WarSclerotic

Republicans blast Obama on missile defen… JPost – International.

Israel hedges its bets on Syria – Features – Al Jazeera English.

Widespread protests and army defections are attempting to bring down the Assad administration in Syria [Reuters]

Herzliya, Israel – Officials here are waffling over what position to take in response to the Syrian uprising. During the early days of the revolt against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government, officials in Tel Aviv kept a low profile in relation to their northern neighbour. In conventional wisdom, they pursued what has been termed as a policy of “better the devil we know” – that supporting the status quo was better than not knowing what came next.

Although the Israeli government has been no friend of the Assad administration, policymakers in Tel Aviv maintained a “strategy of silence” towards the Syrian opposition. Given Syria’s perceived geographic vulnerability, and limited military resources, the chances of Assad leading a successful military campaign against Israel are relatively low. The Israel-Syria border has remained rather quiet since 1973. Even when the Israeli army killed 26 Palestinian protesters in June 2011, as they marched towards the border between Syria and the occupied Golan Heights, tensions did not escalate towards a potential conflict between the two states.

Given the recent outburst over containing Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the seeming obsession with a 2012 confrontation, many Israeli officials and analysts have recommended taking a stronger position in support of the Syrian opposition. They view the prospective collapse of the house of Assad through the prism of Israel’s realpolitik, as a way to break the so-called Tehran-Damascus axis and as a means of weakening Hamas, the armed Palestinian group that maintained political offices in Syria’s capital. Tel Aviv reportedly sees the current climate as an opportunity to redraw the map of the region, isolating Iran and bringing Syria into its orbit.

Iran’s Achilles heel

Some Israeli officials say the plight of the Assad government would not only threaten to break ties between Iran and Syria, which has been a long-term goal of both Israel and the US, but would also cut Iran’s lifeline to the rest of the Middle East (excluding Iraq). Tehran would lose its channel for providing military, financial and logistical aid to Hamas in Gaza and to Hezbollah in Lebanon, they maintain.

“[Israel] should look at Syria and see Syria as the Achilles heel of Iran. It is a great opportunity, an enormous opportunity, and this is where the strategy of the Israeli government should be,” former Mossad Chief Ephraim Halevy said at the Herzliya conference, the annual confab of Middle East security players and watchers, held in early February.

This year’s security rendezvous – entitled “In the eye of the storm” – concentrated on Israel’s response to the Arab uprisings of the past year.

At the conference, Aviv Kochavi, the military intelligence chief in Israel, said that changes in the region “spell a decrease in the power of the radical axis: Iran-Syria-Lebanon-Hezbollah on the one hand, and Iran-Hamas-Islamic Jihad in Gaza, on the other hand”.

These various axes are by no means set in stone, yet have entered our lexicon in an axis-of-evil fashion.

Danielle Pletka, the Vice President of Foreign and Defence Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank, added: “The lowest-hanging fruit is Syria, and one of the things that struck me and my colleagues as we met with people around Israel this last week is the apathy around the question of Syria.”

Some Israeli officials have argued that Assad is busy with internal problems, and is therefore unable to focus his energies against Israel. However, others worry that if Assad perceives that he is going down, he may try to attack Israel as a distraction to rally people around his cause.

Despite the uncertainty over what Israel’s position to the Syrian uprising should be, Tel Aviv is increasingly confident that the regime is on the verge of collapse. In January, Israel’s military chief, Benny Gantz, addressed a closed parliamentary session and said that, in the event of Assad’s demise, Israel was prepared to absorb refugees in a buffer zone between Syria and the occupied Golan Heights. The plans include humanitarian assistance and defence measures, mainly aimed for the minority ruling Alawite sect. Following years of animosity between Israel and the Alawite community, critics questioned whether Gantz’s statement was just impractical posturing. Why the Alawites would prefer the Golan Heights to South Lebanon also remains unknown.

“The premise of his [Gantz’s] remarks – that Alawites would be forced to flee for their lives after Assad fell – isn’t a statement that Syria’s opposition will welcome. Gantz’s statements may have been anti-Assad, but they weren’t pro-revolution,” David Kenner, the associate editor at Foreign Policy, wrote.

