Washington: Observing that the "diplomatic option" might not work in the case if Iran, a senior foreign policy advisor to Mitt Romney, presumptive Republican presidential candidate, has favored taking a "stronger" stance to bring Tehran to the negotiations table.
"The best option, the option that every thinking person should want is a diplomatic solution. There is no doubt about that. That`s the first priority for everybody. But I think there has to be a recognition that that may not happen," Mitchell B Reiss, a senior foreign policy advisor to the Romney campaign told a group of foreign journalists during a conference call.
"There also has to be a recognition that sometimes in order to move people to the negotiating table, with some flexibility, you have to take a stronger stance," he said adding that the Romney, very early in his administration, would want to increase the sanctions on the Iranian regime including the Revolutionary guard units.
"We saw the Obama administration actually oppose sanctions on the Central bank until Congress actually passed legislation and left them no choice.
"We would want to do more to provide missile defense to some of our Gulf Allies in the region to give them a degree of confidence as well as a supplemented deterrence that we can offer them against Iranian attacks," he said.
"We would want to make sure that the Iranians were under no illusion that a nuclear weapons capability was truly unacceptable to a Romney administration.
"So I think there are a variety of actions and rhetoric that we can take in order to move the administration in a position where Iranians take the threat of action much more seriously that they`ve taken it today," Reiss said adding that that is some of the things that one would see from a Romney presidency.
PTI
