Would President Obama Still Use Force In Iran?

President Obama in the Situation Room. Pete Souza/White House

Yes, Obama Would Use Force in Iran -- Jeffrey Goldberg , Bloomberg

A question I'm frequently asked -- several times a week during periods when the Barack Obama administration is especially focused on achieving a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis -- goes something like this: “Do you still believe that there are circumstances in which President Obama would use military force to stop Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon, given that [choose one, or more] he didn’t enforce his own chemical weapons red line on Syria; he’s so eager for any sort of substantial achievement in the Middle East that he’s ready to make a bad deal with the Iranians; he’s abandoning the U.S.'s Sunni and Jewish allies in the Middle East in favor of Iran’s Shia; he is himself secretly a Shia, through a distant relative on his mother’s side?”

The answer is, yes, I still believe that there are circumstances in which Obama would use force to stop Iran from gaining possession of a nuclear weapon. It's no secret that he prefers a diplomatic solution (one brought about by a crippling sanctions regime he orchestrated with significant help from Congress) to this problem. It is also no secret that he believes a military strike might have unintended consequences that could actually lead to a redoubling of the Iranian effort to cross the nuclear finish line. But there are certainly circumstances -- two immediately come to mind -- in which I think he would use force to prevent the Middle East from falling into a destructive spiral of nuclear proliferation.

Read more ....

My Comment: I just do not see such a scenario breaking out (President Obama ordering a military strike on Iran). This would be a war of choice .... and after Iraq this is something that the American public and especially President Obama would be loathed to undertake .... even in the worst scenario. If there is a scenario in which U.S. forces would become engaged against Iran .... it would be a scenario in which Iranian forces have launched an overt attack against U.S. allies in the Middle East.