Scramble for Syria

Moshe Ya’alon, Israel’s vice prime minister, was asked on Israel Army Radio what contact Israel has had with the Syrian opposition. Ya’alon responded: “Whether there’s contact or not, you don’t expect me to discuss these things in the media.”

Is Israel hesitant to publicly support the opposition because it prefers to do so secretly – or because a weakened and discredited Assad is in Israel’s strategic interest?

The possible fall of Assad would present a panoply of unknowns for Israel. Syria is seen as a key player in the Middle East. Damascus is central to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the US-Iran conflict, and the Iraq War.

As the possibility of international intervention strengthens with the fiasco over last week’s UN resolution, the Syrian uprising is transforming itself into a playground for international powers to exert influence, with Israel anxiously watching from the sidelines.

Joshua Landis, the director of the center of Middle East Studies at Oklahoma University, said: “If Israel thinks he [Assad] is going down, why take risks by getting involved? … For Israel to get involved, it would be counterproductive.”

Landis, who blogs at Syria Comment, further explained: “You have an extremely weakened Gaza, Syria is still holding together as a country, and there aren’t militia that can run around and make trouble for Israel. They are making trouble for Assad, and that way Assad cannot act as an enabler of Hezbollah. Hezbollah is sitting there very anxious, Iran is anxious, and this is good for Israel.”

State Dept.: Russia and Iran still arming Bashar al-Assad | The Cable.

Foreign Policy

Russia and Iran are continuing to send arms to the Syrian regime that can be used against protesters, a top State Department official said today.

“Iran is resupplying Syria and through Syria has supplied weapons to Hezbollah,” said Tom Countryman, the assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation, at a Wednesday morning breakfast meeting of the Defense Writers Group in Washington.

Countryman’s bureau plays a major role in monitoring international compliance with nonproliferation and arms control rules. He declined to go into specifics on what arms Iran and Russia are giving the regime of Bashar al-Assad, but he confirmed that both countries are still supplying arms that can be used to attack civilians and opposition groups inside Syria, who are engaged in an increasingly bloody struggle with the government.

“We do not believe that Russian shipments of weapons to Syria are in the interests of Russia or Syria,” he said.

According to Countryman, the Iranian weapons being funneled through the Syrian government to Hezbollah are not being used by Hezbollah inside Syria, but are being transferred to Hezbollah groups inside Syria’s neighbor Lebanon.

Countryman also said the U.S. government is working with allies to try to get a handle on the stores of conventional, biological, and chemical weapons inside Syria, to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands if and when the Assad regime collapses.

There are “tens of thousands” of MANPADS – shoulder-fired missile systems — in Syria and nobody really knows where they all are, Countryman said. Unlike Libya, Syria is not a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention, so there is no official reporting on its store of those weapons, but the effort to locate them is underway.

“We have ideas as to the quantity and we have ideas as to where they are,” Countryman said. “We wish some of the neighbors of Syria to be on the lookout… When you get a change of regime in Syria, it matters what are the conditions — chaotic or orderly.”

He also commented on the news that Iran has sent a letter to EU High Representative Catherine Ashton proposing a new round of nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 countries, a letter that Ashton has already said does not contain enough new concessions to justify a new meeting.

“This would be a good day for [Iran] to answer a letter sent four months ago,” Countryman said, but what Iran really needs to do is open up fully to IAEA inspectors and directly address all of the questions about its nuclear program.

“There is a path forward where Iran can pursue peaceful use of nuclear energy,” he said.

Former National Security Council Senior Director Dennis Ross argued in a New York Times op-ed today that the window for diplomacy with Iran is now open again because of the pressure wrought on Iran by international sanctions.

“The Obama administration has now created a situation in which diplomacy has a chance to succeed,” wrote Ross. “It remains an open question whether it will.”

U.S.: Iran lashing out to ‘distract’ from impact of sanctions – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Iran unveiled new nuclear advances on Wednesday, defying increasingly tough Western sanctions; U.S. says Iran’s leaders are under pressure.

