"No options off the table" and Article 2 of the UN Charter: SOTU 2012 - Barack Obama on Iran
Channel: eofdg
Date: 27/01/2012

State of the Union Address 2012, Barack Obama, January 24, 2012.

Please verify the assertions in these links.

President Obama received a standing ovation from the majority of the audience after declaring that he "will take no options off the table to achieve" the goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

---------- "no options off the table"

"Also off the agenda is Article 2 of the UN Charter, which bars the threat of force in international affairs. Both US political parties insistently proclaim their criminality, declaring that 'all options are on the table' with regard to Iran's nuclear programmes."

-

     Noam Chomsky, All options on the table?, Khaleej Times, August 6, 2008
 
       http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?col=&section=opinion&xfile=data/opinion/2008/August/opinion_August26.xml

      cited in Chomsky.info at
 
      http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20080806.htm

---------- Article 2 of the UN Charter

 "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."

-http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/chapter1.shtml

---------- UN Resolution 1887

Reaffirmation of the Charter, adopted unanimously, and hence by the United States, to resolve disputes involving the spread of nuclear weapons peacefully.

"Recalling also that the above Statement (S/23500) underlined the need for all Member States to resolve peacefully in accordance with the Charter any problems in that context threatening or disrupting the maintenance of regional and global stability"

-http://www.un.org/docs/sc/unsc_resolutions09.htm

(Please search for S/RES/1887)

To see that the resolution was indeed adopted unanimously, please see the UN press release here:

-http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2009/sc9746.doc.htm

---------- Some of the history of the relationship between the United States and Iran

-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTGf4X_Qjew

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See also Martin van Creveld's 2004 article in the NY Times. Van Creveld is a leading, hawkish, Israeli military historian.

-http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/21/opinion/21iht-edcreveld_ed3_.html

He wrote that "Iran is now surrounded by American forces on all sides — in the Central Asian republics to the north, Afghanistan to the east, the Gulf to the South and Iraq to the west,"

and that

"Wherever U.S forces go, nuclear weapons go with them or can be made to follow in short order. The world has witnessed how the United States attacked Iraq for, as it turned out, no reason at all. Had the Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy."

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Please verify the assertions in these links.