WarSclerotic

Iran steps up threats to close Strait of Hormuz after EU imposes oil embargo – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Warning comes as EU nations agree in Brussels on sanctions over the country’s controversial nuclear program; Netanyahu says embargo is ‘step in the right direction.’

By The Associated Press and DPA

Two Iranian lawmakers on Monday stepped up threats their country would close the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s crude flows, in retaliation for oil sanctions on Tehran.

The warnings came as EU nations agreed in Brussels on an oil embargo against Iran as part of sanctions over the country’s controversial nuclear program. The measure includes an immediate embargo on new contracts for Iranian crude and petroleum products while existing ones will be allowed to run until July.

	Iranian naval vessels near the Strait of Hormuz, Jan. 3, 2012.
	Photo by: Reuters

Iran has repeatedly warned it would choke off the strait if sanctions affect its oil sales, and two lawmakers ratcheted up the rhetoric on Monday.

Lawmaker Mohammad Ismail Kowsari, deputy head of Iran’s influential committee on national security, said the strait “would definitely be closed if the sale of Iranian oil is violated in any way.”

Kowsari claimed that in case of the strait’s closure, the U.S. and its allies would not be able to reopen the route, and warned America not to attempt any “military adventurism.”

Another senior lawmaker, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, said Iran has the right to shutter Hormuz in retaliation for oil sanctions and that the closure was increasingly probable, according to the semiofficial Mehr news agency.

“In case of threat, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is one of Iran’s rights,” Falahatpisheh said. “So far, Iran has not used this privilege.”

Monday’s EU measure also includes a freeze on the assets of Iran’s central bank as part of sanctions meant to pressure Tehran to resume talks on its uranium enrichment, a process that can lead to making nuclear weapons. Iran insists its nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the decision, calling it “a step in the right direction.”

According to Netanyahu, who spoke at an afternoon Likud faction meeting, it is still too early to predict the outcome of the sanctions, but he emphasized the importance of continual pressure on Iran in light of “its continual, uninterrupted development of nuclear weapons.”

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle on Monday called for other countries to join the European Union in its boycott of Iranian oil. China imports a lion share of Tehran’s crude. Other major importers include India, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Turkey.

“Oil embargo is a word easily said,” Westerwelle told reporters after a meeting with his EU counterparts in Brussels. “But if the message to the Iranian leadership is to be clear, then it needs more than just a Western voice. It needs an international voice.”

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was critical on Monday of planned new European Union sanctions against Iran, saying they would push Tehran away from the negotiating table and do little to increase regional security.

“These unilateral steps are not helpful,” Lavrov said at a press conference in the Russian Black Sea port of Sochi, the Interfax news agency reported.

For its part, the United States has enacted, but not yet put into force, sanctions targeting Iran’s central bank and, by extension, the country’s ability to be paid for its oil.

Some 80 percent of Iran’s oil revenue comes from exports and any measures or sanctions taken that affect its ability to export oil could hit hard at its economy. With about 4 million barrels per day, Iran is the second largest producer in OPEC.

Reflecting the uncertainties, on Monday the Iranian currency, the rial, fell to a new low, trading at nearly 21,000 to the dollar, a five percent drop since Saturday and 14 percent since Friday, currency dealers said. A year ago the rial was trading at 10,500 to the dollar.

Tensions over the strait and the potential impact on global oil supplies and also the price of crude have weighed heavily on consumers and traders. Both the U.S.¬ and Britain have warned Iran over any disruption to the world’s oil supply through the strait.

Another Iranian lawmaker, Ali Adyani, sought to downplay the latest EU move, describing it as a “mere propaganda gesture,” according to the semiofficial Fars news agency.

Former intelligence minister, Ali Falahaian, suggested Iran should stop all its crude exports “so that oil prices would go up and the Europeans’ sanctions would collapse.”

Threats to close the strait escalated during Iran’s naval exercises in the Persian Gulf in January. Iran plans more naval war games in February.

Iran rejects new EU sanctions as… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    TEHRAN – Iran on Monday rejected new sanctions imposed by the European Union on its oil as “psychological warfare”, saying they would worsen the stand-off over the Islamic state’s nuclear program.