By The Associated Press

The White House says Iran is lashing out at the world to “distract attention” from the damage that international sanctions are having at home.

Iran is claiming Wednesday that it has achieved two major advances in its program to master production of nuclear fuel, a defiant move in response to increasingly tough Western sanctions over its disputed nuclear program.

	U.S. President Barack Obama, February 3, 2012.
	Photo by: AFP

Iran state media also reports steps to cut oil exports to six European countries in retaliation for new European Union sanctions, including a ban on Iranian oil.

White House press secretary Jay Carney says such “defiant acts” show that Iran’s leaders are under pressure.

The sanctions are intended to persuade Iran to back down. Iran has refused, although it signaled Wednesday that it is willing to return to talks.

Public Takes Strong Stance Against Iran’s Nuclear Program | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

The public supports tough measures – including the possible use of military force – to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Nearly six-in-ten (58%) say it is more important to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action. Just 30% say it is more important to avoid a military conflict with Iran, even if it means that country develops nuclear weapons. These opinions are little changed from October 2009.

There have been reports in recent weeks that Israel may soon attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. About half of Americans (51%) say the United States should remain neutral if Israel takes action to stop Iran’s nuclear program, but far more say the U.S. should support (39%) than oppose (5%) an Israeli attack.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press conducted Feb. 8-12, 2012, among 1,501 adults, finds substantial partisan differences over how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program.

Republicans are far more supportive of using military force to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons than are either Democrats or independents. Moreover, a majority of Republicans (62%) say the U.S. should support an Israeli attack to stop Iran’s nuclear program, compared with just a third of independents and Democrats.

There also is a wide partisan gap over President Obama’s plans for withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan. Overall, 53% say Barack Obama is removing troops from Afghanistan at about the right pace. Just 20% say the president is withdrawing troops too quickly and 22% say he is not removing troops quickly enough.

Last June, 44% said they thought Obama would handle the troop withdrawal about right, and 50% expressed this view in March 2o11.

A plurality of Republicans (43%) now say that Obama is removing U.S. troops from Afghanistan too quickly; 30% say Obama is handling this about right while 21% say he is not removing the troops quickly enough. In June 2011, just 28% of Republicans thought Obama would remove the troops too quickly.

An overwhelming majority of Democrats (77%) continue to say Obama is handling the troop withdrawal about right, an increase of 11 points from June 2011.

Similarly, about half of independents (51%) think the president is handling the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan about right, up from 40% in June. About a quarter (28%) of independents say Obama is not removing troops quickly enough and 17% say he is removing them too quickly.

Women, Young People Want U.S. to Stay Neutral

About half of Americans (51%) say the U.S. should stay neutral if Israel attacks Iran. Nearly four-in-ten (39%) say the U.S. should support Israel’s military action while just 5% say the U.S. should oppose military’s action.

There are large demographic differences in views about what the U.S. should do if Israel attacks Iran. A majority of women (55%) say the U.S. should stay neutral. Men are more divided over whether the U.S. should stay neutral (47%) or support Israel (45%). Young people also are far more likely than older Americans to say the U.S. should stay neutral.

Fully 64% of white evangelical Protestants say that the U.S. should support Israel if it attacks Iran in an effort to stop their nuclear weapon program. That compares with 42% of white mainline Protestants and 41% of white Catholics.

There is a wide divide among Republicans on the issue of Iran. Fully 71% of conservative Republicans think the U.S. should support Israel’s military action if they attack Iran, compared with 43% of moderate and liberal Republicans. A majority of independents and Democrats (including both liberal and more moderate Democrats) think the U.S. should stay neutral.

Overall, there has been modest attention to the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program; 38% say they have heard a lot while 39% have heard a little and 23% have heard nothing at all. That is comparable to attention paid to Iran’s nuclear program last month and in October 2009.

Republicans (47%) are more likely than independents (38%) and Democrats (31%) to say they have heard a lot about the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. And two-thirds (67%) of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who agree with the Tea Party say they have heard a lot about Iran’s nuclear program.

