WarSclerotic

Why Obama Should Take Out Iran’s Nuclear Program.

Foreign Affairs

The Case for Striking Before It’s Too Late

Eric S. Edelman, Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., and Evan Braden Montgomery

The November 8 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report casts further doubt on Iran’s continual claims that its nuclear program is intended solely for peaceful use. Rather than halting its weapons program in 2003, as was reported in a controversial 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, Iran has apparently continued to develop the various components necessary to produce a nuclear weapon, including neutron initiators, which trigger nuclear chain reactions, and complex explosives needed to build a warhead small enough to place atop a ballistic missile. Meanwhile, Tehran has openly worked to increase its stockpile of low-enriched uranium — especially uranium enriched to 20 percent — which could be further refined to weapons grade. If the IAEA’s suspicions are correct, Iran might have both the technology and material to build a nuclear bomb in a matter of months.

To date, the United States has relied on a combination of sticks and carrots to prevent Iran from going nuclear. It has tightened economic sanctions against the regime, isolated it diplomatically, and offered improved relations in return for Tehran abandoning its nuclear ambitions. The attractions of this approach are readily apparent. The main alternative, a military operation against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, would likely be extremely costly and might not even succeed. Moreover, by slowing Iran’s progress toward a nuclear weapon, sanctions and isolation buy time for a “silver bullet,” such as an internal political change that brings a more moderate Iranian leadership to power or a sabotage effort that derails the program for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, no such solution has presented itself: The current Iranian regime has remained in control despite popular unrest and an ongoing dispute between the president and the supreme leader, and the new IAEA report suggests that efforts to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program have so far yielded naught. All the while, Iran is getting closer to crossing the nuclear threshold.

Even so, the U.S. government might persist with its existing approach if it believes that the consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran are manageable through a combination of containment and deterrence. In fact, the Obama administration has downplayed the findings of the new IAEA report, suggesting that a change in U.S. policy is unlikely. Yet this view underestimates the challenges that the United States would confront once Iran acquired nuclear weapons.

For example, the Obama administration should not discount the possibility of an Israeli-Iranian nuclear conflict. From the very start, the nuclear balance between these two antagonists would be unstable. Because of the significant disparity in the sizes of their respective arsenals (Iran would have a handful of warheads compared to Israel’s estimated 100-200), both sides would have huge incentives to strike first in the event of a crisis. Israel would likely believe that it had only a short period during which it could launch a nuclear attack that would wipe out most, if not all, of Iran’s weapons and much of its nuclear infrastructure without Tehran being able to retaliate. For its part, Iran might decide to use its arsenal before Israel could destroy it with a preemptive attack. The absence of early warning systems on both sides and the extremely short flight time for ballistic missiles heading from one country to the other would only heighten the danger. Decision-makers would be under tremendous pressure to act quickly.

Beyond regional nuclear war, Tehran’s acquisition of these weapons could be a catalyst for additional proliferation throughout the Middle East and beyond. Few observers have failed to note that the United States has treated nuclear-armed rogues, such as North Korea, very differently from non-nuclear ones, such as Iraq and Libya. If Iran became a nuclear power and the United States reacted with a policy of containment, nuclear weapons would only be more appealing as the ultimate deterrent to outside intervention.

Meanwhile, Iran’s rivals for regional dominance, such as Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, might seek their own nuclear devices to counterbalance Tehran. The road to acquiring nuclear weapons is generally a long and difficult one, but these nations might have shortcuts. Riyadh, for example, could exploit its close ties to Islamabad — which has a history of illicit proliferation and a rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal — to become a nuclear power almost overnight.

During the Cold War, of course, the United States managed to prevent nuclear use and discourage proliferation by containing the Soviet Union and providing security commitments to U.S. allies. According to the conventional wisdom, a similar approach would work in the Middle East today. Yet there are a number of important differences between the two cases, the biggest being that the United States had formal security commitments with partners across Europe and Asia and deployed hundreds of thousands of troops to their territories.

The closer Iran gets to acquiring nuclear weapons, the fewer options will be available to stop its progress. At the same time, Iran’s incentives to back down will only decrease as it approaches the nuclear threshold. Given these trends, the United States faces the difficult decision of using military force soon to prevent Iran from going nuclear, or living with a nuclear Iran and the regional fallout.

