On August 1, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned that “all options” are on the table for preventing a nuclear-armed Iran, including “military options.” At a joint press conference with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Panetta admitted that although sanctions are having a “biting” impact, the United States and the international community will have to take further steps to stop Tehran.
The Defense Secretary emphasized the United States’ “rock-solid commitment to Israel’s security” but refused to discuss contingencies in the event of an Israeli strike. The following are excerpts from the press conference.
At the same time, Iran's pursuit of nuclear capabilities and its destabilizing activities, including its support for Assad, for Hezbollah and for international terrorism, poses a threat not only to Israel, but to the entire region.
The United States is also a focus of that threat as indeed the rest of the world…
On Iran, the United States and Israel share the same goal: preventing a nuclear-armed Iran. The most effective way to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon is for the international community to be united, proving to Iran that it will only make itself less secure if it continues to try to pursue a nuclear weapon.
We have been steadily applying more and more pressure against Tehran, focusing on diplomatic and economic sanctions, and I believe these steps are having an effect. But it is clear that we need to continue to apply maximum pressure. And make no mistake, we will.
Just yesterday, President Obama announced additional sanctions to further penalize and isolate Iran, building on the toughest sanctions that Iran has ever faced.
It's my responsibility as Secretary of Defense to provide the president with a full range of options, including military options, should diplomacy fail. President Obama has made clear that preventing a nuclear-armed Iran is a top national security priority by the United States and that all options -- all options -- are on the table…
As to future contingencies and future hypotheticals, I -- I don't -- I just don't want to engage in speculating what we will or won't do. I guess my hope is that, working together, since we have a common cause here, we are both interested in preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and we have been working together and we will continue, hopefully, to work together to ensure that that never happens…
With regards to the issue of -- of -- of the effort to bring pressure on Iran and to try to draw them to the -- the table in order to negotiate a resolution, I think -- I think we have to exhaust -- and the prime minister has made this point -- we have to exhaust every -- every option, every effort, you know, before we resort to military action. I think that's important.
And to do that, you know, we have -- we have applied, the international community has applied very strong sanctions against them. We are ratcheting up those sanctions, as -- as made clear by the president's executive order and made clear by the European countries and others that are applying additional sanctions on Iran.
It's biting. It's having an impact there. And the result is that we did initiate the P-5-plus-1 negotiations. We have not, obviously, been able to reach any kind of agreement. But the key here is to keep putting the pressure on them to negotiate.
They have a choice. They have a choice to make. They can either negotiate in a way that tries to resolve these issues and has them abiding by international rules and requirements and -- and giving up on their effort to develop their -- their nuclear capability. That -- that's an effort we would be interested in working with them to try to negotiate.
But if they don't, and if they continue, and if they make the decision to proceed with a nuclear weapon, as the minister has pointed out, we have options that we are prepared to implement to ensure that that does not happen.