Obama clarifies Biden on Iran

President Obama found himself today revising and extending remarks made by his number two on a hair-trigger topic -- Iran's apparent pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that the administration wants to negotiate with Iran, but also seemed to suggest that the United States would not stop an Israeli pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

"Look, Israel can determine for itself -- it's a sovereign nation -- what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else," Biden said. "Whether we agree or not," added the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who has developed quite the reputation for misspeaking and straying off message.

Obama was asked on CNN this morning, "Are you giving Israel a green light?"

"Absolutely not," the president replied. "And I think it’s very important that I’m as clear as I can be, and our administration is as consistent as we can be on this issue."

"I think Vice President Biden stated a categorical fact which is we can't dictate to other countries what their security interests are," Obama added. "What is also true is that it is the policy of the United States to try to resolve the issue of Iran’s nuclear capabilities in a peaceful way through diplomatic channels. That is our policy, I have been talking about this for the last two years, we are going to continue to pursue this, and you know we have said directly to the Israelis that it is important to try and solve this in an international setting in a way that does not create major conflict in the Middle East.

"Now this is a tough job and nobody is under any illusions that it will be easy, and I've always said that we, the United States, preserve the right, and I as the commander in chief preserve the right to take whatever actions are necessary to protect the United States. But we are committed to a peaceful resolution to this conflict and I think it is still possible, but ultimately if we present an opportunity to the Iranians at some point, they've got to seize that opportunity."