The European Union banned imports of oil from Iran on Monday and agreed to freeze the assets of Iran’s central bank, joining the United States in a new round of measures aimed at reining in Tehran’s nuclear development program.

“European Union sanctions on Iranian oil is psychological warfare … Imposing economic sanctions is illogical and unfair but will not stop our nation from obtaining its rights,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted as saying by state television, referring to Iran’s nuclear energy ambitions.

The latest sanction by the European Union will be fully enforced by July 1, part of a potentially crushing range of measures against Iran’s lifeblood oil industry that the West hopes will force Tehran to curb its nuclear activity.

Also on Monday, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told the official news agency IRNA that the more sanctions were imposed on Tehran over its uranium enrichment work, “the more obstacles there will be to solve the issue”.

The United States is leading diplomatic efforts to tighten sanctions on Iran, which it accuses of seeking nuclear weapons capability behind the facade of a declared civilian atomic energy program, a charge Tehran denies.

Washington and Israel do not rule out military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites if diplomacy fails.

“The European countries and those who are under American pressure should think about their own interests. Any country that deprives itself of Iran’s energy market will soon see that it has been replaced by others,” Mehmanparast added.

Along with US sanctions imposed by Obama on Dec. 31, the Western powers hope that throttling Iranian exports and hence revenue can force Iran’s leaders to agree to nuclear controls and greater transparency.

A member of Iran’s influential Assembly of Experts, former intelligence minister Ali Fallahian, said Tehran should respond to the delayed-action EU sanctions by stopping sales to the bloc immediately, denying the Europeans time to arrange alternative supplies and damaging their economies with higher oil prices.

“The best way is to stop exporting oil ourselves before the end of this six months and before the implementation of the plan,” the semi-official Fars news agency quoted him as saying.

He also reiterated that Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow channel between the Gulf and open sea through which a third of all oil tanker traffic passes to importers around the world.

Netanyahu: EU sanctions step in the right direction – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

PM’s comments come in wake of EU agreement to impose oil embargo against Iran as part of sanctions over its nuclear program.

By Ophir Bar-Zohar, The Associated Press, Reuters and DPA

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the European Union’s decision on Monday to impose sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, calling the decision “a step in the right direction.”

According to Netanyahu, who spoke at an afternoon Likud faction meeting, it is still too early to predict the outcome of the sanctions, but emphasized the importance of continual pressure on Iran in light of “its continual, uninterrupted development of nuclear weapons.”

	Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
	Photo by: Emil Salman

Defense Minister Ehud Barak also commented on the sanctions, saying EU’s decision is “especially important.”

“We believe these sanctions will be imposed quickly in order to put the Iranian leadership to the test,” Barak said.

European Union nations have agreed on an oil embargo against Iran as part of sanctions over its nuclear program.

Diplomats in Brussels said that EU foreign ministers would officially adopt the measures, hashed out by member countries’ 27 ambassadors, later on Monday. The measures include an immediate embargo on new contracts with Tehran for crude oil and petroleum products, while existing ones must be brought to an end by July 1.

The EU also approved fresh travel bans and asset freezes over the Syrian regime’s
opposition crackdown. The foreign ministers are expected to approve sanctions against the central bank of Iran, although they may provide a list of specific exemptions to the restrictions.

EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton said she hoped financial sanctions would persuade Tehran to return to negotiations with Western powers, which she represents in talks with Iran.

“I want the pressure of these sanctions to result in negotiations,” she told reporters before the ministers’ meeting. “I want to see Iran come back to the table and either pick up all the ideas that we left on the table last year, or to come forward with its own ideas,” she said.

Ali Fallahian, a senior Iranian politician said in response on Monday that Iran should halt all oil sales to the European Union immediately to disrupt plans for the embargo.

Tehran denies its nuclear program is aimed at developing weapons, saying it is for peaceful purposes, but the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency said last year it had evidence that suggested Iran had worked on designing a nuclear weapon.