Most See Tougher Sanctions as Ineffective

Despite the recent push for tougher economic sanctions against Iran by the U.S. and its allies, 64% of the public thinks that tougher economic sanctions will not work in getting Iran to give up its nuclear program. Just 21% think they will work. In October 2009, 56% thought tougher economic sanctions would not work in stopping Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

There is wide consensus across party lines that tougher economic sanctions on Iran will be ineffective. Most Republicans (72%) and independents (67%), as well as 56% of Democrats, say that Iran will not give up its nuclear program even with tougher economic sanctions.

Tea Party Republicans Back Tough Approach

An overwhelming majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who agree with the Tea Party (84%) say that the U.S. should prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action. That compares with a smaller majority (64%) of Republicans who disagree with or have no opinion of the Tea Party.

The gap among Republicans is even larger on what the U.S. should do if Israel attacks Iran to stop its nuclear weapons program. Fully 81% of Tea Party Republicans say the U.S. should support Israel’s military action, compared with just 43% of non-Tea Party Republicans.

There also are differences among Republicans about how Obama is handling troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. A majority of Tea Party Republicans (61%) now say that Obama is removing troops too quickly. A year ago, when asked if Obama will remove U.S. troops too quickly, just 33% of Tea Party Republicans said he would remove troops too quickly and 35% said he would handle it about right.

Far fewer non-Tea Party Republicans (27%) say Obama is removing troops too quickly. More say Obama is handling the troop withdrawal about right (38%). Views among non-Tea Party Republicans have changed little since last year.

About the Survey

The analysis in this report is based on telephone interviews conducted Feb. 8-12, 2012, among a national sample of 1,501 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (900 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 601 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 284 who had no landline telephone). The survey was conducted by interviewers at Princeton Data Source under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International. A combination of landline and cell phone random digit dial samples were used; both samples were provided by Survey Sampling International. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. Respondents in the landline sample were selected by randomly asking for the youngest adult male or female who is now at home. Interviews in the cell sample were conducted with the person who answered the phone, if that person was an adult 18 years of age or older. For detailed information about our survey methodology, see http://people-press.org/methodology/

The combined landline and cell phone sample are weighted using an iterative technique that matches gender, age, education, race, Hispanic origin and nativity and region to parameters from the March 2011 Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey and population density to parameters from the Decennial Census. The sample also is weighted to match current patterns of telephone status and relative usage of landline and cell phones (for those with both), based on extrapolations from the 2011 National Health Interview Survey. The weighting procedure also accounts for the fact that respondents with both landline and cell phones have a greater probability of being included in the combined sample and adjusts for household size within the landline sample. Sampling errors and statistical tests of significance take into account the effect of weighting. The following table shows the sample sizes and the error attributable to sampling that would be expected at the 95% level of confidence for different groups in the survey:

Sample sizes and sampling errors for other subgroups are available upon request.

In addition to sampling error, one should bear in mind that question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Special Report February 15, 2012, 5:17 PM (GMT+02:00)

Iranian Bangkok blast suspect

Shrugging off Western sanctions and Israeli recriminations, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad played a starring role in a widely televised spectacle by inserting his country’s first domestically-made fuel rod into the Tehran Research Reactor Wednesday, Feb. 15. The scene came after the announced cutoff of Iranian oil exports to six European countries – Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France, Greece and Portugal. Two hours later, the Iranian oil ministry challenged the announcement, spoiling the show by attesting to differences in high regime ranks.

By this show, Tehran thumbed its nose at Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s call on the world Wednesday to set red lines for Iran’s nuclear program and denounce its terrorist activity. “If Iran’s aggression is not halted, it will ultimately spread to other countries,” he told the Knesset.
Tehran paused only briefly in its multi-pronged offensive to deny Israeli charges of an Iranian hand behind the bombing attacks on its diplomats in New Delhi, Bangkok and the Georgian capital of Tbilisi this week, in which an Israeli woman was injured.

