So much for being the party that's "pro-life." On this week's Meet the Press, after some hedging and trying to change the subject after being asked what he would do differently than the current administration of whom he's been very critical of, GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum said that he would order airstrikes on Iran in order to keep them from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Here's the end of the back and forth where Gregory finally pinned him down:
GREGORY: But I asked you about disarming Iran. There is no material difference in terms of how the Bush administration sought to disarm Iran and what the Obama administration has done.
SANTORUM: There's a material difference in, in this respect. Number one, the Bush administration worked with me in passing the Iran Freedom Support Act, which I authored, which imposed tough sanctions on the Iranian nuclear program and provided funding for the prodemocracy movement. When President Obama came into office, he cut that funding. President Obama did not provide funding into Iran to help those folks who wanted to overthrow this democracy. And when the time came to support them, he chose not to. That is a substantive difference between my policy, which I was a leader on in the Senate, and what President Bush tried to do when he was president.
GREGORY: The reality is, there is no good option to disarm Iran.
SANTORUM: Yes, there is.
GREGORY: The Bush administration knew that, this administration knows that. Tell me what you would do differently, then.
SANTORUM: I put forth a five-point plan that said fund the pro-democracy movement, use covert activities to disrupt...
GREGORY: Which is already being done, Senator. You know that. There's covert activity to, to set back their program by the Israelis, by the United States.
SANTORUM: Well, we know by the Israelis. We, we don't have any evidence--if you look at what's being done, most of the evidence actually trails back to the Israelis and the methodologies that they use. There's no evidence the United States is at all complicit in working at that. That's what--I would be very direct that we would, in fact, and openly, talk about this.
Why? Because I want to make sure that Iran knows that when I say that Iran is not getting a nuclear weapon, that we will actually effectuate policies that make that happen. This president has not done that. He has opposed tough sanctions on Iran, on their oil program.
Why? Because he's concerned about this--the economy and his re-election instead of the long-term national security interests of this country. I would say to every foreign scientist that's going into Iran to help them there's--with their program, you'll be treated as an enemy combatant like an al-Qaeda member. And then finally, I would be working openly with the state of Israel and I would be saying to the Iranians, you either open up those facilities, you begin to dismantle them and, and make them available to inspectors, or we will degrade those facilities through airstrikes and make it very public that we are doing that. The president has done none of those.
GREGORY: So you would lay out a red line and if they passed it, airstrikes by President Santorum.
SANTORUM: Iran will not get a nuclear weapon under my watch.
GREGORY: Well, two previous presidents have said that. You would order airstrikes if it became clear that they were going to...
SANTORUM: Yes. That's, that's the plan. I mean, you can't go out and say--this is, this is the problem with this administration, you can't go out and say this is what I'm for and then do nothing. You become a paper tiger and people don't respect our country and our allies can't trust us. That's the problem with this administration.
