WarSclerotic

YID With LID: Israel to Obama: Lead, Follow or GET OUT OF THE WAY!.

The conversation covered a broad spectrum of topics that relate to our ties as well as a variety of issues concerning the entire region,” Barak said after his meeting with Donilon. Barak pointed out that Israel’s ties with the U.S. involve those of “sovereign countries that are ultimately responsible for their own decisions and futures.”

In other words we are going to do what we need to do to protect our citizens, and if you don’t approve we’re sorry but we need to proceed.

All this happening while Israel is facing tremendous pressure to wait for sanctions to work, they have already been waiting for almost ten years for the sanctions to work.

At this time, Israel is coming under increased pressure from Washington and Europe to hold off from attacking Iran over its disputed nuclear drive and allow time for a regime of tight international sanctions to kick in.

Pressure is being exerted from all directions, officials acknowledge, with Washington’s concern over a pre-emptive Israeli strike reflected in the steady stream of senior officials arriving in Jerusalem for top-level talks.

According to Gideon Rachman at the Financial Times, Israel is not the only factor. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are also “obsessed with the need to prevent Iran getting nuclear weapons.”

All along the holdup has been the question of whether a preemptive Israeli would delay Iran’s nuclear ambitions more than six-months to a year. While  many experts say that is beyond Israel’s capability, others disagree;

Hans Rühle, a leading German security expert, asserted last week in a lengthy article in the Die Welt that a comprehensive Israel-based bombing campaign could significantly set back, perhaps a decade or more, Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

In the article titled “How Israel can destroy Iran’s nuclear program” Rühle analyzed the number of Israeli fighter jets and bombs necessary to obliterate Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Citing experts, Rühle writes that an extensive bombing campaign is within Israel’s capability to decimate Iran’s ability to continue to make progress on developing nuclear weapons.

According to Rühle, there are 25 to 30 facilities in Iran used for its atomic program, of which six are primary-bombing targets.

He cites the nuclear enrichment plant Natanz, the conversion facility in Isfahan, the heavy water reactor Arak and the weapons and munitions sites in Parchin. In addition, he notes the deep underground enrichment facility Fordow and Iran’s operational nuclear plant Bushehr.

The popular PJ Media news website columnist, David P. Goldman, wrote last week that “Hans Rühle was one of the toughest and most perspicacious analysts in those heady days” during the Cold war period.

Goldman added that “Rühle is highly confident that Israel could knock out Iran’s nuclear program for a decade or more with about 25 of its 87 F-15 fighter-bombers and a smaller number of its F-16s. Each of the F- 15s would carry two of the GBU-28 bunker busters, with the F-16s armed with smaller bombs.

Rühle writes that surveillance “information about Natanz is solid,“ adding that the “project has been observed from satellites and from the location from ‘Israeli tourists.’”

He added that Israel strongest bunker buster bombs GBU-28 could destroy the roof of the facility. If the damage is not sufficient, a second GBU-28 could be launched to complete the aim of destruction.

According to Rühle, Israel’s successful obliteration of the Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007 laid an important precedent. He writes that “many experts believe “ that strikes against Iran’s nuclear operations could set back the program 10 years, or possibly longer, based on present knowledge.

In the end it doesn’t matter what President Obama or Hans Rühle believes. Justifiably the Israeli government feels threatened by the Iranian Nuke program.  They believe that their first priority is to protect their citizens. They also understand that when push comes to shove, they can only depend on themselves for protection.

If Israel believes it can launch a successful strike against Iran, one that would delay their nuke program for years, then they will proceed no matter what anyone says.  Iran is building weapons and threatening Israel, the lives of millions of people are at risk…and a post apocalyptic statement from the President of the United States saying “Ooops we were wrong” just doesn’t cut it.

IDF gearing up to invade Gaza – THERESE ZRIHEN-DVIR, Regard d’un Ecrivain sur le Monde.

The American Spectator : Osama and Israel: The Silence of ‘Friends’.

Oscar Wilde noted “true friends stab you in the front.” Which explains why President Obama– the self-proclaimed “best friend Israel ever had” — has decided to cut funding for the Jewish state’s missile defense system at the same time he wants to restore funding to UNESCO.

(Israel’s best friends will remember that the President was forced to cut support to the traditional anti-Israel agency by federal law because the organization recognized the Palestinian Authority as a state.)