Tuesday, Feb. 14, the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier crossed the Strait of Hormuz into the Sea of Oman for the second time. Unlike the first, an Iranian flotilla shadowed its passage made up of an explosive speedboat, warships with missiles poised ready for launching, a spy plane, a drone and several assault helicopters. Tehran was flexing muscle in the face of US naval might.
The incident passed without a US response.
Wednesday, a white-coated Ahmadinejad was on hand at the Tehran Research Reactor to flaunt Iran’s mastery of the manufacture of 20 percent enriched nuclear fuel rods, so bringing its nuclear program substantially closer to the 90 percent threshold for the fissile core of a nuclear warhead.

Then, by unveiling “the fourth generation” of home-made centrifuges with a higher speed and production capacity at Natanz, Tehran made the point that it was not hiding the production of 20 percent enriched uranium in underground bunkers as Israel has claimed. From now on, Iran would carry out the advanced process of enrichment and complete the nuclear cycle in front of the whole world, despite Western penalties and sanctions.

By announcing the cutoff of oil exports to six European countries, Tehran sought to turn the European Union’s oil sanctions against the alliance itself.  Only this week, US and Israeli officials claimed that the latest round of stiffer sanctions against Iran were working and is economy was on the point of collapse.
The Iranians were anxious to show that they can afford to pick and choose the customers for their oil and mean to do so. And maybe they can. debkafile’s energy sources note that China, India, Russia, Turkey and South Korea, which buy 65 percent of Iran’s exported crude, have all refused to join the US and European boycott and cut back on their purchases from the Islamic Republic. None have so far taken up the Saudi offer of supplies to replace Iranian oil.

Britain has meanwhile taken advantage of the hue and cry against Iranian terrorist attacks on Israeli diplomats to start a hare of its own, claiming that Iran and al Qaeda have struck a deal for a combined major terror offensive against Israeli targets. British sources report that the al Qaeda strategic brain, Abu Mus’ab al-Suria (nom de guerre of Aleppo Mustafa Abdul-QAdir Mustafa al-Set Mariam), who fought the Assads for three decades and whom Syrian President set free in December, has moved to Tehran.

They say he is the kingpin of the new terror offensive. Therefore, those British sources strongly doubt that Israeli ministers and officials will be able to make good on their pledges to reach the sources of terror.

Israel won’t blink first – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

(This article lays out in straight simple language the truth, as all Israelis see it, about Iran getting nuclear weapons.  Bottom line, the only way they’ll get them is if they destroy the state of Israel first. Period. – JW )

Op-ed: Global assumption that Israel will blink first in nuclear showdown with Iran is false

A friend recently told me that he was surprised by my support for an Israeli strike in Iran. Why do you think I support it? I asked. The friend said he based it on my recent column where I wrote that a war against Iranis unavoidable and is at our doorstep.

To my regret, other readers took my column to mean that I crave an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, even though I did not write that. So in the interest of clarifying my remarks I hereby state that the purpose of my article was not to call for or oppose a strike on Iran. I only wanted to describe the conditions where a war between Israel and Iran would be unavoidable, and remind my readers that at this time most if not all of these conditions have been met.

However, there was no deterministic approach here: Even now it would be easy to avert what seems inevitable. Should the government in Tehran open up all his nuclear facilities, including the secret ones, to IAEA inspectors and freeze its military nuclear program, it would avert a clash with Israel.

Renouncing nuclear weapons will not be undermining the regime’s credibility in the eyes of Iranian citizens: The regime will in fact gain credibility by proving its international pledges to develop nuclear capabilities for peaceful purposes only.

However, given a failure to change Iran’s nuclear policy and Tehran’s desire to quickly acquire nuclear arms, soon development shall reach the red line; beyond it, Israel only has one option left: A wide-ranging military operation. Not because someone wants it, but rather, because there is no other choice.

In an international forum on the subject I was once asked whether there is an Israeli prime minister who would assume the historic national responsibility to send bombers and missiles to attack Iran’s nuclear program. I responded by saying that there is no Israeli PM who would assume the terrible responsibility of failing to use the bombers and missiles under such circumstances.

