US president-elect Barack Obama said yesterday that he would act swiftly once in power to confront Iran, vowing to take a new approach focused on dialogue, but warning Tehran that there were limits beyond which it should not go.
Speaking on network television nine days before taking office, Mr Obama said Iran was going to be one of the biggest challenges his incoming administration faced. He said Tehran's "exporting of terrorism through Hamas and Hizbullah" and its pursuit of an atomic weapon could trigger a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
A new US approach would be adopted, with engagement as its starting point, Mr Obama said, adding that he would send out a signal "that we respect the aspirations of the Iranian people, but we also have certain expectations of how an international actor behaves".
One of the earliest decisions for Mr Obama and his foreign policy team, led by Hillary Clinton, will be to decide whether to continue the covert operations programme started by the Bush administration last year.
The mission is designed to block any attempt by Iran to build a nuclear weapon by breaking its supply chain of essential parts from abroad, and by applying experimental techniques to disrupt essential computer and electrical systems. Details of those operations were disclosed by the New York Times yesterday.
The newspaper said Mr Obama would have to weigh up the values of the programme as one line of defence against a possible Iranian bomb, while considering the damage that it might cause to attempts to engage with Tehran diplomatically.