U.S. should not preemptively attack Iran

At the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a discussion was held on the implications of relations between the United States and Iran. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security advisor to President Jimmy Carter, said that Iran must make a concession before the U.S. will negotiate them, the hostility of the region and the “clumsiness” that the problem has been handled has been a problem.

The U.S. has lived with a nuclear armed Russia, China, Pakistan, India and Israel for many years, deterrence will work with Iran as well, but preemptive war will not work, Brzezinski said. Iran is looking to build up its nuclear program to be secure in the region, but it is incorrect to say that they will use nuclear weapons to attack Israel or give them to Hezbollah, he said. The Iranian government is not very popular among the Iranian people and they will not support military action against other nations, they are only building up nuclear weapons to ensure security and safety in a volatile region, Brzezinski said.

The U.S. needs to be willing to lower sanctions on Iran, if the Iranian government promises not to use their uranium for nuclear weapons, Brzezinski said. However, the U.S. should not back down on nuclear proliferation and thereby unintentionally legitimizing the use of force to gain respect and power in the Middle East, he said.

At the Iran’s Nuclear Aspirations hearing, Congressman Mike Pence (R-Ind.) says Iran is more than just a ‘pest’. He refers to it as the most malevolent country in the world and he commemorates the 25th anniversary of the Hezbollah bombings of marine corps barracks in Beirut. (0:49)

 

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The American Enterprise Institute hosted a panel on Lebanon highlighting many of the issues affecting the country. The panel consisted of Danielle Pletka and Michael Rubin of AEI, Robert Malley of the International Crisis Group, Lee Smith of the Hudson Institute, and Hassan Mneimneh, Iraq Memory Foundation.
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James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

MS. PERINO: Hi. The President had his normal briefings at 8:00 a.m. At 11:35 a.m. he will interview with Mike Allen for a Yahoo.com news interview in the Roosevelt Room. And then at 5:30 p.m. he and Mrs. Bush depart the White House on their way to the Middle East. We’ll go to Jerusalem tonight.
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Mohamad Bazzi, Council on Foreign Relations fellow on the ground in Beirut, held a media conference call to discuss the events this week in Lebanon. He said that on Saturday Hezbollah was accused of spying on the Lebanese state with a camera on a Beirut airport runway, and also of using a private communication network to communicate with each other through their own infrastructure. He said that on Monday night the Lebanese government held a meeting, and condemned what Hezbollah had done. He said Hezbollah and other opposition parties used a strike planned by labor unions on Wednesday as a vehicle to express their displeasure with the government’s decisions. (more…)

Council on Foreign Relations Fellow Mohamad Bazzi describes how he woke up today to gunfire, as Hezbollah fighters moved methodically through the streets. He says they took over offices and media under the Sunni leader, Saad Hariri, but then turned them back over to the Lebanese army. He says by midday Hezbollah was able to exert control over pretty much all of West Beirut. (1:06)

 

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Mohamad Bazzi, Council on Foreign Relations fellow on the ground in Beirut, says that the recent outbursts of violence caught most people in Lebanon by surprise. He says that the violence over the last four to five days is rooted in events that transpired over the weekend, when Hezbollah was accused of spying on the Lebanese state with a camera trained on a runway of Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport. (0:59)

 

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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release February 29, 2008

PRESS GAGGLE BY
GORDON JOHNDROE

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

9:37 A.M. EST

MR. JOHNDROE: Okay, today’s schedule: The President taped his radio address this morning. In it the President will announce the release of the 2008 National Drug Control Strategy. This report lays out the methods the administration is using to combat drug abuse in America and highlights the hopeful progress that we are making in the fight against addiction. ONDCP will have more on that later.
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