ERIC S. EDELMAN is a Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments; he was U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy in 2005-9. ANDREW F. KREPINEVICH JR. is President of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. EVAN BRADEN MONTGOMERY is a Research Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

‘Israel may strike Iran as soon as next month’ – Israel News, Ynetnews.

UK’s Daily Mail cites ‘unnamed London sources’ as saying strike on Tehran’s nuclear facility closer than ever. Report’s validity questionable

Ynet

s a strike on Iran closer than ever? The Daily Mail claimed Wednesday that “Israel will launch military action to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon as soon as Christmas.”

The British publication cites unnamed London “intelligence chiefs” as its source. The report has not been corroborated by any Israeli source, and its validity is considered questionable.

According to the report, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said that the grave findings by the IAEAon Iran’s nuclear ambitions have “completely discredited the Islamic Republic’s claims of innocence.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency found that Iran is developing a nucleartest facility, nuclear detonators and computer modeling for a nuclear warhead.

The findings allegedly “confirm” that Israel and the US will join forces to mount a strike against Iran’s nuclear sites “sooner rather than later,” the Daily Mail said.

“We’re expecting something as early as Christmas, or very early in the new year,” the newspaper’s source said.

Britain has been reportedly accelerating its own preparations for a possible strike on Iran.

Nuclear experts divided as UN issues severe Iran warning – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

How soon will the Islamic Republic be able to produce nuclear weapons?

By Yossi Melman

In the wake of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s damning report, most analysts agree that Iran has spent a decade ceaselessly striving to attain the capability of producing nuclear weapons. However, there is no consensus about how close Iran is to manufacturing its first nuclear bomb.

One of the foremost experts who could shed light on the matter is Dr. Olli Heinonen. The Finnish nuclear scientist spent 27 years at the IAEA and served as deputy director general of the agency before leaving for Harvard last year.

	An Iranian technician inside a uranium conversion facility near the city of Isfahan, in 2007. What’s holding Iran back is uranium enrichment, says nuclear expert Dr. Olli Heinonen.
	Photo by: AP

He was in charge of inspecting Iran’s nuclear facilities and met with the directors of Iran’s nuclear program. The latest report hardly surprised him.

“There is not much new information,” Heinonen wrote Haaretz in an email from Harvard, on Wednesday. By this he meant that the plethora of evidence in the report reached the IAEA years ago. What he does not say is that his boss at the IAEA, former director Mohamed ElBaradei, either did not publish the findings or softened the way in which they were presented. It may be that Dr. ElBaradei believed the evidence was not definitive, or that it was true and that he was protecting Iran so that Israel and the United States would not have an excuse to attack the Islamic Republic.

Either way, El Baradai’s successor, Yukiya Amano of Japan, decided to divulge what the IAEA has long known. Heinonen wrote that he thought it was “good to have a comprehensive update on the military dimension.”

He surmised that the IAEA secretariat was waiting for Iran “to come to substantial discussions,” and that the agency has concluded that releasing the “information may serve that purpose.”

While other experts point to testimony on advances Iran has made in attaining nuclear weapon production capability, Dr. Heinonen focuses on findings regarding the obstacles the regime faces.

The bottleneck is and remains in uranium enrichment,” he wrote. “As the report shows, progress is still slow.”

He stressed that the key would be the “success with the introduction of more advanced centrifuges.” In this regard, it remains hard to make an educated guess about when Iran will be able to produce its first nuclear bomb.

The Iranians are still striving to test the hundreds of centrifuges which were not damaged by what foreign news sources call the sabotage campaign conducted by West’s intelligence agencies including Israel.

Even if the new centrifuges turn out to be efficient, Iran still has a way to go. “Iran will not able to produce high enriched uranium in sufficient quantities before the end of 2012 unless it makes substantial progress with advanced centrifuges,” says Heinonan. “Een if Iran succeeds in that, it still needs to bring them to a semi-industrial scale which will take until 2013. This means that they need to resolve any remaining design issues and have access, is spite of sanctions, to necessary raw materials, such as high quality maraging steel, high strength aluminum and carbon fiber.” Therefore, Heinonen added, “the next year until the end of 2012 is crucial.”