If that wasn’t enough evidence of the President’s “unshakeable bond” with Israel, these policy decisions come exactly at the same time Israel is engaged in a cold, covert war against Iran and making preparations for a possible strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. As the song goes, “That’s what friend are for.”

The president really believes — as a friend — that Israel should do nothing with regard to Iran except boost its ability to defend against a nuclear attack and focus on reaching a peace treaty with the Palestinian authority. President Obama still believes that the key to neutralizing Iran and its alliance with Hamas and Hezbollah is for Israel to cut itself down to the size and shape of the Palestinians’ liking.

What is Israel to make of the fact that as the Syrian regime continues to murder people with the help of Iranian technicians and military equipment, senior officials in the administration have said almost nothing about the killing? Instead, the administration is focusing all of its diplomatic and military acumen on discouraging Israel from doing anything to figure out ways to reduce the number of people that could be slaughtered by Iranian aggression.

It is a hallmark of the administration’s “friendship” with Israel that is knows slightly more about Israel’s strategy and thinking on Iran than it does about when North Korean dictators die. Israel has not decided to launch a full-scale aerial assault on Iran nuclear sites. An attack could and would take multiple forms. It will engage in asymmetrical activities that no one outside of a small circle of individuals knows about. It could be more like the raid on Entebbe than the bombing of the nuclear reactors in Syria and Iraq. Or it could be both. In any scenario no one outside of Israel and its covert agents in Iran, Syria, and elsewhere will know how or when it will happen. If at all.

There is one element of the effort to go after Iran that is certain: No one in Israel’s chain of command believes the Obama administration will support pre-emptive military operations, whether they be against Hamas, Hezbollah, or Iran.

It’s not just the White House being clueless about the situation. If Iran will assist Assad in killing Syrian civilians by the tens of thousands, what would it do to damage and destroy Israel if it had the chance? Rather, it is the fact that the President truly believes demanding more from Israel and little from the Palestinians is the key to lasting peace. Which is why when touting his administration’s military aid to Israel, it is always about defensive systems. And it’s why he can square cutting funding for such programs with restoring funding to UNESCO as well as a multi-billion-grant program to support the “Arab Spring.”

Recently the White House released a 7-minute video touting that “unbreakable bond.” Apart from the fact that it full of misinformation and inaccuracies (e.g., its brazen claim that the U.S. strongly supported Israel when it was maligned by the UN’s Goldstone Report; or the shameless way it takes Netanyahu’s comments after a meeting with Obama out of context), two things stand out: It exalts as special the usual rhetoric about Israel’s right to exist. And even then, as the American Thinker pointed out: It is only 7 minutes long. That’s because it overlooks all the attacks on Israel’s efforts to protect its borders and augment its pre-emptive options. If they were included, it wouldn’t just be a video — it would be a mini-series.

Most telling, especially at a time when Israel clearly is preparing to step up its ongoing assault on Iranian assets, is what Obama has not said and done. As Martin Luther King put it: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

Robert M. Goldberg is vice president of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest and founder of Hands Off My H ealth, a grass roots health care empowerment network. His is new book, Tabloid Medicine: How the Internet is Being Used To Hijack Medical Science For Fear and Profit, was published last month by Kaplan.

Israelis seem resigned to a strike on Iran – The Washington Post.

By Joel Greenberg, Updated: Wednesday, February 22, 1:30 PM

TEL AVIV — A recent installment of the popular Israeli satirical television show “A Wonderful Country” captured the public mood here regarding a possible strike on Iran and its consequences: a mix of resignation and gallows humor.

In one scene, a house-hunting couple is shown a Tel Aviv apartment facing a drab housing project as a real estate agent proclaims that the place will have a view of the sea. “In June, that whole row of buildings won’t be here anymore,” she cheerfully informs the prospective buyers, gazing out a window.

“Are they making a park here?” asks the woman viewing the apartment with her husband. “No,” chirps the agent, “there’s the business with Iran this summer.”

As if noting a change of seasons, many Israelis are talking about a possible war come summer, or later this year, with an air of inevitability born of years of festering conflict that has periodically flared up into full-blown hostilities. The prospect of devastating counter-strikes and possible mass casualties seems to be taken in stride, seen as a lesser evil than facing a nuclear-armed Iran.

