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U.S.: "Premature" to Use Military Force Against Iran
(National Journal) Yochi J. Dreazen and Kevin Baron - The current U.S.-led push to force Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions through steadily increasing economic and diplomatic pressure is beginning to show results and it would be "premature" to resort to military force, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview on Thursday. Dempsey said he'd delivered a similar message to Israel's top leadership during a visit there last week. Israeli leaders see an Iranian nuclear weapon as a direct threat to their survival, and believe Iran may be just months away from having enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb. Dempsey said he and the Israelis each argued their positions "aggressively," but conceded that the two close allies simply see the threat - and potentially how soon to act against it - very differently. "We have to acknowledge that they...see that threat differently than we do. It's existential to them," he said. "My intervention with them was not to try to persuade them to my thinking or allow them to persuade me to theirs, but rather to acknowledge the complexity and commit to seeking creative solutions, not simple solutions." "We are determined to prevent them [Iran] from acquiring that weapon, but that doesn't mean dropping bombs necessarily," he said. "I personally believe that we should be in the business of deterring as the first priority."