In the George W. Bush administration there would be no doubt whatsoever that we would never shoot down Israeli planes, and the chairman would not need to resort to such mealy mouthed, politically correct non-answers.
“In the George W. Bush administration there would be no doubt whatsoever that we would never shoot down Israeli planes”
I’m trying to think of the downsides of letting our intentions be public and known ahead of time. If we truly thought Iranian nukes were “unacceptable” (which I believe Obama has said more than once), we should be willing to say that while our preference and hope is that this can be resolved peacefully through use of tough sanctions, we also stand prepared to be full partners with Israel and whatever NATO members want to join us in whatever military action to ensure Iran does not secure nuclear weapons.
After all, we now know Saddam invaded Kuwait because of a tragic strategic miscalculation. He erroneously believed that the U.S. had “signaled” that it would not intervene were Iraq to use military force against its neighbor. I’mANutJob can rant and rave all he wants about our “belligerent” posture, but I cannot envision how our boldly articulating our intentions and capabilities would increase rather than decrease the odds that Iran goes nuclear.