Asked if he would send U.S. ground troops into Iran to force Tehran to abandon its nuclear program, Mitt Romney didn't say yes and he didn't say no.

"What's your red line?" asked host David Gregory on Sunday's Meet the Press. "You put troops on the ground to stop Iran from going nuclear or can you live with a nuclear Iran and contain it?"

"I don't think we live with a nuclear Iran," Romney said. "I think we make it very clear that a nuclear Iran is unacceptable to the United States of America, to civilized nations throughout the world. And that we will maintain every option that's available to us to keep that from happening."

The Republican nominee for president said the United States should continue efforts through diplomatic channels to persuade the Iranian government to shut down its nuclear facilities, while imposing more severe, "crippling" economic sanctions on the oil-rich nation.

"We need to use every resource we have to dissuade them from their nuclear path," Romney said. "But that doesn't mean that we would take off the table our military option. That's something which certainly every American would hope we would never have to use. But we have to maintain it on the table or Iran will, undoubtedly, continue their treacherous course."

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Photo: An Iranian Air Force MiG-29 fighter aircraft