“It’s like people are saying, ‘A typhoon is coming,’ ” said Avi Funes, a 57-year-old accountant, over lunch at the Azrieli Center, a towering glass and steel mall and office complex next to military headquarters and the Ministry of Defense — a potential target area of retaliatory missile strikes.

“People aren’t taking to the streets to protest against an attack,” Funes added. “There’s a kind of complacency. What can the ordinary citizen do? It’s not up to him.”

The wisdom of a strike on Iran has been debated here for months, with current and former security officials as well as political figures arguing over whether such a move would achieve its aims or provoke costly retaliation and possibly broader conflict without stopping Iran’s nuclear effort. On Tuesday, Iran warned that it might take preemptive action against its foes if it felt its national interests were threatened.

Polls taken in recent months have shown ordinary Israelis divided over the advisability of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

But now that Israeli leaders are openly suggesting that a military strike on Iran might be necessary to stop what they describe as its drive to obtain atomic weapons, Israelis are contemplating the possible result: a rain of missiles fired at population centers by Iran and militant groups allied with it, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

A familiar fear

Many Israelis have been through it before.

During the 1991 Persian Gulf war, Iraq fired about 40 Scud missiles at Israel, including some that hit the Tel Aviv area. Thousands of rockets fired by Hezbollah struck northern Israel during its 2006 war against the guerrilla group, and hundreds more were fired by Hamas and other groups during Israel’s three-week offensive in late 2008 and 2009 against the Islamist movement. In those conflicts Israelis took cover in bomb shelters and safe rooms, so civilian casualties were limited. Fewer than 50 Israeli civilians died in all three conflicts combined.

But there are concerns that retaliatory missile attacks by Iran could be of an altogether different magnitude, wreaking far more death and destruction and possibly triggering broader hostilities.

Seeking to allay public concerns and rebut doomsday scenarios, Defense Minister Ehud Barak has in recent months played down the possible impact of missile strikes on Israeli cities and towns. “There will not be 100,000 dead, not 10,000 dead and not 1,000 dead. Israel will not be destroyed,” he said in a radio interview in November. “It’s not pleasant on the home front. . . . [but] if everyone just goes into their houses, there will not be 500 dead, either.”

That was cold comfort for Gideon Levy, a columnist in the liberal Haaretz newspaper who in a recent article railed against what he described as the apparent public indifference to suggestions by Barak and others that hundreds if not thousands of Israelis could die in missile barrages triggered by an attack on Iran.

“The impression is that the majority of Israelis are not afraid,” he wrote. “The decision is left up to a handful of people who have decided that the public, as usual, trusts them blindly, obediently.”

Levy urged Israelis to speak up against a military strike by telling their leaders “now, loudly: We are a-f-r-ai-d.”

‘Business as usual’

But among visitors to the designer shops and cafes at the Azrieli complex this week, there seemed to be only faint trepidation.

“It’s business as usual, although there are concerns,” said Zehava Shem-Tov, a 50-year-old secretary on a lunch break. “There is a sense that something unpleasant awaits us, but it’s kind of repressed.”

Amos Tzion, 53, who sets up farming projects abroad, acknowledged that “there’s concern, but also the need” to take action. “We live in an area that’s always been threatening, we’ve grown accustomed to that, and there’s an existential fear that Iran will have the bomb, and something has to be done about it,” he said.

Some people said they were skeptical that stepped-up international sanctions on Iran would stop its nuclear program.

With Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s “extremist views, it doesn’t look like it, and it’s more likely that there will be no choice but military action,” said Funes, the accountant. “What’s the alternative? If he develops an atomic bomb, it will be a constant threat, and their missiles will be even more dangerous. No one would dare bomb a country that has nuclear weapons.”

Ayelet Lifschitz, a 24-year-old student from the northern city of Haifa, said she had spent the 2006 war against Hezbollah in a bomb shelter as rockets crashed into her city, an experience she remembers as “a lifelong trauma.”

She said she opposed Israel going it alone against Iran without international support, particularly from Washington, but added that she was confident the country would survive any counter-strike. “This is a strong society,” she said. “We can cope with it, if that’s what it takes to deal with the problem.”

In the meantime, she said, “there is a constant awareness” of the possibility of armed conflict in the coming months, to the point where her friends joke that they may have to juggle appointments and personal plans to accommodate the war.