EU sanctions follow fresh financial measures signed into law by U.S. President Barack Obama on New Year’s Eve and mainly targeting the oil sector, which accounts for some 90 percent of Iranian exports to the EU. The European Union is Iran’s second-largest oil customer, after China.

Diplomats said EU governments plan to return to the issue of oil sanctions in May to review the impact of the ban and its economic impact on their economies.

A U.S. aircraft carrier sailed through the Strait of Hormuz and into the Gulf without incident on Sunday, a day after Iran backed away from an earlier threat to take action if an American carrier returned to the strategic waterway.

The carrier USS Abraham Lincoln completed a “regular and routine” passage through the strait, a critical gateway for the region’s oil exports, “as previously scheduled and without incident,” said Lieutenant Rebecca Rebarich, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fifth Fleet.

EU readies ban on Iran oil impor… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

Photo by: REUTERS/Thierry Roge

By REUTERS
01/23/2012 12:18

European foreign ministers set to approve oil embargo set to take effect on July 1; Ashton says new sanctions are aimed to pressure Tehran into resuming nuclear negotiations.

    BRUSSELS – European Union governments gave their preliminary approval to a ban on Iranian crude oil imports on Monday, aiming to choke off Tehran’s chief source of income and pressure it to hold back its disputed nuclear activities.

But to protect Europe’s economy, struggling with a two-year-old debt crisis, they agreed to delay full implementation of the oil embargo until July 1, an EU diplomat said.
The embargo still has to be formally approved by foreign ministers of the EU’s 27 member states, who meet in Brussels on Monday. The ministers are also expected to approve sanctions against the central bank of Iran, although they may provide a list of specific exemptions to the restrictions.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she hoped financial sanctions would persuade Tehran to return to negotiations with Western powers , which she represents in talks with Iran. Tehran denies its nuclear program is aimed at developing weapons, saying it is for peaceful purposes.

“I want the pressure of these sanctions to result in negotiations,” she told reporters before the ministers’ meeting.

“I want to see Iran come back to the table and either pick up all the ideas that we left on the table … last year … or to come forward with its own ideas,” she said.

Tehran says its nuclear program aims to meet its rising energy needs, but the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency said last year it had evidence that suggested Iran had worked on designing a nuclear weapon.

EU sanctions follow fresh financial measures signed into law by US President Barack Obama on New Year’s Eve and mainly targeting the oil sector, which accounts for some 90 percent of Iranian exports to the EU. The European Union is Iran’s second-largest oil customer, after China.

For financial sanctions against the Islamic Republic, ministers are expected to agree to exemptions that will allow trade in other products, allowed under EU rules, to continue.

“The United Kingdom is looking for an unprecedented package of sanctions,” said its foreign minister, William Hague, “including a phased oil embargo, including measures on the central bank of Iran, other financial measures, new measures on the use of dual-use technology that may be included in the nuclear program.”

Taking measured steps

Diplomats said EU governments plan to return to the issue of oil sanctions in May to review the impact of the ban and its economic impact on their economies.

The review could potentially affect the date when the full ban takes effect, diplomats said. Under the current plan, EU governments will no longer be able to extend new contracts to buy Iranian crude when the ban takes effect in the coming days. But they will be able to fulfill existing contracts until July.

This measured approach aims to address concerns by southern European states, primarily Greece, which rely heavily on Iranian oil to meet their import needs.

Greece, which depends on financial help from the EU and the International Monetary Fund to stay afloat, sources nearly a quarter of its oil imports from Iran, thanks to favorable financing terms from Tehran. It has argued that it needs time to find alternative sources of oil.

“The financial situation of Greece at the moment is not the brightest one, and rightly they are asking us to help them find a solution,” a senior EU official told reporters on Friday.

With a significant part of EU purchases of Iranian oil covered by long-term contracts, the grace period will be an important factor in the effectiveness of the EU measures.

The unprecedented effort to take Iran’s 2.6 million barrels of oil per day off international markets has kept global prices high, pushed down Iran’s rial currency and caused a surge in the cost of basic goods for Iranians.

Azerbaijan thwarts terror attack against Israeli, Jewish targets – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Security official in Baku links Iran to planned operation; three men detained.