Israel’s satellite battle

Just when ties with Turkey seem to be recovering, a new crisis is emerging on the horizon: Israel’s repeated attempts to prevent Western companies from selling Turkey and other countries satellites that would provide high-resolution images.

The Turkish defense ministry signed a contract in 2009 with the joint Italian-French venture Telespazio to produce the Gokturk-1 satellite.

Construction is almost complete and with the launch scheduled for 2013. The military optical satellite has a resolution of 0.8 meters.

Jerusalem fears the satellite will be used to photograph military and strategic sites in Israel and that Turkey would pass on the high resolution photographs to Israel’s enemies, including Iran and Syria (despite recent tension between Damascus and Ankara ), or even to Hamas – all of which still lack such capacity.

Despite tension between the two countries – which began with Operation Cast Lead at the end of 2008 and intensified after Israeli troops killed Turkish citizens on board the Mavi Marmara, the Turkish flotilla to Gaza, in 2010 – Israel is exploring whether Ankara would be ready to commit itself not to photograph Israeli territory.

It appears Ankara refused. The Turkish daily Zaman recently quoted local defense ministry officials as saying that for years Israel has photographed Turkish territory by its satellites, so why should Ankara accede to Israel’s request now?

Undeterred, Israel, in its effort to prevent Turkey from being able to reveal some of its secrets, recently pressed France and Italy to use their influence on their companies. There is no word as to the results of these attempts, but perhaps past experience can point to what we may expect.

According to the French newsletter Intelligence Online, the government of Nicolas Sarkozy reached a secret understanding with Israel not to permit French companies to sell satellites or satellite images with a resolution of less than one meter.

As a result, Egypt tried but failed to obtain such a satellite from Astrium, a subsidiary of the European security consortium EADS. However, Cairo managed to acquire a similar satellite from Russia, which did not limit its use or resolution regarding Israel.

This understanding was also the basis for preventing Astrium from selling satellites to Saudi Arabia and to the United Arab Emirates.

The journal points out that Israel itself cynically permitted ImageSat, the subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries, to cooperate with the United Arab Emirates by providing them with images from its satellites.

Still, it should be noted that the quality of the images was limited to two meters. Either way, it looks like this could be Israel’s last battle to deny the Arab world and of course Iran access to spy satellites and high-resolution images.

Even if Israel succeeds in convincing countries in the West to withhold this technology from Israel’s enemies, there are always Russian or Chinese companies that will gladly agree to supply the goods.

Confronting Iran, experts say al… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    Wednesday’s damning IAEA report on the Iranian-nuclear program has turned the spotlight on Tehran’s largest trading partner: the People’s Republic of China.

Immediately after the report’s release Beijing warned that the report – which confirms Iran’s efforts to harness nuclear energy for weapons manufacture – could spawn “turmoil” in a turbulent Middle East.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China was “studying” the report, and repeated a call to resolve the issue peacefully through talks.

“I wish to point out that China opposes the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and disapproves of any Middle Eastern country developing nuclear weapons. As a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran bears the responsibilities of nuclear non-proliferation,” he said Wednesday.

“The Iranian side should also demonstrate flexibility and sincerity, and engage in serious cooperation with the [IAEA]… I want to stress that avoiding fresh turmoil in the Middle Eastern security environment is important for both the region and for the international community.”

For years the Chinese government has walked a fine line on Iran’s atom program, maintaining extensive trade ties with Tehran, while doing its best to avoid antagonizing the West.

China, which as a permanent member of the UN Security Council wields veto power, has backed previous council resolutions condemning Tehran’s nuclear work and supported limited sanctions against it. Harder-hitting sanctions, however, have yet to receive Beijing’s backing.

A US official told Reuters that because of the opposition of both China and Russia – Ira’s seventh-largest trading partner, which helped it build the Bushehr nuclear facility – chances for tougher Security Council sanctions are slim. On Wednesday Russian officials said new sanctions are “unacceptable” to Moscow, and called for continued talks with the Iranian regime.

Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and head of its Iran Energy Project, said Chinese companies have continued supplying significant quantities of Iran’s refined petroleum in violation of US sanctions laws.

“The Obama administration has assured Congress that Beijing has agreed to do no new deals, and to slow-walk its existing deals,” he told The Jerusalem Post by e-mail from Washington. “Given that Chinese companies signed over $40 billion in new energy deals in recent years, it’s unclear whether this commitment to do no new deals covers these billions of deals already in the pipeline, and how quickly China is moving ahead in implementing what it considers to be existing deals.”

China’s People’s Daily newspaper said the nuclear standoff between Iran and the West could erupt into military conflict.

“It is clear that contention between the various sides over the Iranian nuclear issue has reached white hot levels and could even be on the precipice of a showdown,” the newspaper – a Communist Party organ that generally presents the government’s official line – said in a front-page commentary.

China’s official Xinhua news agency also suggested Beijing would respond warily to the report. The UN watchdog still “lacks a smoking gun,” the agency said in a commentary.

“There are no witnesses or physical evidence to prove that Iran is making nuclear weapons… In dealing with the Iran nuclear issue, it is extremely dangerous to rely on suspicions, and the destructive consequences of any armed action would endure for a long time.”

Iran shipped over 20 million tons of oil to China over the first nine months of this year, an increase of almost a third since the same period last year. Overall trade between the two countries rose 58 percent over that period, to almost $33 billion.

“The onus [in the international community] will really be on China, as the only country whose economic relations with Iran have grown,” Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, told Reuters.

Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council, wrote in an op-ed in Wednesday’s New York Times that China must be made to feel that its business with Iran is no longer worthwhile.

“In recent years, China’s economic dynamism has brought with it a voracious appetite for energy. This has made energy-rich Iran a natural strategic partner. In 2009, Iran ranked as China’s second largest oil provider, accounting for some 15% of Beijing’s annual imports,” Berman wrote. (The European Union is the leading consumer of Iranian oil.) “In exchange, China has aided and abetted Iran’s quest for nuclear capacity.

Diplomatically, it has done so by complicating oversight of Iran’s nuclear program, and by resisting the application of serious sanctions against Tehran,” Berman continued.

“Chinese leaders have become convinced that Washington prioritizes bilateral trade with Beijing over security concerns about Iran, and that it therefore won’t enact serious penalties for China’s dealings with Iran.

The last, best hope of peacefully derailing Iran’s nuclear drive lies in convincing Beijing that ‘business as usual’ with Tehran is simply no longer possible.”

A View from Israel: Deterrence is i… JPost – Magazine – Opinion.

The basic tenet of deterrence is built on a foundation of rational decision-making – a capacity which Iran lacks.

Photo by: REUTERS

On Tuesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released its much awaited report on the progress of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Unsurprisingly, it affirmed what Israel has long been clamoring about: Iran is definitely on the road to producing nuclear weapons.

Unfortunately, we live in a world that slumbers and has little understanding of the realities we face today.

European diplomats speak of sanctions and possible future negotiations. The IAEA conducts site visits in Iran and calls on the regime there to “comply” with UN demands.

But the world fails to understand that conventional diplomacy and rational deterrence simply do not apply in the present-day scenario in which we find ourselves.

Nuclear deterrence will not help prevent Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons since the Iranian regime has religious motives to bring about the return of the Mahdi and is prepared to die for it. It also appears willing to sacrifice the population of its own country to achieve this goal.

Iran is led by a group of irrational men who believe they can hurry the arrival of the Mahdi – the 12th Imam who, according to Shi’ite Islamic tradition, went missing in 874 CE and will return under conditions of global chaos.

In 2006, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting website said in a program called “The World Towards Illumination,” that the Mahdi will reappear in Mecca and form an army to defeat Islam’s enemies in a series of apocalyptic battles, in which the Mahdi will overcome his archenemy in Jerusalem.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a member of the Hojatieh society, a group which believes it can and should hasten the arrival of the Mahdi. According to Islamic tradition, the Mahdi’s arrival will be accompanied or followed by near destruction of nations. The group appears to maintain a deep desire to create the necessary global chaos.

