AFP: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, in an interview published late Friday, called the Iranian leadership “evil” and said he would consider decapitating the Tehran regime if elected.
WASHINGTON, December 24, 2011 (AFP) – Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, in an interview published late Friday, called the Iranian leadership “evil” and said he would consider decapitating the Tehran regime if elected.
“I see Iran’s leadership as evil,” the former Massachusetts governor told The Wall Street Journal. “I see Iran as intent on building, once again, an evil empire based upon the resources of the Middle East.”
Romney said he disagreed with President Barack Obama when he says the United States has shared interests with all the world’s people.
“There are people who are evil,” he argued. “There are people who have as their intent the subjugation and repression of other people; they are evil. America is good.”
The United States and European powers have sought to step up global pressure on Iran after the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, came close recently to accusing Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons.
Romney said he did not have access to secret government intelligence and, therefore, could not make a decision now about the course he would pursue to stop Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions.
But he said “the range includes something of a blockade nature, to something of a surgical strike nature, to something of a decapitate the regime nature, to eliminate the military threat of Iran altogether.”
