Is Obama weak on Iran? GOP sees hot issue in crisis over nuclear program.

The growing international crisis over Iran's nuclear program and Americans' preference that US military action be avoided if possible presents an extra challenge to Obama's reelection efforts.

Republicans who have been stumped by the high marks Barack Obama receives from the voting public on defense and national security issues believe they may have found the president?s weak spot: Iran.

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At the same time, rising international tensions with Tehran over its nuclear program and the place it is likely to occupy in the year?s diplomatic agenda have some administration officials confiding that ?this will be the year of Iran.?

Taken together, those two factors are likely to make Iran a standout foreign-policy issue in a presidential campaign otherwise dominated by jobs and the economy.

?The American people would really prefer that there not be any [military] action against Iran,? says Stanley Greenberg, a prominent Democratic pollster and political strategist. But at the same time, he notes, ?close to a majority favors military action against Iran? if that?s what it takes to stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon.

Those ambiguous waters are what President Obama will be navigating as he confronts the growing Iran crisis even as he campaigns for reelection.

That ambiguity was on display Wednesday, as the White House?denied an Iranian lawmaker?s claim that Mr. Obama recently proposed direct US-Iran talks to the Islamic Republic?s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

The Iranian official said the proposal for direct talks came in a?letter in which Obama also warned that any move to close the Strait of?Hormuz, through which passes up to one-fifth of the world?s oil, is a??red line? for the United States.

While administration officials denied that such a letter was sent,?National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said that the US has a number of ways to communicate its views to Iran, and that the?administration remains committed to finding a diplomatic solution to?the issue of Iran?s nuclear program, according to the Associated?Press.

That the Republican candidates see Iran as an Obama shortcoming to be exploited is clear enough from the focus they have put on it in their debates of foreign-policy issues. Portending a likely campaign theme were he to win his party?s nomination, front-runner Mitt Romney declared in South Carolina in November, ?If we reelect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. And if we elect Mitt Romney,? he continued, ?they will not have a nuclear weapon.?

Republicans say Iran inching ever closer to joining the global nuclear club can be traced right back to Obama extending his hand to the Iranians in his inaugural address.?

Obama insists Iran will not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon on his watch. But Republicans point out that the US (under both Republican and Democratic presidents, it should be said) has allowed a number of such categorical red lines to come and go before ? a point a number of Iran experts say is absolutely true.

?A number of the red lines of the past have come and gone,? says Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in Washington.

Listing some of the ?red lines? that Iran has crossed in the past without devastating consequence ? enriching uranium, then enriching uranium to 20 percent purity, most recently commencing 20 percent enrichment at a bunker-style underground facility ? Mr. Takeyh adds, ?At each step the international community acclimates itself to those gains.?

Despite the Republicans? nipping at Obama?s heels over Iran, the administration is likely to follow its two-track, ?carrots and sticks? approach on the issue, both officials and expert say, at least over the coming weeks and months.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/RA8OxT7yG2g/Is-Obama-weak-on-Iran-GOP-sees-hot-issue-in-crisis-over-nuclear-program

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