That approach was reflected recently in a Facebook page started by Kobi Zvili, a Tel Aviv artist. The page, which has attracted hundreds of supporters, pleads with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off any military action before the singer Madonna takes the stage in a suburb of Tel Aviv on May 29 on the first stop of her planned world tour.

“Bibi, No!” the page title says, using Netanyahu’s nickname. “No war with Iran until after Madonna’s performance.”

Israel-Iran Conflict: Military Movements in Gulf Region Suggest Imminent Strike – International Business Times.

World Of Judaica.

On Tuesday, the Azerbaijani government announced that is caught a terrorist cell targeting Jewish and Israeli targets in the capital city of Baku.According to the Ministry of National Security, the cell consisted of 20 people from the same family living outside Baku.  The cell linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force as well as Hezbollah.  The cell was found to be hiding Iranian explosives inside radios and had at least one sniper rifle and several pistols that were likely smuggled in to the country in pieces.  The ministry also reported that the family was to sell narcotics from Hezbollah in order to fund the attacks.   A raid on the family residence also revealed Iran supplied dossier files filled with targets to be considered.

The report by the ministry identified the ringleader as Balagardash Dadashev who has a previous criminal record.  Dadashev talked his brother-in-law and others into a plot to kill Jewish students at a local school in exchange for nearly $150,000.  However, when the polot unraveled, Dadshev was found to be in Iran and out of reach.

The Quds force is known to act outside Iran and perpetrate attacks against anyone the Iranian government declares an enemy.  They were linked previously to the massive 1984 attack in Buenos Aires as well as rockets shot from Lebanon into Israel.  They are also known to be backers of Hezbollah and answer directly to Ayatollah Khamenei.

The latest plot is the second that has been unraveled by Azerbaijani security.  The first was caught last month and was supposed to assassinate the Israeli ambassador to the country.  Two men were arrested and admitted to plotting to kill the rabbi of the local Chabad as well as the ambassador.

Iran reacted to the report with scathing criticism, claiming that the country is host to Israeli intelligence agents and therefore is acting against Iranian targets.  The Iranian Foreign Ministry also accused the country of being part of the assassination team that killed an Iranian scientist in Tehran in January.  Azerbaijan has denied being part of any assassination plot nor having been host to Israeli intelligence operations.  Israel has not issued any comments on the most recent plot.

IAEA official: No ‘way forward’ on nuclear talks with Iran – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

IAEA’s Herman Nackaerts returns to Vienna after visit to Iran; says talks with Iranians were inconclusive.

By The Associated Press

A top UN nuclear official says his team could “could not find a way forward” in attempts to persuade Iran to talk about suspected secret work on atomic arms.

Herman Nackaerts of the International Atomic Energy Agency says the talks in Tehran were inconclusive, although his mission approached the talks “in a constructive spirit.”

Nackaerts spoke to reporters at Vienna airport Wednesday shortly after returning from the Iranian capital.

An IAEA statement published overnight already acknowledged the talks had failed.

Iran denies it has experimented with nuclear arms programs but has refused to cooperate with an IAEA probe on the issue for nearly four years.

Khamenei: No obstacles can stop … JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

By Ho New / Reuters

TEHRAN – Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that Tehran’s nuclear course would not change regardless of international sanctions, assassinations or other pressures.

“With God’s help, and without paying attention to propaganda, Iran’s nuclear course should continue firmly and seriously … Pressures, sanctions and assassinations will bear no fruit. No obstacles can stop Iran’s nuclear work.”

Khamenei was speaking on state television shortly after the UN nuclear watchdog declared a collapse in talks with Iran aimed at getting it to address suspicions that it is covertly seeking nuclear weapons capability.

The Islamic Republic denies this, saying its program to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel is for peaceful energy only.

But Iran’s refusal to curb sensitive atomic activities with both civilian and military purposes, and its track record of secrecy and restricting UN inspections, have drawn increasingly harsh UN and separate US and European sanctions, now targeting its economically vital oil exports.

Several Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed in bombings over the past two years, attacks that Tehran has blamed on arch-adversary Israel. The Jewish state has not commented.

The United States and Israel have not ruled out resorting to military action against Iran if they conclude that diplomacy and sanctions will not stop it from developing a nuclear warhead.

Israel Matzav: Robert Wright and a nuclear Iran.