And Ahmadinejad has publicly called for the Mahdi’s speedy return.

In his first speech to the UN in 2005, he ended his remarks with: “O mighty Lord, I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the promised one, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace.”

In the same venue in 2006, he began his speech by saying: “… hasten the reappearance of the Imam of the times and grant to us victory and prosperity. Include us among his followers and martyrs.”

The same occurred in 2007 when he said: “Oh God, hasten the arrival of Imam Al-Mahdi and grant him good health and victory and make us his followers and those who attest to his rightfulness.”

Clearly Ahmadinejad has one objective on his mind – to bring back the 12th Imam.

THE IAEA report states, “Since 2002, the Agency has become increasingly concerned about the possible existence in Iran of undisclosed nuclear related activities involving military related organizations, including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile, about which the Agency has regularly received new information…. The Agency has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme. After assessing carefully and critically the extensive information available to it, the Agency finds the information to be, overall, credible. The information indicates that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device. The information also indicates that prior to the end of 2003, these activities took place under a structured programme, and that some activities may still be ongoing.”

It is not difficult to arrive at the conclusion that the Iranian regime has a dangerous plan cooking in its enrichment facilities around the country.

The IAEA report is too little, too late. What may be news for some is old news for others. Israel already knows what the IAEA report has now confirmed.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in an interview with Israel Radio Tuesday, “We’ve known these things for years. We know more [about Iran] than The Washington Post knows and we know more than the IAEA does.”

Barak also said, “The government has been working for years at showing the world that the problem of a nuclear-armed Iran is one that affects the whole world, not just Israel. But Israel is responsible for its own safety and protecting itself.”

One of the main points the world has failed to understand is that Israel is simply the first in line in Iran’s crosshairs. The chaos Iran wants to create has less to do with Israel than it does with the West.

AT THIS point, and as reported in these pages, Israel expects the US to take the lead in pushing the UN and other Western countries to impose tougher, new sanctions on Iran following the publication of the incriminating IAEA report.

Israel seeks sanctions against the Central Bank of Iran, which has yet to be directly affected by earlier rounds of sanctions. Sanctions imposed on the CBI would, for example, make it difficult for Iran to bankroll its nuclear program and buy components it requires to build new, advanced centrifuges.

But in truth, Iran will never come under full sanctions anyway, as Russia and China adamantly refuse to support such a motion.

In his book Fighting Terrorism, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu wrote, “One does not have to be an expert in international terrorism to sense that this rising tide of Islamic terrorism is qualitatively different from the terrorism which the West has had to face up until now. For it derives from a highly irrational cultural source, militant Islam…. The trouble with militant Islam is that it appears to be an irrational goal being pursued irrationally… Once Iran has nuclear weapons there is nothing to say that it will not move to greater adventurism and irrationality rather than greater responsibility.”

Forget what you know about containment, sanctions and negotiations. As long as the present Iranian leadership with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at its helm remains in power, the threat of nuclear warfare is very real.

In his book The Rise of Nuclear Iran, former ambassador to the UN Dore Gold quotes Dennis Ross, President Barack Obama’s point man on Iran, who wrote in The Washington Post in 2006, “As for those who think that the nuclear deterrent rules that governed relations between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War will also apply in a nuclear Middle East: Don’t be so confident.”

Gold writes, “Mahdi Khaliji, an Iranian Shi’ite scholar… has noted that there are apocalyptic hadiths [received Shi’ite traditions] that the Mahdi will not return unless one-third of the world population is killed and another third die. But Ahmadinejad and his followers believe man can actively create the conditions for the Mahdi’s arrival in the here and now…”

SO ULTIMATELY, how does a world confront a country like Iran hell-bent on a religious mission to bring about the return of Islam’s lost Mahdi? In Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger argued in favor of predictable nuclear deterrence, calling for “presenting the enemy with an unfavorable calculus of risks” by means of “military operations in phases which permit an assessment of the risks and possibilities for settlement at each stage before recourse is had to the next phase of operations.”

But his assessment then has little relevance today.

The Cold War players were considered to be rational and fearful of the horrifying consequences nuclear warfare would bring.

