Biden Says He Is “Not Going to Wait Forever” for Iran after Raising Idea of Military Force

JERUSALEM — One day after warning that military force would be an option to stop Iran’s nuclear advances, President Joe Biden said time was running out.

“We’re not going to wait forever,” Biden said during a press conference in Jerusalem on Thursday.

Standing with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, Biden said he still believed in diplomacy to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. But months of negotiations have yielded little, and pressure is mounting on the president to find other ways to curtail the country’s rapidly advancing nuclear program.

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Still, Biden declined to give a timeline for when the clock would run out on Tehran for a return to the 2015 nuclear deal. Iran’s timeline to acquiring a weapon has shrunk to a week or less by some estimates.

Speaking moments earlier, Lapid stressed the need to threaten force against Iran and other countries threatening peace and stability, something Biden has conceded as an option.

“The only thing that will stop Iran is knowing if they continue to develop their nuclear program, the free world will use force,” Lapid said. “The only way to stop them is to put a credible military threat on the table.”

Mentioning 9/11, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and impugning those “who do not play by the rules,” Lapid said the threat posed by Iran to Israel’s way of life could not be tolerated.

In order to protect freedom, Lapid said, “sometimes, force must be used.”

And Biden promised an “iron-clad” commitment that Israel will have the tools to protect itself, recalling the long history between the two nations dating back to Israel’s founding.

“That’s what this visit is about, affirming those ties,” Biden said. “We’re here to stay, Mr. Prime Minister. Like it or not.”

The president has repeated his promise to do all he can to stop Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, including Thursday after meeting one-on-one with Israel’s interim leader.

“There will be no nuclear Iran,” Biden said. “This is not only a threat to Israel, but to the world, and we discussed some other issues we are going to keep to ourselves.”

He had said one day earlier that he would be willing to use force if necessary “as a last resort.”

“The only thing more dangerous than the Iran that exists now is an Iran with nuclear weapons,” Biden told Israel’s Channel 12.

But the president said he still hoped for a mutual return to the 2015 nuclear accord, a deal brokered by the Obama administration during his time as vice president.

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The deal forced checks on Iran’s nuclear fuel program and imposed a cap on its enrichment levels. A return to the pact would allow the U.S. to “hold them tight,” Biden said of Iran.

Biden arrived in Jerusalem Wednesday for the start of a four-day swing across the Middle East with stops in Israel, the West Bank, and Saudi Arabia.