{"id":7955,"date":"2015-01-22T21:22:10","date_gmt":"2015-01-22T21:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7955"},"modified":"2015-01-22T21:22:10","modified_gmt":"2015-01-22T21:22:10","slug":"iran-returns-to-center-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7955","title":{"rendered":"Iran returns to center stage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>Iran never recedes too far away from Americans&#8217; awareness.<\/p>\n<p>It returned once again this week during President Obama&#8217;s State of the Union speech and the next day when House Speaker John Boehner invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to a joint session of Congress in February.<\/p>\n<p>Netanyahu will talk about Iran.<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2015\/01\/obama-netanyahu-no-meeting-dc-visit-114494.html?hp=r1_4<\/p>\n<p>Obama doesn&#8217;t want to impose new sanctions on Iran while negotiations are ongoing to rid the nation of its nuclear program. Congressional Republicans, along with Netanyahu, want to impose sanctions.<\/p>\n<p>What does all this have to do with anything?<\/p>\n<p>Israel has declared that it is keeping open the option of a military strike against Iran if the Iranians proceed with nuclear development and &#8212; it is believed by almost everyone on the planet &#8212; creation of a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n<p>Israel has a right to defend itself, given that Iran has declared its intention to wipe Israel off the face of the map. If you&#8217;re Netanyahu, you keep the military option open, as you must.<\/p>\n<p>I am just hoping that Netanyahu picks his words carefully when he speaks to members of Congress. Granted, he doesn&#8217;t think much of the effort to negotiate a settlement that removes Iran&#8217;s nuclear program. I&#8217;m not sure I&#8217;d think much of it either if I lived in a country that faces the constant threat of all-out war from a despotic regime.<\/p>\n<p>But the picture is even more complicated, given these negotiations and the possibility that they well might produce a non-nuclear Iran.<\/p>\n<p>This is a treacherous gambit that Speaker Boehner is playing by\u00a0inviting Benjamin Netanyahu to make an important speech to Congress. Be very careful, Mr. Speaker. And you, too, Mr. Prime Minister.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Iran never recedes too far away from Americans&#8217; awareness. It returned once again this week during President Obama&#8217;s State of the Union speech and the next day when House Speaker John Boehner invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to a joint session of Congress in February. Netanyahu will talk about Iran. http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2015\/01\/obama-netanyahu-no-meeting-dc-visit-114494.html?hp=r1_4 Obama &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7955\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Iran returns to center stage<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[540,592,2312,2369,2523,3352,4314],"class_list":["post-7955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-news","tag-barack-obama","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-john-boehner","tag-nuclear-program","tag-sotu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7955\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}