Biden: US won't stop Israel attack on Iran | World News |Axisoflogic.com

Vice President Joe Biden has been pushing privately for a hard line on Iran, and in my exclusive "This Week" interview he hinted at a harder Administration line to come.

For now, he told me, President Obama’s offer to meet with Iran over its nuclear program remains “on the table.”

While insisting that President Obama is right not to rescind his offer to negotiate with Iran and the other “P-5” nations ( U.S., Britain, France, China and Russia ) plus Germany, Biden rejected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s attempts to condition any negotiations on more US concessions.

“The ball’s in their court,” Biden said. “If they choose to meet with the P-5 under the conditions the P-5 has laid out, it means they begin to change course. And it means that the protestors probably had some impact on the behavior of an administration that they don’t like at all.”

Biden also raised the pressure on Iran by appearing to give a green light to a future military strike against Iran.

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was here this spring, he said that he had agreed to give President Obama’s engagement policy until the end of the year to bear some fruit. After that deadline passed, Israel would feel free to take on the “existential threat” posed by Iran with military force if necessary.

Three times, I asked Biden if the Obama Administration would stand in the way of an Israeli military strike. Three times, he repeated that Israel was free to do what it needed to do. “If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice.”

We sat down for our exclusive and extended conversation after Biden’s surprise two-day visit to Iraq in his new role as President Obama’s personal envoy. He said that “securing victory” is his goal, and stressed that the U.S. intends to withdraw all troops by the 2011 deadline set by the status of forces agreement with Iraq.

Video of interview available at link below.

ABC News