Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad gave another firebrand speech on Thursday denouncing as "futile" the European Union's new sanctions targeting Iranian oil exports, adding that the Iranian people, who attempted to replace him as president two years ago but were violently prevented from doing so by his security apparatus, has always managed to overcome conspiracies from outside aggressors. He also reiterated an earlier commitment to resume talks with the P5+1 powers(Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the US) on the Islamic Republic’s renegade nuclear program, although he added the usual caveats and equivocations which have always prevented those talks from proceeding. He recently got some support from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, which criticized the EU sanctions as "not constructive" echoing similar comments by the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Meanwhile, former IDF chief of staff Lt.-Gen (res.) Gabi Ashkenazi told a security conference in Tel Aviv on Thursday that “In comparison to 10 years ago, the possibility of a conflict (with Iran) is not something that we just need to talk about. We also need to prepare for it. Our mission now needs to be to slow down the clock and to speed up the clock of sanctions and hope that it works.” He added that a strategy including “everything that can be done under the radar” (a reference to covert action) with “painful and crippling sanctions,” were good options for now, but “due to the current pressure being put on it, Iran won't engage in negotiations. Everyone, therefore, must keep the military option on the table, especially Israel."
Also on Thursday, US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Martin Dempsey reiterated Washington’s commitment to preventing Iran from deploying nuclear weapons in an interview with the National Journal.
"I do think the path we're on—the economic sanctions and the diplomatic pressure—does seem to me to be having an effect," Dempsey said. "I just think that it's premature to be deciding that the economic and diplomatic approach is inadequate. A conflict with Iran would be really destabilizing, and I'm not just talking from the security perspective. It would be economically destabilizing.
Commenting on his recent visit to Israel, Dempsey said;
"We have to acknowledge that they ... see that threat differently than we do. Its existential to them. 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."
