The Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol expressed skepticism at the "charm offensive" being put on by the new Iranian regime under Hassan Rowhani Monday on Special Report, saying that even a seemingly reasonable attempt to test diplomacy was giving Iran more time to reach nuclear capability.
"The clock is ticking," Kristol said. "If the talking goes on too long, Iran gets to nuclear capability. So it's not a mutual situation where we will take a year and test it and decide what to do. The Iranians are close. That's one reason why they're launching this charm offensive, and that's why Israel is so, I think, under the gun."
Rowhani has a history of deceit with the West as Iran's former chief nuclear negotiator, bragging about the centrifuges spinning while he stretched out talks:
BRET BAIER: In the middle of all this charm offensive Bill, the Iranian regime apparently sent a vitriolic 20-page page letter to the IEA challenging their right to hold Iran's nuclear activities, to monitor them, and challenging this report that they had August 28th.
BILL KRISTOL: Well, the International Energy Agency has over the years, I think for more than a decade, discovered clandestine Iranian nuclear programs that's proven to the world's satisfaction, to the U.N. Security Council's satisfaction, to Russian and Chinese satisfaction over the years that the Iranians were lying and cheating. That's why they are trying to discredit, I suppose, the IEA. The problem with this is the president sounds reasonable, even if you're a hawk like me. He sounds sort of reasonable at first when he says we should test diplomacy. Well, who's against testing diplomacy? Here's the problem. The clock is ticking. If the talking goes on too long, Iran gets to nuclear capability. So it's not a mutual situation where we will take a year and test it and decide what to do. The Iranians are close. That's one reason why they're launching this charm offensive, and that's why Israel is so, I think, under the gun. It's going to have to make a serious decision.