing and expanding threat of ballistic missile capacity in nations throughout the world … including a lot of rogue nations that don’t like the United States very much at all,” Lieberman noted. “And to me that says that this investment in missile defense is a critically important one, particularly the European … stations which are put together to defend against an Iranian missile.”
We also asked Lieberman whether the long Iranian obstinate refusal to drop its nuclear program means that the legislation the senators will unveil tomorrow for further sanctions may fail to push Iran into doing that, and if so, whether Israel would be fully justified in striking Iranian nuclear facilities. An Iran wielding nuclear weapons would pose an existential threat to Israel. (Please see separate story in this issue on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.)
As well, Obama’s move to talk to the Iranians might not result in Iran complying with global opinion.
Lieberman acknowledged that “the history is not encouraging, in terms of our prediction that Iran may be convinced by the engagement that appears to be beginning now between the U.S. and Iran, and our other allies, to stop its nuclear weapons program.”
While Lieberman endorsed Obama’s attempt to launch U.S. talks with Tehran, he also added that the possibility of military action, such as air strikes against Iranian nuclear installations, must remain an option.
Lieberman concluded that “the consequences of Iran continuing with its nuclear program are so severe that it is worth this effort at negotiation and engagement, both with the hope that it works, and also so [the United States is] trying everything we can short of the use of military power, which of course remains an option — not the preferred one, but an option.”