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Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney charged US President Barack Obama has "failed in his efforts to get Iran to abandon its nuclear program."
 
"I want to make sure that the people of this nation understand that he failed us not only here at home, he's failed us in dealing with Iran," Romney said at a campaign stop.
 
"This is a failed presidency," the former Massachusetts governor and millionaire venture capitalist declared two days before Iowans cast the first votes of the Republican presidential nominating contest.
 
His comments came one day after Obama signed a law targeting Iran's central bank and financial sector with new sanctions.
 
Similarly, two former US diplomats urged their administration to learn lessons from failures of previous wars and to resolve its disputes with Iran with diplomacy instead of threats of war that could lead to disasters.

Under the title, "Military action Isn't the Only Solution for Iran", the former undersecretary of state for political affairs in the Clinton administration and former US ambassador to Russia, Zionist entity, Jordan and the United Nations Thomas Pickering as well as his fellow ambassador to Czechoslovakia and president of the United Nations Association for a decade William Luers warned about the "catastrophic risks of attacking Iran."

"Without that patient search for different ways to deal with Tehran, Washington will be stuck with a policy that will not change Iran's practices or its regime and could lead to a catastrophic war," the two diplomats warned.

In an article published by the "Washington Post" Sunday, they expressed concern that US government officials and presidential candidates are talking about possible military actions again Iran nearly every day in order to prevent Tehran from continuing with its nuclear program.
 
"The United States should learn a lesson from failures of the past wars, most recently the war in Iraq," the former US officials warned.
 
"Were it not for the ill-begotten war, thousands of Americans might still be living. America would be a trillion dollars richer and still be the proud, respected and economically healthy nation the world had known," they clarified.

Calling "the US government to deal with the Iran issue through engagement and direct dialogue," Pickering and Leurs asserted that "history teaches that engagement and diplomacy pay dividends that military threats do not."
 
"Deployment of military force can bring the immediate illusion of success, but always results in unforeseen consequences and collateral damage that complicate further the achievement of America's main objectives," they argued to conclude by advising US administration to "make multiple, creative efforts to engage Iran' s leaders so as to achieve more durable solutions at a far lower cost."
 
Source: Washington Post, News Agencies, Edited by moqawama.org