By Eli Shvidler

Three men were detained last week after planning to attack two Israelis employed by a Jewish school in Baku, the Azerbaijan Ministry of National Security has revealed. Meanwhile, an Azeri commentator considered close to the republic’s president has launched a scathing indictment of Iran.

The Azeri ministry said it had arrested a cell that planned to “kill public activists,” before it became apparent that the intended victims were two Israeli Chabad emissaries, a rabbi and a teacher employed by the “Chabad Or Avner” Jewish school in Baku. The ministry said that the three men, named as Rasim Aliyev, Ali Huseynov and Balaqardash Dadashov, received smuggled arms and equipment from Iranian agents. The action was apparently planned as retaliation to the gunning down of Iranian nuclear scientists.

	Waterfront in Baku, Azerbaijan.
	Photo by: AP

“The Azeri security forces acted covertly without alerting us,” said Rabbi Shneor Segal, one of the two targets. “It was published that they originally planned to attack ‘people who look Jewish and hold foreign passports,’ near the school, but when the school guards began suspecting them, they started monitoring the area where I live,” he told Haaretz.

Segal added that the second target was Rabbi Mati Lewis.

Irani-Azeri relations, which were never rosy, recently deteriorated even further after Azeri Communication Minister Ali Abbasov accused Iran of carrying out a cyber attack against several offices in the country accused of “cooperation with Israel.”

Wafa Guluzade, a political commentator considered close to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, warned Iran that “planning the murder of prominent foreign citizens in Azerbaijan by a band of terrorists, one of whom [Dadashov] resides in Iran, amounts to ‘hostile activity’ against our country.”

Guluzade said that Iran would “break all its teeth trying break us … no Iranian provocation will influence the sociopolitical situation in Azerbaijan. Iran and its primitive ayatollahs sense their end is near and are trying to terrorize their neighbors. If they persists they will be answered by us, and by our Western allies.”

Azerbaijan has accused Iran of supporting Armenia in the conflict surrounding the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Last November an Iranian parliament member accused Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan of being “local Mossad bases.”

Israel: The Real Lone Star State » Publications » Family Security Matters.+

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

EBKAfile Special Report January 23, 2012, 3:17 AM (GMT+02:00)

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta aboard the USS Enterprise

Three weeks after Tehran threatened action against any US aircraft carrier entering the Strait of Hormuz, Washington made two moves: US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta disclosed Sunday, Jan. 22, that the USS Enterprise Carrier Strike Group would steam through the strategic strait in March; a few hours later, the US Navy sent the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier through the strategic strait without incident, accompanied by British and French warships.

debkafile: Defusing the Hormuz crisis set the scene for resumed nuclear negotiations leading up to which several messages were exchanged through back channels between the Obama administration and Tehran in recent weeks – amid Israeli preparations to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.
These developments deepened the breach between the US and Israel. Two days earlier, on Friday, Jan. 20, Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff, visited Israel and with Israeli leaders emphasized the cooperation between Washington and Jerusalem on the Iranian threat. The Netanyahu government complained that action against Iran had been postponed for years on one pretext on another, and the same thing was happening to effective sanctions against Iran’s oil exports and central bank. Israel was therefore compelled to exercise its military option against the mortal peril of a nuclear Iran, said the Israeli prime minister, before it was too late.
Then Sunday, Jan. 22, Defense Secretary Panetta stood in a hangar of the Enterprise clad in the uniform of a ship’s crewman and told an audience of 1,700 personnel that the carrier would be sent to Hormuz in March. His statement was a red herring. A few hours later, the Abraham Lincoln was already through.

But what he said on the Enterprise was this: “That’s what this carrier is all about. That’s the reason we maintain a presence in the Middle East… We want them to know that we are fully prepared to deal with any contingency and it’s better for them to try to deal with us through diplomacy.”

debkafile‘s Washington sources note that Panetta was the first high-ranking administration official to give Tehran an ultimatum: Accept the American offer to negotiate terms for halting your nuclear weapon program, or face up to America’s mighty fleet of American aircraft carriers.  “Our view is that the carriers, because of their presence, because of the power they represent, are a very important part of our ability to maintain power projection both in the Pacific and in the Middle East,” said the defense secretary.

