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Pelosi said that to stop Iran's nuclear march, short of a military strike - something she did not rule out as a last resort - "you have to go all the way. And people have to know you are deadly serious that if you want to be our friend, if you want the benefit of our friendship, a central pillar of our foreign policy is to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."
This can't just be a "conversation," she said, "it has to be seriously enforced and sanctioned, because the alternative is one that has a tremendous downside - and that would be to use military force."
While saying that a military option should not be taken off the table, and adding that an attack by Teheran on Israel certainly "cannot go unanswered," Pelosi said that a preemptive strike on Iran would have consequences that needed to be considered. Among the consequences she listed were the effect such an attack would have in rallying Iranians around their current leadership, what it would do to the price of oil, and the response of the rest of the Muslim world.
Pelosi refused to get drawn into a discussion of whether US President George W. Bush was wrong in insinuating during his Knesset speech last week that Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama would appease the Iranians, saying that she would not criticize the president on foreign soil. Before leaving Washington, however, she said that Bush's characterization was "beneath the dignity of the office of president."
Pelosi did say here that she was confident Obama would deal squarely and assertively with the Iranian dossier.
"I know that Barack Obama would meet the challenge we have in terms of Iran," she said. "And he may do it in a larger way. I don't know how you define strength here, but in the US we define it not only in terms of our military might, and our willingness to use it - that's important - but we define it in terms of our values, where we can attract others to a place where we can keep the peace without making war, but without taking war off the table."
Pelosi said Obama was "a real leader, and to be a real leader you have to be prepared to fight in order to make peace, and I think he is prepared to do that."
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http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1210668665810&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFullAre we really sure she's a Democrat?