Hillary Clinton: U.S. ‘Not Setting Deadlines’ for Iran

As Iran get closer and closer to achieving a nuclear weapon, the Obama Administration is essentially sitting on its hands:

The U.S. is “not setting deadlines” for Iran and still considers negotiations as “by far the best approach” to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.

While Clinton said in an interview yesterday that economic sanctions are building pressure on Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week the sanctions aren’t slowing Iran’s nuclear advances “because it doesn’t see a clear red line from the international community.”

Asked if the Obama administration will lay out sharper “red lines” for Iran or state explicitly the consequences of failing to negotiate a deal with world powers by a certain date, Clinton said, “We’re not setting deadlines.”

“We’re watching very carefully about what they do, because it’s always been more about their actions than their words,” Clinton said in the interview with Bloomberg Radio after wrapping up meetings at an Asia-Pacific forum in Vladivostok, Russia.

While the U.S. and Israel share the goal that Iran not acquire a nuclear weapon, Clinton said there is a difference in perspective over the time horizon for talks.

“They’re more anxious about a quick response because they feel that they’re right in the bull’s-eye, so to speak,” Clinton said. “But we’re convinced that we have more time to focus on these sanctions, to do everything we can to bring Iran to a good-faith negotiation.”

Ah,yes, those sanctions. The ones Russia, China and Turkey laugh at and don't comply with in the least. The ones the Obama Administration has made a point of granting official waivers on to any country that asks for one and wants to keep doing business as usual with Iran. The ones the Obama Administration has lobbied Congress to water down and make even more ineffectual.

Meanwhile, of course, the centrifuges keep spinning. President Obama and Mrs. Clinton apparently think that's no huge deal, because they imagine it to be just Israel's problem. As though it's going to stop with the Jews...

It amuses me no end to hear Democrats talk it up about what a foreign policy whiz President Obama is, at least in a sort of grim, ironic fashion.

Yes we retreated from Iraq and ended that misadventure, but that wasn't due to anything President Obama did, but to the agreement signed between President Bush and the Iraqis which set an exact date for our troops to leave, which President Obama simply complied with at Iraqi President Maliki's insistence. And I wonder... if President Obama is going to take credit for ending the war in Iraq, is he likewise going to take credit for the current carnage and chaos going on there?

Yes, Osama bin-Laden is dead, a fate he richly deserved. But as regular members of Joshua's Army know, I question whether assassinating one essentially retired terrorist was worth the huge financial and strategic cost. Among other things, killing bin-Laden meant that al-Qaeda, now under the command of Egyptian born Muslim Brotherhood ally Ayaman Zawahiri has returned to the roiling Middle East to take advantage of the Arab Spring and the Obama Administration's empowerment and financing of Islamists and Salafists.

Then, there was the president's decision to double down in Afghanistan to justify his campaign rhetoric about ' the good war'. I doubt most Americans would say the results justify labeling President Obama a foreign policy genius.

But the the worst decision or lack thereof is the Obama Administration's feckless actions in failing to deal with Iran's illegal nuclear weapons program. Americans are going to have to live with the results of that for some time, unless the Israelis decide that one Holocaust is enough and do something about it themselves.