Posted on 11/14/2004 12:55:52 PM PST by wagglebee
While the U.S. is "aggressively" pressuring the government of Iran to curtail its nuclear program, the Bush administration does not seek "regime change" in Tehran, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday.
"We are not getting ready to invade Iran," Powell told CNBC "Wall Street Journal Report" host Maria Bartiromo. "We have no intention of regime change. That is our policy: no regime change."
Powell added, however, that "we don't approve of this regime. This regime takes actions that we don't find acceptable in a 21st century world. ... [But] it's up to the Iranian people" to decide their future.
An aggressive U.S. strategy has succeeded in alerting the European community to the threat posed by Iran's nuclear intentions and its ties to Mideast terrorism, Powell said.
"The problem has not been solved. But a heat lamp, a spotlight, has been put on Iran, making it harder for Iran to ignore the attention of the international community," he told CNBC.
I hope you are right.
But this one:
"We are not getting ready to invade Iran," Powell told CNBC "Wall Street Journal Report" host Maria Bartiromo. "We have no intention of regime change. That is our policy: no regime change."
We don't have any reason to see this regime continue, and we have very strong reasons in seeing it gone. This type of virtual capitulation to the status quo seems to me counter-productive.
It has been my belief that President Bush will indeed take military action against Tehran because it appears that there is very little time left before they will have the bomb and missiles sufficient to deliver it.
My guess, based on events of the last few months, is that we will now hear Assistant Secretary Armitage pop up in the next few days with an even stronger version of the same statement.
I'm wondering how it was that Carter 'stabbed the Shah in the back'? Not arguing mind you- just not familiar with this piece of the story. Wouldn't surprise me tho.
Colon Bowell really needs to be flushed down the toilet...
Yea ... right ... we're not seeking regime change but if it happens after we destroy their nuclear facilities, and encourage their students to revolt and overthrow the dictatorship of the mullahs, well ... we wouldn't complain.
;)
I'm reading that as an allusion to an Operation Rollback type of plan.
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