Report: Robert Gates Says White House Lacks Long-Term Iran Strategy
A secret memo from Defense Secretary Robert Gates warning top White House officials that they lack a long-term strategy for dealing with Iran has prompted the White House, the U.S. military and the country's intelligence agencies to develop one, according to a report The New York Times posted to its website Saturday night.
This yet-to-be completed strategy includes military alternatives if the United States exhausts all diplomatic options and if sanctions fail to dissuade Iran from advancing its nuclear program.
A senior official told the Times the memo, which Gates wrote in January after Iran failed to meet a 2009 deadline, served as "a wake up call." White House officials told the newspaper that the administration has been developing ways to address possible outcomes with Iran for the past 15 months.
Gen. James Jones, President Obama's national security adviser, would only tell the newspaper "On Iran, we are doing what we said we were going to do. The fact that we don't announce publicly our entire strategy for the world to see doesn't mean we don't have a strategy that anticipates the full range of contingencies -- we do."
One possible situation Gates reportedly warned the officials about was if Iran built the necessary parts to make a nuclear weapon without actually putting the parts together. Strategists told the Times that scenario would make Iran a "virtual" nuclear state and allow the country to continue to be a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
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