US President hopefuls press for hardline
Republican White House hopefuls have slammed President Barack Obama's handling of Iran and vowed a tougher line -- even going to war -- to stop Tehran obtaining nuclear weapons.
"If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon," former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said Saturday as the candidates opened their first foreign policy debate. "If you elect me as the next president, they will not."
But former pizza chain executive Herman Cain, running neck-and-neck with Romney in the polls, said "the only way you can stop them is through economic means," pledging tougher sanctions, and support for domestic opposition groups.
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, whose support has recently surged, sided with Romney, calling "maximum covert operations" against Iran's suspect nuclear program, "including taking out their scientists" and sabotage.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN atomic watchdog, said Tuesday it had "serious concerns" based on "credible" information that Iran has "carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device."
Former Republican senator Rick Santorum said the United States "should be working with Israel right now to do what they did in Syria, what they did in Iraq, which is take out that nuclear capability before the next explosion we hear in Iran is a nuclear one -- and then the world changes."
Republican Representative Ron Paul said it was "not worthwhile" to go to war to halt Iran's suspect nuclear program, and compared the heated US rhetoric against Tehran to the flawed case for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.
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