However, behind this show of strength, Washington was actively preparing to sit down and talk.

Saturday, Jan. 21, the Washington Post disclosed that Obama had sent a special emissary to Tehran with an oral message proposing that Iran join the United States for resumed nuclear negotiations.

The emissary was not named – although there was some speculation that Turkish Foreign Minister was chosen for the mission – nor was Iran’s reply revealed.

According to the WP, its content was as follows: The United States and the international community have a strong interest in the free flow of commerce and freedom of navigation in all international waterways… Since taking office, the president has made it clear that he is willing to engage constructively and seriously with Iran about its nuclear program.
Also on Saturday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards stated it considered the likely return of US warships to the Gulf part of its routine activity. They were not climbing down from their original threat. The statement came only after Tehran saw the USS Stennis, the object of threat, exiting the Gulf Friday, Jan. 20, and decided it was the Americans who had backed down.

Panetta’s comments Sunday aimed at correcting that impression and making it very clear to Tehran that although the Stennis was gone, the Abraham Lincoln was there and the Enterprise was coming “fully prepared to deal with any contingency.”

Saudis pull Syria monitors, urge world pre… JPost – Middle East.

    Saudi Arabia will withdraw its observers from Syria because the mission has failed to end 10 months of bloodshed and will call on the international community to apply “all possible pressure” on Damascus to end the violence, its foreign minister said Sunday.

“My country will withdraw its monitors because the Syrian government did not execute any of the elements of the Arab resolution plan,” Prince Saud al-Faisal told Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo. The statement was obtained by Reuters after he spoke.

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“We are calling on the international community to bear its responsibility, and that includes our brothers in Islamic states and our friends in Russia, China, Europe and the United States,” Prince Saud said, calling for “all possible pressure” to push Syria to adhere to the Arab peace plan.

The Saudi statement came after the BBC reported that the Arab League had ruled to extend its monitoring mission in Syria by one month on Sunday. The League also decided to add more monitoring members to the mission and to provide them with additional resources, according to the report.

Hundreds of Syrians have been killed since the monitoring mission began its work in late December and political opponents of President Bashar Assad are demanding the League refer Syria to the United Nations Security Council.

The foreign ministers met Sunday to debate the findings of the month-long monitoring mission, whose mandate expired on Thursday, to decide whether to extend, withdraw or strengthen it.

Arab states had been divided over how to handle the crisis in Syria and critics say the monitoring mission is handing Assad more time to kill opponents of his rule.

Some wanted to crank up pressure on Assad to end a 10-month-old crackdown on a popular revolt in which, according to the United Nations, more than 5,000 people have died.

Others worry that weakening Assad could tip Syria, with its potent mix of religious and ethnic allegiances, into a deeper conflict that would destabilize the entire region, and some may fear the threat from their own populations if he were toppled.

The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) says the observers lack the resources and clout to truly judge Assad’s compliance with an Arab peace plan that Syria signed up to in November and has called upon the Arab League to refer the Syrian crisis to the United Nations Security Council.

But Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia told the head of the Arab League, Nabil Elaraby, that they would oppose such a move, a League source said on Sunday.

“The three states support solving the Syrian crisis inside the Arab League,” the source told Reuters.

The head of the monitoring effort, Sudanese General Mohammed al-Dabi, was presenting his findings to the League’s Syria committee.

Syrian opposition activists said Assad’s forces killed 35 civilians on Saturday and 30 unidentified corpses were found at a hospital in Idlib. The state news agency SANA said bombs killed at least 14 prisoners and two security personnel in a security vehicle in Idlib province.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Special Report January 22, 2012, 5:58 PM (GMT+02:00)

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta aboard the USS Enterprise

Three weeks after Tehran threatened action against any US aircraft carrier entering the Strait of Hormuz, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta disclosed Sunday, Jan. 22, that the USS Enterprise Carrier Strike Group is heading for the Persian Gulf and would steam through the strategic strait in March. This was a direct message to Tehran that the US would continue to deploy ships there.

debkafile‘s military sources report that the Iranian threat was issued on Jan 4. The USS Stennis aircraft carrier passed through the Strait of Hormuz into the Sea of Oman on Dec. 28 during a big Iranian naval exercise Velyate 90 and was then prevented by the threat from re-entering. That was the last time an American warship navigated the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil is shipped to market.