In his paper The Great Cold War: A Journey Through the Hall of Mirrors, Gordon S. Barrass, a member of the Board of the Cold War Studies Centre at the London School of Economics, describes a war game that took place in the presence of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.

“After the Moscow Summit Marshal Grechko invited Brezhnev and some of his colleagues to take part in a ‘war game,’ seemingly hoping to stiffen Brezhnev’s resolve in dealing with the harsh realities of a nuclear war. The exercise began with generals describing the impact of a surprise attack by over a thousand American missiles. They grimly explained that 80 million people would be killed, the armed forces obliterated, 85 percent of industry destroyed and European Russia so irradiated as to be uninhabitable.”

General Danilevich recalled that “Brezhnev and Kosygin were visibly terrified by what they heard.

Marshal Grechko then asked Brezhnev to push a button that would launch a ‘retaliatory strike,’ which in reality involved the launch of just three missiles with dummy warheads along a test range. Brezhnev turned pale, began perspiring and trembled visibly.

He repeatedly asked Grechko, ‘Is this definitely an exercise?’ The leadership were traumatized by this experience. None of them ever again participated in such an exercise. Brezhnev immediately ordered yet tighter controls to ensure that there could never be unauthorized use of Soviet nuclear weapons.”

Today’s players in the real war game of nuclear capability are not all rational. Iran has clearly stated its intention to attack Israel and the West. Israel and the rest of the world must not take Iranian statements lightly and must base their planning assessments not on rational behavior but on actual behavior.

The basic tenet of deterrence is built on a foundation of rational decision-making.

And while sanctions are an important tool of foreign policy, they are less aggressive than the use, or threat of use, of armed violence and in the case of Iran have proved insufficient in getting them to stop their pursuit of a dangerous nuclear weapons program.

The concept of deterrence was born as early as the beginning of the nuclear age when it became clear that the objective had changed from how to win a war to how to avert war at all costs.

Keith B. Payne posits in Deterrence in the Second Nuclear Age that “the fundamental problem with the deterrence theory is that it posits a rational – hence predictable – opponent.”

In an essay titled Future of Deterrence: The Art of Defining How Much Is Enough, Payne wrote “deterrence is the art of persuading others to practice self-control by creating conditions that make their self-control their own preferred option.”

Some analysts have proposed that war would simply be senseless destruction were it not for the purpose of reaching a specific political objective. But again, in Iran’s case the objective is not political but rather religious, and therefore deterrence has little if any value.

NUCLEAR STRATEGY is based mainly on the non-use of the weapons. That is, having the weapon and the ability to deliver it is meant to be a sufficient threat to deter any enemy country from attacking.

In his Nobel lecture in 2005, famed economist Thomas Schelling said, “The most spectacular event of the past half-century is one that did not occur. We have enjoyed sixty years without nuclear weapons exploded in anger.”

In his book The Strategy of Conflict, Schelling explained that countries need not concern themselves with the application of force, but rather with the exploitation of potential force.

After the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were devastated by nuclear weapons, Bernard Brodie, a military strategist well-known for establishing the basics of nuclear strategy, together with some of his colleagues, authored The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order, which predicted that the atomic bomb would revolutionize international politics.

And even today, this rings true as a nuclear Iran would completely transform the balance of power in the Middle East – to Iran’s sole advantage.

The great Chinese strategist Sun Tzu wrote: “So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss. If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose. If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.”

The world has failed to understand who Iran’s leaders are and that they intend to carry out their threats to destroy Western nations, as they have consistently declared for years.

Today’s containment strategy of using diplomatic and economic means to prevent Iran’s success in reaching nuclear capability will ultimately fail.

Deterrence, as we know it, is a faulty approach when dealing with Iran.

Israel can and should, as a more viable solution, seek a way to strengthen Iran’s opposition and bring about the political downfall of the current regime.

Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher once stated: “There is a memorial to the failure of conventional deterrence in every town and village in Europe.”

At the end of the day, Israel and the West need to ensure that the only reminders existing for other nations who believe they can threaten the free world with nuclear weapons, are the obliterated remains of Iran’s nuclear facilities.

White House on Obama-Sarkozy exchange: President committed to Israel – Israel News, Ynetnews.

