US Has To Be Ready For Military Strike Against Iran

The United States has to be ready for a military strike against Iran if diplomacy and economic sanctions are not able to pull Tehran out of its nuclear weapons ambitions, a senior US lawmaker has said. "We need to use diplomatic sanctions. If that doesn't work, economic sanctions, and if that doesn't work, the potential for military use has to be on the table," Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist told reporters in Missouri, adding "We cannot allow Iran to become a nuclear nation." Asked whether Congress had the political will to use military force against Iran if necessary, First said: "The answer is yes, absolutely." Senior lawmakers, Republican and Democrat, have voiced serious apprehensions on Iran going unchecked by the international community in its determined quest for nuclear weapons. Bill Frist The contention of Teheran that it is seeking nuclear power for peaceful purposes has hardly any takers on Capitol Hill and some of this has to do with the statements of Iran's leaders like its President who have called for the destruction of the state of Israel and hat the Holocaust was a myth. Soon after vote in Vienna by International Atomic Energy Agency to report Iran to UN Security Council, a leading Republican Senator John McCain stressed yesterday that all options would have to remain on the table and that the military option would have to be the last one. McCain, who is a Presidential hopeful for 2008, brushed aside the notion that Washington did not have credibility on Iran on account of its unilateral moves over Iraq in 2003. The Arizona Republican referred to the vote in the IAEA as meaning that this time it was the international community including Russia and China wanting a meaningful resolution of this crisis.