The Atlantic‘s Robert Wright publishes a lengthy piece that accuses AIPAC of pushing the United States toward war with Iran (Hat Tip: Memeorandum). But the usual accusation of dual loyalty and ‘Israel firsterism’ that Wright tries to append to AIPAC pales by comparison with his refusal to acknowledge the reality that stands behind Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

The key is in the way the resolution deals with the question of whether Iran should be allowed to enrich uranium, as it’s been doing for some time now. The resolution defines as an American goal “the full and sustained suspension” of uranium enrichment by Iran. In case you’re wondering what the resolution’s prime movers mean by that: In a letter sent to the White House on the same day the resolution was introduced, Lieberman, Graham and ten other senators wrote, “We would strongly oppose any proposal that recognizes a ‘right to enrichment’ by the current regime or for [sic] a diplomatic endgame in which Iran is permitted to continue enrichment on its territory in any form.”

This notwithstanding the fact that 1) enrichment is allowed under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty; (2) a sufficiently intrusive monitoring system can verify that enrichment is for peaceful purposes; (3) Iran’s right to enrich its own uranium is an issue of strong national pride. In a poll published in 2010, after sanctions had already started to bite, 86 percent of Iranians said Iran should not “give up its nuclear activities regardless of the circumstances.” And this wasn’t about building a bomb; most Iranians said Iran’s nuclear activities shouldn’t include producing weapons.

Enrichment may be allowed under the NPT – but given Iran’s repeated violations of the NPT, do we really want to allow Iran to enrich uranium. As to Iran’s ‘national pride,’ who cares? This isn’t just an Israeli issue – does Wright really believe that we are the only targets or that the United States will not be a target down the road when all indications are that Iran is developing an ICBM capability. And last but not least, how does Wright propose to establish a ‘sufficiently intrusive monitoring system’ when the IAEA cannot even gain admittance to Iran’s nuclear facilities?

Even Dennis Ross–who has rarely, in his long career as a Mideast diplomat, left much daylight between his positions and AIPAC’s, and who once categorically opposed Iranian enrichment–now realizes that a diplomatic solution may have to include enrichment. Last week in a New York Times op-ed, he said that, contrary to pessimistic assessments, it may still be possible to get a deal that “uses intrusive inspections and denies or limits uranium enrichment [emphasis added]…”

Now that the IAEA has once again left Iran empty-handed, I wonder if Ross would stand by that statement. As to the alleged lack of daylight between Ross and AIPAC – that irrelevant comment has to make one wonder whether Wright has the same agenda as the anti-Semitic Center for American Progress. And just in case you think Wright hasn’t read enough Trita Parsi,

The Congressional resolution goes beyond the UN resolutions in another sense. It demands an end to Iran’s ballistic missile program. Greg Thielmann of the Arms Control Association notes that, “Even after crushing Iraq in the first Gulf War, the international coalition only imposed a 150-kilometer range ceiling on Saddam’s ballistic missiles. A demand to eliminate all ballistic missiles would be unprecedented in the modern era–removing any doubt among Iranians that the United States was interested in nothing less than the total subjugation of the country.”

The Iranian government is not the government of a civilized Western democracy. It is a ruthless apocalyptic regime that is a danger to its people, to the surrounding countries, and to the entire world. Wright’s proposal to treat them as if they were Canada or Australia is simply beyond absurd.

Does this represent Obama’s thinking too? I don’t think I even have to answer the question.

IMRA – Wednesday, February 22, 2012 Stopping Iran: Still Too Much Noise and Too Little Action.

There seems to be a lot of psychological warfare at play  in the approach of international leaders to the Iranian nuclear conundrum.

Public statements of various tones and intensity have of late been made by
Israeli, American, European, and even Iranian policymakers. Yet, mixed
messages are continuously being broadcast and international powers remain disunited on how to halt Iran’s nuclear program. It is unsurprising then that all of this “talk” has led to no action.

Senior policymakers in the US, Israel, Iran and Europe are frequently making public statements on the struggle to stop Iran’s nuclear program. But few of
the leaders actually mean or believe their own declarations and each
pronouncement is contradicted by the next, resulting in increased confusion
and inconsistency. The only party not confused by all of this, apparently,
is Iran. It doesn’t believe that anybody is serious about really stopping
its nuclear program.