However Panetta, on his first visit to a carrier during operations at sea, clad in the uniform of the ship’s crew,  told an audience of 1,700 personnel that the US would maintain a fleet of 11 carriers in the Persian Gulf despite budget pressures.

“That’s what this carrier is all about. That’s the reason we maintain a presence in the Middle East… We want them to know that we are fully prepared to deal with any contingency and it’s better for them to try to deal with us through diplomacy.”

debkafile‘s Washington sources note that Panetta was the first high-ranking administration official to give Tehran an ultimatum: Accept the American offer to negotiate terms for halting your nuclear weapon program, or face up to America’s mighty fleet of American aircraft carriers.

“Our view is that the carriers, because of their presence, because of the power they represent, are a very important part of our ability to maintain power projection both in the Pacific and in the Middle East,” said the defense secretary.

His statement gave Iran a time frame for responding to the US ultimatum, just over a month. If by March, Tehran has not accepted the offer to negotiate, President Barack Obama will order the Enterprise to sail through the Strait of Hormuz.

Saturday, Jan. 21, the Washington Post disclosed that Obama had sent a special emissary to Tehran with an oral message proposing that Iran join the United States for resumed nuclear negotiations.

The emissary was not named – although there was some speculation that the Turkish Foreign Minister was chosen for the mission – nor was Iran’s reply revealed.

According to the WP, the message ran as follows: The United States and the international community have a strong interest in the free flow of commerce and freedom of navigation in all international waterways… Since taking office, the president has made it clear that he is willing to engage constructively and seriously with Iran about its nuclear program.
Also on Saturday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards stated it considered the likely return of US warships to the Gulf part of its routine activity.

Some American and Israeli media interpreted this as Iran climbing down from its truculent threat to US aircraft carriers entering the Strait of Hormuz. debkafile‘s Iranian sources don’t think so. The Guards issued their statement only after they saw the USS Stennis, the object of their threat, exiting the Gulf Friday, Jan. 20, and decided it was the Americans who had backed down.

Panetta’s comments Sunday aimed at correcting that impression and making it very clear to Tehran that although the Stennis was gone, the Enterprise would take its place and be “fully prepared to deal with any contingency.”

US, Iran and Israel in shadow play | The Australian.

(This is the most complete and intelligent analysis of the situation that I’ve read to date.  The only thing he {and everyone else} fail to consider is the possibility of either Israel or the US using an EMP rather than a conventional attack.  This would neutralize both Iran’s nuclear program as well as disabling any possibility of a counter attack.  It would also pretty much guarantee the fall of the regime. – JW}

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a bilateral meeting with US President Barack Obama September 21, 2011 at the United Nations Building in New York City. Picture: Mandel Ngan Source: AFP

THIS year either Israel or the US will bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities or the regime of the ayatollahs will move beyond the point of no return in its quest for nuclear weapons.

The victory of right-wing insurgent Newt Gingrich in the South Carolina presidential primary in the US makes an attack more likely. Although Mitt Romney will still likely be the nominee, the Gingrich surge will push him further to the Right on foreign policy.

Washington, Jerusalem and Tehran are locked in an intense, almost desperate and partly invisible struggle over the future of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

After three weeks in the Middle East spent talking to senior officials, government leaders, intelligence analysts, soldiers, politicians and academics of several nationalities, a clear picture of the starkly different calculations in each capital emerges.

In Jerusalem, Washington and Tehran, three different clocks are running, but they are all set to strike midnight this year.

Two weeks ago, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told me in an exclusive interview that for the first time he thought Iran was beginning to wobble under the pressure of international sanctions, especially the threat of sanctions on its central bank.