No middle ground

There is some kind of hidden assumption in global diplomacy that Israel will be blinking at the last moment. But it will not. Those who doubt Israel’s determination shall be losing their wager. The State of Israel, as the national home of the Jews, has decided to prevent Iran from possessing nuclear weapons. It would be better to do so via brains, but if there is no other choice, it will be done by using force.

In addition to the clock of diplomacy and secret war, there is another clock ticking on the Israeli prime minister’s desk, one that gauges Iran’s progress towards a bomb. The moment this clock approaches zero hour, a military operation will do the same. No begging will stop Israel at that point. There will be a war.

The international community can go ahead and offer numerous plans for a situation where Iran acquires military nuclear capabilities and aim to create a new balance of terror between Tehran and Tel Aviv: All these plans and attempts are a waste of computer space. There is no point in discussing the state of the Middle East in an era of a nuclear Iran, for the simple reason that Israel would simply not accept Iranian nukes.

Israel will only bomb Iran’s nuclear military industry as a last resort – and as a last resort, Israel will indeed go ahead and bomb.

On this principled issue, Israel has nowhere to retreat to. The concessions and compromises will therefore have to come from the Iranian side.

The situation is similar to the state of affairs that prevailed on the eve of the first Gulf War. The US Administration and American public opinion were united in the approach that should Saddam Hussein not withdraw from Kuwait under diplomatic-economic pressure, the US military will remove him from there by force.

Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein was certain that the Americans are bluffing and that they would not dare get entangled in a war against an Arab state located thousands of kilometers away from home. To his misfortune, America did dare – twice.

Israel will also dare. Either Iran doesn’t possess nuclear arms, or we’ll see a war. There’s no middle ground.

Ahmadinejad loads nuclear fuel r… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

By Ho New / Reuters

PM: World must set red lines on I… JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

By Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post

The world must set red lines on the Iranian nuclear program, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Wednesday, urging the world to unequivocally condemn Iran for its attacks on Israeli diplomats abroad.

“The world must denounce Iran’s terrorist activity and mark red lines on the Iranian nuclear program,” Netanyahu told a Knesset meeting in honor of visiting Croatian president Ivo Josipović.

“Iran is the largest exporter of terrorism in the world,” he continued, adding that “Iran’s terrorist activities are currently evident to everyone.”

“Iran is undermining the stability of the world. It is attacking innocent diplomats around the world. The countries of the world must condemn these acts and draw a red line against Iranian aggression. This aggression, if not stopped, will eventually spread.”

Netanyahu’s comments came as Iranian state television announced it will unveil a new generation of its domestically made uranium enrichment centrifuges and load locally made nuclear fuel rods into its Tehran Research Reactor on Wednesday for the first time, according to Iranian state media.

“The fourth generation of domestically made centrifuges have higher speed and production capacity … it will be unveiled on Wednesday,” state TV said.

Netanyahu’s comments come during a week in which terrorists successfully attacked the Israeli embassy in New Delhi, and botched operations intended to hit Israeli targets in Georgia and Thailand. Israel believes Iran is behind the plots.

Thai investigators believe they have found a link between this week’s bomb blasts in Bangkok and New Delhi, a senior security official said on Wednesday.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Tehran Triangle: Why Israel-Iran-US standoff may be sliding toward war | Firstpost.

It’s the Middle East’s million-dollar question: will Israel attack Iran? For several weeks, Israeli leaders have been saying there’s very little time left: in 9 or 10 months from now, the Islamic Republic will have finished burying its nuclear facilities. Israeli bombs will thus not be able to reach them. Something has to be done beforehand.

Iran’s answer? A defiant “we’re not scared!” as it advances with its nuclear project. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, says that any attack would be “ten times worse” for the West than it would be for Iran. Both the Americans and the Europeans are urging patience. Like the Israelis, they too are convinced that Iran wants to build the capacity to make a nuclear warhead.

