US pressuring Israel not to attack Iran – Arab News
US pressuring Israel not to attack Iran – Arab News.
Published: Mar 4, 2010 10:53 PM Updated: Mar 4, 2010 10:53 PM
WASHINGTON: Concerned that Israel may launch a surprise attack against Iran, the US has increased pressure on Tel Aviv while extending its deadline for stronger sanctions against Tehran.
American officials said this week that sanctions, both international and domestic, which were previously expected by February, would not be achieved until late April. If indeed a UN resolution on international sanctions is passed sometime in April, the decision will be in place in time for the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, scheduled for May.
Meanwhile, Obama has sent high-ranking officials to Tel Aviv, in efforts to reassure Israelis that sanctions against Iran are being put into place, and urging Israel not to launch an airstrike aimed at Iran’s nuclear sites.
Vice President Joe Biden will visit Jerusalem as part of his Middle East tour next week of March. Biden is the most senior American official from the Obama administration to visit Israel. His trip tops several weeks of high-profile visits that have included Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, National Security Adviser Jim Jones and Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Most of these officials kept their talks with Israelis behind closed doors. But Mullen took the unusual step of convening a press conference upon his arrival in Jerusalem on Feb. 14 and sending a clear message to the Israeli public: An Israeli strike against Iran would “be a big, big, big problem for all of us, and I worry a great deal about the unintended consequences of a strike.”
Some visits, however, had a much lower profile. Such a trip was the one the CIA’s director, Leon Panetta, made to Israel in late January, and another was the visit of senior Israeli defense officials to Washington a week later.
“Netanyahu is playing poker and hiding his most important card: the Israel Defense Forces’ true capabilities to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations,” Haaretz said Thursday.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who is functioning as a super-adviser to Netanyahu for national security affairs, told reporters this week that “the clock for the Iranian regime’s downfall is ticking.”
Between the key players: Iran, Israel and the US, Obama, holds the weakest hand, Haaretz noted. “This is so because of domestic political weakness and because he can’t seriously threaten (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad or Netanyahu. Obama doesn’t want to attack Iran himself and will find it hard to restrain Israel at the moment of truth.”
“Currently, the feeling in the US is that you can no longer count on Israel to see the broader picture and you can no longer take Israel’s cooperation for granted,” Yoram Peri, director of the Joseph and Alma Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies at the University of Maryland, told reporters. “Israel’s politics became more extreme, and its sense of besiegement is stronger, and that gave power to more extreme voices in the country’s leadership.”
Meanwhile, Iran came under renewed attack this week for its decision to make a higher grade of enriched uranium, a move that weapons experts say would dramatically shorten the country’s path to nuclear weapons.
The United States and several European allies took turns denouncing Iran’s behavior at a board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, and a US diplomat warned that new UN sanctions may be inevitable.
“Iran seems determined to defy, obfuscate and stymie,” said Ambassador Glyn Davies, head of the U.S. delegation to the UN nuclear watchdog.
A highly critical report on Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency last week has led to stepped-up calls from the United States and Europe for a fourth round of UN sanctions against Tehran. The West still faces a strenuous battle to win over China, which has insisted on the need for further negotiations aimed at persuading the Islamic republic to place its nuclear program under greater international control.
Despite the diplomatic assault, the prospects for securing international support for tough sanctions against Iran remain uncertain. An attempt by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to win Brazil’s backing appeared to fizzle Wednesday; after a meeting with Clinton in Brasilia, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told a news conference it was not wise “to push Iran into a corner.”
On Capitol Hill, legislators are also at odds on the Iran-Israel conundrum. Some believe that peaceful diplomacy is the best way for the United States to deal with Iran and its potential development as a nuclear power, while others say Iran wouldn’t hesitate to use a nuclear weapon on Israel and perhaps elsewhere.
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