Natanyahu further said that if the sanctions were coupled with a credible threat of military force should Iran continue with its weapons program, this could cause Tehran to back off.

This story was worldwide news. Netanyahu doesn’t give many interviews and it was interpreted in Washington, and reported in the US press, and later cited by the White House, as indicating Netanyahu was supporting the US strategy on Iran and was unlikely to take unilateral action. This was probably a mistake, though an understandable one. In private comments a week later to Israeli politicians, which were strategically leaked, Netanyahu seemed to pull back from this position.

He told the Israeli politicians the sanctions were useful but didn’t go far enough and might not stop Iran’s nuclear program.

Netanyahu, the most straightforward and at times bluntest of leaders, is not telling lies here, either in his interview or his reported comments to Israeli politicians. But maintaining a real degree of uncertainty about what it might do is central to the Israeli government’s strategy.

The Israelis face a series of acute dilemmas. One senior Israeli soldier told me the decision on whether to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities would be the toughest any Israeli leader has faced. That sober judgment must be seen against the backdrop that Israel has three times fought full-scale conventional wars.

Nothing about the Israeli decision is easy. Every aspect of it is drenched with risk and uncertainty. The most senior Israelis believe they do have a military option against Iran. It’s not a perfect option but they believe that even today they could severely degrade Iran’s nuclear program with aerial strikes. Some recall that when they bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981 they thought they might delay Iraq’s program by three to five years. In fact, they delayed it by 10 years and the US subsequently carried out Operation Desert Storm and put the Iraqi nuclear program out of business for good.

But the Israeli military option is running out for three reasons, two of them technical and one to do with the US political cycle.

First, the Iranians are attempting to immunise their program from aerial strike. They are doing this by moving as much of it as possible deep underground and by creating so many facilities they become too numerous to bomb.

Second, there will come a point at which the Iranians have developed so much nuclear expertise in depth that even if their physical facilities were damaged they could quickly reconstitute these and press ahead to weapons.

The Iranian program is troubled, not least because of Israeli, and presumably US, covert actions against it. The Iranians are having a lot of difficulty producing the next-generation centrifuges. A number of their nuclear scientists have been killed. Some foreign firms have apparently provided them with faulty gear. They are having great difficulty miniaturising weapons to put on missiles and they don’t have long-range bombers that could deliver non-miniaturised weapons.

There are two paths Iran could take to a nuclear break-out capacity. One is to continue with its existing, ostensibly peaceful nuclear energy program. This will eventually give them enough nuclear expertise and material to make a sprint for weapons in a relatively short time frame, perhaps in a few years’ time.

But there is also the possibility that the Iranians have a parallel secret process in place – another facility – as has been periodically exposed in the past. This could make a final breakout a much shorter process and could mean the Iranians could do this without expelling the international inspectors involved with their program now.

Some intelligence people feel the Iranians are fairly transparent to foreign intelligence agencies, making another secret facility unlikely. Others are not so sure.

The US presidential election dynamic is fundamental to Israeli decision-making. Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama don’t get on very well. That’s well known, but like the hard-headed political leaders they are, they co-operate.

But in many ways Netanyahu has outplayed Obama, in international politics and in domestic American politics. He has gone around Obama to appeal directly to the Republican-dominated congress where he is a superhero. But he also has strong support among congressional Democrats.

All Republican presidential candidates, except the marginal Ron Paul, have made a hard line on Iran an essential part of their foreign policy pitch. Obama, who authorised the killing of Osama bin Laden, deployed extra troops to Afghanistan and massively increased the killing of targeted terrorists by predator drone strikes, is not, as the Israelis say, a vegetarian. But Iran is the one security issue on which, until the sanctions were announced, he has looked weak.

If the Israelis strike Iran this year Obama will be almost forced to support them by the pressure of his own congress and the position of his Republican challenger, whether that’s ultimately Romney or Gingrich. Such an outcome would probably destroy Obama’s outreach to the Muslim Middle East. If Obama is re-elected in November, especially with a less Republican congress, he would be more at liberty to oppose the Israeli action.

