Haaretz
Shvat 15, 5767
United States Defense
Minister Robert Gates said Friday that the U.S. does not plan on attacking
Iran.
Gates told reporters the decision to send additional
aircraft carriers to the Persian Gulf does not indicate a desire on the
part of the U.S. to go to war with Iran.
He said the United States
is trying to prevent Iran's involvement in the violence in Iraq, and is
trying to force them to abandon their uranium enrichment activities.
Gates added that there is still no evidence that Iranian forces
were involved in an attack last week on American forces in Karbala, Iraq
in which 5 U.S. soldiers were killed.
On Thursday, U.S. Senator
and presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said no option can be
taken off the table when dealing with that Iran.
"U.S. policy must
be clear and unequivocal: We cannot, we should not, we must not permit
Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons," the Democrat told a crowd of
Israel supporters. "In dealing with this threat ... no option can be taken
off the table."
Clinton spoke at a Manhattan dinner held by the
largest pro-Israel lobbying group in the U.S., the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee. Some 1,700 supporters applauded as she cited her
efforts on Israel's behalf and spoke scathingly of Iran's decision to hold
a conference last month that questioned whether the Holocaust took
place.
"To deny the Holocaust places Iran's leadership in company
with the most despicable bigots and historical revisionists," Clinton
said, criticizing what she called the Iranian administration's
pro-terrorist, anti-American, anti-Israeli rhetoric.
Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called the Holocaust a myth
and said Israel should be wiped off the map and its Jews returned to
Europe.
Iran insists its nuclear program is designed to produce
energy, not weapons.
Ahmadinejad said Thursday his government is
determined to continue with its nuclear program, despite UN Security
Council sanctions imposed over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment, a
process that can produce fuel to generate electricity or for the fissile
core of an atomic bomb.
Clinton, the front-runner for her party's
presidential nomination, called for dialogue with foes of the United
States, saying Iran uses its influence and its revenues in the region to
support terrorist elements.
"We need to use every tool at our
disposal, including diplomatic and economic in addition to the threat and
use of military force," she said.