Consider these contradictory assertions: US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta
recently estimated that Israel will attack Iran sometime between April and
June this year. But US President Barack Obama said almost immediately
afterwards that Israel has not yet made the decision to strike. US Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs General Martin Dempsey, who visited Israel recently,
insinuated that there are no understandings or coordination between Israel
and the US and that he doesn’t know if Israel would inform the US ahead of a possible attack on the Iranian nuclear infrastructure. Obama, however, says that coordination between Israel and the US has never been better.

It looks like a tug of war is occurring. When one policymaker pulls too
hard, like Panetta and Dempsey, another one tugs back from the other end, as did Obama when he tried to moderate the statements.

Obama says that no option may be ruled out, including military action, but
that this measure should only be used as a last resort. His administration
believes that diplomacy and severe sanctions against Iran’s oil exports
should be given a chance. Obama fears that an Israeli strike this summer
would be premature and disruptive to sanctions, and would entangle the US in a new war too close to the upcoming presidential elections.

On the other hand, the threat of military action is needed to convince
reluctant powers, such as Russia and China, that heavier sanctions are the
only way to prevent a strike against Iran – a strike they agree would be a
terrible disaster.

In Israel, there is disagreement regarding a possible strike on Iran and its
timing. It is unclear whether the recent, more militant statements by Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon are intended to increase pressure on the international community to undertake more extreme measures against Iran,  or if they reflect a determination to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power by all means.

Israel is much more skeptical than the US and the EU about the ability of
sanctions – even the heaviest sanctions – to stop the Iranian nuclear race.
It believes that covert operations targeting scientists and facilities may
delay Iran’s aspirations. However, recent leaks by US officials that point
to Israel as the perpetrator of various assassinations and explosions reveal
little coordination between the two allies. Seemingly, the US is concerned
with possible Iranian terrorist retaliations against American targets, and
is saying: “It isn’t us, it is them.”

In response to planned harsher sanctions, Iran declared it would seal off
the Strait of Hormuz, though it backed down after the US said that it would
reopen the strait by force. A senior Iranian official said that in light of
Israel’s planned attack Iran should undertake a preemptive counterstrike and  run terrorist attacks throughout the world. Yet, another Iranian official
said that Iran was willing to return to the negotiating table with the US
and Europe. If harsher sanctions were imposed and Iran closed the strait,
the US would most likely use force not only to reopen the strait but also to
destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. If the Iranian leadership is rational, it
is bluffing on this issue and wouldn’t close the Strait of Hormuz.

Most states agree that Iran shouldn’t be permitted to acquire nuclear
weapons. They disagree, however, on how to achieve this outcome. Russia and China have ruled out completely any military strike, claiming that its
consequences would be far worse than any possible outcome of a nuclear Iran.
Russia and China have also opposed severe sanctions and called only for
negotiations. European leaders have also opposed a military strike, but
declared that only severe sanctions may prevent it. At the same time they
have decided to apply these new, harsher sanctions only in July. If Iran is
really close to the production of a nuclear weapon, such sanctions will be
futile. Furthermore, severe sanctions can be effective only if all the major
powers, including Russia and China, impose them.

The US and EU have offered to negotiate with Iran but, in return, demanded
the freezing of uranium enrichment. Iran has rejected this condition, which
means they are only interested in negotiations that would give them more
time to complete the building of nuclear bombs.

In a recent New York Times op-ed, Dennis Ross, the former Obama staffer who continues to consult with the administration, indeed argued that the time is ripe to resume talks with Iran. Iran likely will interpret this as a sign of American weakness and use this opening to avoid more sanctions while edging  closer to obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Ross and other senior American and European officials have argued that the
existing sanctions are already working by imposing hardships on the Iranian
government and people, thus opening a path for diplomacy. However, their
mistake is this: To be really effective it is not enough just to create
hardships. To be effective, the government of Iran must conclude that the
cost inflicted by the sanctions threatens its survival and is greater than
the benefits of becoming a nuclear power. This hasn’t yet happened.

The only thing that might influence the Ayatollahs to alter their nuclear
plans is a combination of credible military threats and severe sanctions.
But, when the military threat is made to appear very vague – due to mixed
and contradictory statements by world leaders – and when the decision to
impose tough sanctions on Iran is delayed by months and doesn’t include some of the superpowers, Iran can be expected to continue to develop its nuclear weaponry without too much worry or disruption.

Unfortunately, the West is not yet truly determined to halt the Iranian
nuclear weapons program.

Prof. Eytan Gilboa is Director of the School of Communication and a senior
research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at
Bar-Ilan University.