So the US electoral cycle is another clock ticking loudly for the Israelis.

There is, in Israel, an alternative view that, ticking clocks notwithstanding, this is all a giant bluff by Jerusalem. This could be a bluff on two levels. One, the Israelis may be trying to bluff the Americans into action. Some Americans believe if the Israelis strike Iran, the US will pay the political costs anyway, so it would be better for the Americans to do the job and do it properly.

Their clock is a bit different from the one the Israelis hear. Because of their vastly superior firepower, the Americans could strike Iran later, more devastatingly and more sustainably.

If the Americans carry out the strike, they will probably get European, Canadian, Japanese, South Korean and Australian support, in other words the bulk of the US alliance system. If the Israelis do it, even with US support, they will get less international backing than that, with Europe certain to be divided and Japan and South Korea likely to stay on the sidelines.

The Israelis could be bluffing in another way, too. No Israeli official will say this, but some Israeli analysts believe their government has decided to live with a nuclear-armed Iran and rely on the certainty of terrible retribution, the normal logic of deterrence, to make sure Iran never uses any nuclear weapons it acquires.

In this case the threat of early military action is really designed only to scare the world into comprehensive sanctions. The sanctions have strong benefits even if Iran goes ahead with its nuclear program. As well as delaying Iran’s nuclear program, they make Iran a substantially weaker enemy for Israel. Imposing a big cost for Iran in going nuclear is also important to discourage other nations – Saudi Arabia and Egypt come to mind – from following suit.

The equation, then, would be that although possessing nuclear weapons does insulate a nation from full-frontal military assault, it carries with it enormous economic cost.

The idea that Israel has accepted a nuclear-armed Iran is based on several considerations, among them the enormous damage Iran could do in retaliation to an early strike and the tremendous success the Israeli economy and society are enjoying right now. There is a deep reluctance to disturb that. Some Israelis also believe that Washington simply will not countenance another Middle East conflict and that Israel’s position could be gravely weakened by unilateral action.

For Obama the calculations are scarcely less complex than they are for Netanyahu.

His nation does not face existential threat from Iran, but he profoundly wants to avoid becoming the president who failed to deliver a Palestinian state but who did preside over Iran becoming a nuclear weapons state.

Although his administration is divided on this, there is a real chance that if he is convinced that everything else has failed, he would countenance a US strike on Iran.

But because of America’s technical superiority he has longer time lines than Netanyahu. The problem, though, is that if the Israeli military option disappears, as it might by the end of this year, the pressure for US action would be much less.

Within Iran itself there is real evidence of economic distress and internal division. But no significant part of the ruling group is in favour of abandoning the nuclear program. President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is in a losing struggle with the supreme leader, Ayatalloh Ali Khamenei. Parliamentary elections are due next March and analysts discern volcanic dissatisfaction among the Iranian public with a government that has delivered them nothing.

Nonetheless, the remaining ideological props for the ayatollahs are religious zealotry, ultra-nationalism expressed largely through nuclear defiance, and being in the business of destroying Israel.

This does not mean Iran’s leaders would court their own destruction by launching a war against Israel. But their ideological and religious hatred of Israel is real and, more importantly, continual expression of this hatred is essential to their position within Iran.

One scenario is that Iran just keeps going with its existing program, making it ever harder to hit but stopping short of developing a deliverable nuclear weapon. This makes justification for a strike against it more difficult, it means that when it finally decides to break out it can do so quickly and it develops most of what Tehran sees as the strategic benefits of nuclear weapons without yet incurring their full costs.

Taken altogether, this is the most explosive mixture the world has seen probably since the Cuban missile crisis. There are so many moving and interlocked parts no one can predict the outcome.

But if by the end of this year Iran has not negotiated the abandonment of its nuclear weapons program, if sanctions have not comprehensively crippled its economy and if its nuclear program has not been degraded by Israeli or US air strikes, then it becomes overwhelmingly likely that Iran has survived the Western bluff and will in due course acquire nuclear weapons.

What that means for the world is not pretty to contemplate. As Julia Gillard might remark, 2012 will indeed be the year of decision and delivery.