As part of damage control after US, French leaders overheard ridiculing Israeli premier, deputy national security advisor tells reporters ‘Obama has taken security cooperation with Israel to unprecedented levels’

Yitzhak Benhorin

U.S. calls UN report on Iran nuclear program ‘alarming,’ vows further sanctions – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Speaking in wake of damning IAEA report, State Department official says U.S. looking into ‘additional ways to apply pressure on Iran’; France: Israel won’t stand alone against nuclear Iran.

By Natasha Mozgovaya

The United States said Tuesday it was alarmed by a recently published International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran’s nuclear program, adding that it would pursue further economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic, as well as mulling “a range of possibilities.”

The IAEA report, which was handed over to the 35-member states of the IAEA Board of Governors, details a series of tests, acquisition of materials, and technology that suggests Iran has continuously worked to produce a nuclear weapon since 2003.

	A worker in the nuclear power plant in Bushehr, Iran.
	Photo by: AP

Speaking to the press on Wednesday, State Department Spokesman Mark Toner said the conclusions drawn by the report were “alarming,” adding that Washington was looking into “additional ways to apply pressure on Iran.”

“These are very serious allegations, serious charges”, Toner said. “And it’s incumbent on Iran to at last engage with the IAEA in a credible and transparent manner to address these concerns. I think going forward we’re consulting with our partners and allies within the IAEA. There is going to be a Board of Governors meeting, I think, at the end of next week where this will be addressed.”

Toner added that the U.S. was going “to work with our allies and partners” to find ways to pressure Iran away from nuclear armament development, adding that Tehran had “to address these questions, very serious questions, raised by not America, not the United States, but the international community, about the intent of its nuclear program.”

Toner called the IAEA report “one of the most comprehensive and detailed assessments of Iran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons,” saying it “raises further questions about the nature of Iran’s nuclear program.”

“It also demonstrates what the U.S. has known and made clear for years, which is that Iran did have a nuclear weapons program and has yet to provide any assurance that has not abandoned its intent to develop nuclear weapons,” the U.S. official said.

Asked what options the U.S. is considering specifically, he said the administration “is going to look at a range of possibilities”.

“We’ve said before that we believe the existing UN sanctions – and Resolution 1929 puts in place some of the most stringent sanctions to date for Iran and that they are having an economic impact on Iran,” Toner said, adding that they were “squeezing the Iranians’ economy.”

“Right now I just will say that we’re looking at a range of options with the overall intent of being ways that we can put additional pressure on Iran, so again, to make clear to the Iranian government that it needs to come clean,” he added.

In another response to the report by the UN’s nuclear watchdog, French president Nikola Sarkozy told prominent Jewish leaders that “France will always stand side by side with Israel to oppose an Iran that threatens it by developing nuclear weapons.”

The comment was made during a meeting with a delegation of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) led by WJC President Ronald S. Lauder and the president of the French Jewish community umbrella organization CRIF, Richard Prasquier.

Sarkozy: Israel has no better sec… JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

    French President Nicolas Sarkozy promised to stand with Israel against Iran during a 90-minute meeting he held with the World Jewish Congress at the Elysée Palace in Paris, according to sources from the gathering who spoke with The Jerusalem Post.

“Israel has no better security partner than France when it comes to Iran,” Sarkozy assured the Jewish leaders, according to the sources.

The head of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald S. Lauder asked Sarkozy to push for unprecedented sanctions against the Iranian regime to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Sarkozy responded positively to Lauder, the sources said.

France has always taken a tough stance against Iran’s nuclear program and will continue to do so, Sarkozy assured the Jewish leaders, according to the sources.

France favors “seriously ratcheting up sanctions” against Iran, Sarkozy said, according to the sources.

Diplomacy is the best way to avert a nuclear Iran, he said, but at the same time he implied that a military option was on the table. He was very vague about France position with regard to a military option, the sources said. But he had a clear reaction to media reports that Israel might independently strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Sarkozy also said that it would be a mistake for Israel to unilaterally attempt a military strike against Iran, according to the sources. Such a strike “would be disastrous,” Sarkozy said, according to the sources.