Is the administration's Iran strategy working?

The current U.S. strategy is aimed at pressing Iran to live up to its international responsibilities. Before President Obama came to office the world was not united in its approach with how to deal with Iran. Today it's more united than ever before and Iran is much more isolated. The sanctions that have been put in place have had a brutal effect on Iran's capacity to acquire the equipment that they need to build a nuclear program. At this point, most of the U.S. intelligence committee place Iran as at least a year away from the capability of producing a nuclear bomb, and that's if everything goes alright. And it will be another couple of years to be able to put it on a delivery mechanism.

Why is it important to stay the course on the current strategy?

The main focus right now is to use diplomacy, combined with economic sanctions, to try to change the calculus of the regime in Tehran. And I think it's important to give this diplomacy some time to work. Because any talk of military options at this point is vastly premature. It actually feeds the hard-liners in Iran. It actually strengthens their hand by giving them more money and more resources by driving up the price of oil. This hurts our consumers and our drivers and gives more money to the Mullahs in Tehran.

What should the next steps be?

Our debate today in America is framed around a false choices, that we either need to bomb Iran, or Iran will get a bomb. That's not the case here. We've got a strategy that is exploring all options and leaving the military option to the last one because it's the riskiest and has the least likelihood of success. We need to explore all of the other means to get Iran to cease and desist from its nuclear program.