Obama ‘not bluffing’ about using military force in Iran if necessary: Biden

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said there remains “time and space” for diplomacy aimed at averting military action to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons power and that President Barack Obama is “not bluffing” when he says he’s considering military options.

Still, the pressure on Obama’s administration to move toward military action is growing as Iran advances its uranium enrichment capabilities, and U.S. lawmakers, Israel and Persian Gulf allies press for results.

Today, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said negotiating time is “finite.”

“The clock is ticking and the president has made that clear,” Kerry said in an interview in Doha with Andrea Mitchell of NBC News. “The president’s policy is that Iran will not get a nuclear weapon.”

Iran is using negotiations to “buy time” to pursue a nuclear weapons program, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday in a video address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference in Washington. Although Iran’s uranium enrichment activities have yet to cross Israel’s “red line,” the Islamic Republic is “getting closer” to the point where it would be capable of quickly producing a nuclear weapon, he said.

U.S. Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, told the group, a major pro-Israel lobby, that diplomatic efforts with Iran “have failed, and it is very clear that they are on the path of having a nuclear weapon.”

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