McCain Warns Russia, China On Iran
 

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A leading U.S. senator warned Russia and China on Friday of damage to their relationship with the United States if they refused to go along with sanctions against Iran.Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona told a Brussels conference that Iran's nuclear program posed the greatest security threat to the world alongside terrorism.
The U.N. Security Council should impose sanctions including an investment ban, a travel ban and asset freezes on government leaders and nuclear scientists, McCain said.
Asked what consequences there would be if Moscow and Beijing blocked such a move, he told reporters: "Clearly it's going to affect many areas of cooperation between our two countries.

"There will be a reaction in the U.S. Congress."
McCain, a potential White House contender in 2008, said he could not be specific that the areas affected could include trade.
The world's nuclear watchdog said on Friday Iran had flouted a U.N. Security Council call to suspend uranium enrichment and was speeding up its program instead, spurring Western powers to urge tougher U.N. action.
President Bush said he wanted peaceful persuasion to prevail. Iran's president has vowed to spurn any U.N. resolution to stop its professed quest for fuel for atomic power stations -- a front for bomb-making in Western eyes.
McCain said the United States must not rule out military action against Iran as a last resort, saying: There's only one thing worse than military action and that's a nuclear-armed Iran."
McCain did not rule out the possibility of direct U.S. talks with Tehran or Washington's involvement in multilateral negotiations with Iran.
He said Bush had made clear he would explore every possible option and that could include "six-party talks, four-party talks, two-party talks."
McCain added he was not trying to tell the administration what to do.
He said that military action would be very complicated but the United States could not risk a nuclear Iran exterminating Israel.

I wonder what America would be like if McCain won the primary in 2000.

In other thoughts, the UN needs to be rethought out. Its lack of power and backbone (UN peacekeeping troops are a joke, more like peactime troops that get pulled out when shit starts going down *cough* Rwanda *cough*) That way the US might not play world policeman so much.

I'd vote for McCain.

Your not the only liberal who would. His bipartisan efforts and his intelligence are very appealing to people in a very Roosevelt sort of way.

question: why do we need the approval of russia and china to defend ourselves anyway? iran is quite possibly the most ardent state sponsor of terrorists on the entire planet, it is run by a nutcase who thinks it is his mission from allah to spread the message of the "islamic republic" throughout the world, the official stance in the nation is "death to america" -- AND IT'S TRYING TO BUILD A NUKE. meanwhile, we here in the us of a are prattling on about it not "living up to its obligations" -- ooh, way to get tough.

seriously, get rid of iran. i don't care how you do it, just get rid of the bastards.

ps -- the un is corrupt and legitimizes despots -- all you need to do is witness libya on the human rights council to see that.

you shouldn't need their approval to defend yourself, but you can't force them to cooperate with sanctions either. and the question remains whether the term "defending yourself" applies to attacking/invading other countries. a large part of the planet seems to think it doesn't.

corruption and the legitimization of foreign despotes have not exactly been uncommon characteristics of us politics in the past either... don't judge the un too hard for having those too. :p

I can't help but think of oven chips.

Scary...."demanding" 2 powers or growing powers like China and Russia to do as we say kind of sketches me out. There has to be a more diplomatic approach.

I agree but not until they take out Israel.

I've been a huge fan of Hamas since 85, but we can't wait for them!

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