They have just levied a new series of unprecedented sanctions on Tehran. As complete a boycott as possible of Iranian oil — the country’s only natural resource — is underway, and the United States and European Union want to give the embargo time to take effect. Speaking to students at Sciences Po, a Paris university, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé said last week that “a military solution with unpredictable consequences must be avoided.”

Keeping an eye on Washington

The Israeli agenda is not only technical. It’s also political — and for the time being, at least, it is taking into account US President Barack Obama’s opposition to bombing Iranian nuclear targets.

It’s no mere coincidence that the Israeli press always mentions spring as the timeframe for a possible bombing of the sites. That’s because many assume the raid is supposed to take place before the American presidential election on 6 November — while Obama is still under pressure from Republican candidates who openly defend the principle of attacking Iran.

Obama is still under pressure from Republican candidates who openly defend the principle of attacking Iran. Reuters

Republicans have been assuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of their support while denouncing the Democratic president’s use of “soft power” with the Islamic Republic. Mitt Romney, the favourite of the Republican candidates, warns that “If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will get a nuclear weapon.”

“Bibi” Netanyahu’s alleged strategy, in other words, is that Israel better strike now while Obama is still president, since he won’t be able to oppose Israel if he’s defied and put under pressure by his opponents.

Signs that sanctions are working

As the diplomatic head of a major European country told Le Monde: “The coming weeks will be crucial.” He too asked that the sanctions be given time to work, particularly as there are already indications that they are starting to, and in ways that really hurt. Since October, Iran’s currency, the rial, has lost half its value. And the country’s economy is in deeper and deeper trouble.

One of France’s top experts on nuclear issues, Bruno Tertrais of the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research, is saying that the sanctions “have already had an effect.” On a website called Réalité EU, he explains that they have “slowed the nuclear programme down,” made “importing materials and technologies more difficult,” and “increased the amount of time Iran needs to make a bomb.” Tertrais goes on to say that “the sanctions are meant to change the Iranian government’s calculations” by making the economic and political cost of their nuclear strategy exorbitant.

The idea is to weaken the Islamic Republic to the point that its leaders have to ask themselves the question: do we save the bomb or the regime?

The Iranian regime, more than ever, is on the defensive. It is not popular at home. It is isolated abroad. And it is in the process of losing its most important ally in the Arab world: Syria. The support that Tehran continues to give Damascus has earned it hostility from most Arabs — particularly the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Tunisia — and growing hostility from Turkey. The Sunni world intends to isolate Shi’ite Iran and prevent its old Persian enemy from getting the influence that having a nuclear weapon would confer on it.
In line with the malaise and divisions within the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khamenei’s reaction has been to increase anti-Israeli rhetoric in an attempt to tighten the ranks. At Friday prayers at the University of Tehran on 4 February, he issued this threat to Israel: “The Zionist regime is the real cancer in the region. It must be annihilated, and it will be.”

Sanction as a prelude to war

Not everyone shares Bruno Tertrais’s view that “history confirms that the sanctions against Iran could be the solution to this nuclear crisis.” American political scientist Robert Pape of the University of Chicago has compiled research on years of international sanctions, and says: “Presented as an alternative to war, they are often just the prelude.”

To succeed, sanctions have to contain the seed of possible negotiation. The whole art is to understand what could be qualified as success or failure – in other words, what are the proverbial lines in the sand of everyone involved. The Islamic Republic is not going to budge as regards its right to enrich uranium for civil purposes – the only purposes it admits to pursuing. It is too committed to this line, and the issue has become one of political survival.
According to the United Nations, Iran is violating its international obligations by refusing to grant the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to certain elements of its nuclear programme. In the view of the IAEA, part of the programme can only be explained by Tehran’s will to be in a position to make a warhead although the agency says it does not know if the decision to actually make one has been taken or not.

For Israel, the line in the sand has in many ways already been crossed – by simple virtue of the progress the Iranian programme has made. For the United States, that line isn’t crossed until Iran is actually building a bomb.

It’s a three-way poker game, and things are tense. Very tense.

The article originally appeared in French daily Le Monde and the translated version was published on worldcrunch.com