The latest Iran frenzy | FP Passport.

Posted By Blake Hounshell Thursday, February 2, 2012 – 11:15 PM

The news gods have apparently decided that it’s time for yet another round of Washington’s favorite parlor game: “Will Israel attack Iran?”

The latest round of speculation was kicked off by a mammoth New York Times magazine article by Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman, who concluded, “After speaking with many senior Israeli leaders and chiefs of the military and the intelligence, I have come to believe that Israel will indeed strike Iran in 2012.”

Veteran Iran hand Gary Sick ably dispensed with Bergman’s argument here, noting that Bergman’s reporting actually points toward the opposite conclusion:

Like virtually all other commentators on this issue, Bergman slides over the fact that the IAEA consistently reports that Iran has diverted none of its uranium to military purposes. Like others, he focuses on the recent IAEA report, which was the most detailed to date in discussing Iran’s suspected experiments with military implications; but like others, he fails to mention that almost all of the suspect activity took place seven or more years ago and there is no reliable evidence that it has resumed. A problem, yes; an imminent threat, no.

Bergman also overlooks the fact that Iran has almost certainly NOT made a decision to actually build a bomb and that we are very likely to know if they should make such a decision. How would we know? Simply because those pesky IAEA inspectors are there on site and Iran would have to kick them out and break the seals on their stored uranium in order to produce the high enriched uranium needed for a bomb.

Would Israel actually attack while these international inspectors are at work? No, they would need to give them warning, thereby giving Iran warning that something was coming. The IAEA presence is a trip wire that works both ways. It is an invaluable resource. Risking its loss would be not only foolhardy but self-destructive to Israel and everyone else.

But Bergman’s article isn’t the only recent bite at this apple. Foreign Affairs hosted a debate between former Defense Department officials Matthew Kroenig and Colin Kahl on whether the United States should bomb Iran itself; Foreign Policy‘s Steve Walt went several rounds with Kroenig; defense analysts Edridge Colby and Austin Long joined the discussion in the National Interest. Many others weighed in.

Today, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius threw another log on the fire when he reported that U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta “believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June” and that the Obama administration is “conducting intense discussions about what an Israeli attack would mean for the United States.” He added: “U.S. officials don’t think that Netanyahu has made a final decision to attack, and they note that top Israeli intelligence officials remain skeptical of the project.” (Reuters notes archly that Ignatius was “writing from Brussels where Panetta was attending a NATO defense ministers’ meeting.”)

There have also been a number of items in recent days about Iran’s murky ties to al Qaeda, including this Foreign Affairs article by Rand analyst Seth Jones and what appeared to be a follow-up report in the Wall Street Journal (never mind that the information was nearly two years old), as well as a steady drumbeat of alarmist quotes from top Israeli officials — all reminiscent of the run up to the Iraq war. Add to this mix Iran’s threat to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, an ongoing congresssional push for tougher sanctions, and the heated rhetoric coming from Obama’s Republican challengers, and you have a recipe for a media feeding frenzy.

So, is Israel going to attack Iran, despite all of the doubts many have raised? There are only two people who know the answer to that question — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Ehud Barak — and I don’t think they’ll announce their decision in the New York Times. The smart money’s still betting against an Israeli strike, but the odds do seem to be getting shorter.

Israeli leaders’ differing approaches on Iran – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

The one and only Israel-related question on the international agenda these days has to do with Iran: Is Israel planning to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming year?

By Amos Harel

The frozen Israeli-Palestinian peace process was, for a change, apparently not the most important issue to the many foreign guests who visited Israel this week for the Herzliya Conference. The one and only Israel-related question on the international agenda these days has to do with Iran: Is Israel planning to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming year?

Not surprisingly, that was the issue on which quite a few speakers at the conference focused.

	Iran’s nuclear facility in Bushehr.
	Photo by: AP

Over the past 24 hours, the defense minister, the strategic affairs minister, the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff and the head of Military Intelligence have all discussed Iran’s nuclear progress at great length, and indirectly addressed Israel’s dilemma as to what should be done.

What could a foreign observer have learned? First, that at least officially, the Israeli line is harder than ever, with more implied threats of an attack. But if he listened closely to the nuances, he might be able to discern differences in approach among various senior officials.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who is believed to be the chief proponent of an attack, said Thursday, “Today, unlike in the past, the world has no doubt that [Iran’s] military nuclear capability is continuously approaching maturity and is about to enter the ‘immune zone,’ after which the Iranian regime can act to complete the program without effective interruption … Today, unlike in the past, the world agrees that if sanctions do not attain the desired results to stop [Iran’s] military nuclear capability, action will need to be considered.”

But to wave the Israeli pistol, Barak chose a somewhat strange ploy – reliance on the media. It turns out that even Barak needs foreign sources sometimes. “Many commentators,” he said, “believe that dealing with a nuclear Iran will be more complex, more dangerous, than stopping it today.”

Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon ostensibly echoed Barak’s aggressive line. An Iran with nuclear weapons, he said, would be “a nightmare for the free world, for Arab countries, and of course a threat to Israel. There would be nuclear chaos in the Middle East, because [other] countries would not sit on the sidelines.”

There would also be more terror – against Arab regimes, against Israel and against Western countries, especially the United States, he said.

Ya’alon said the explosion a few months ago at an Iranian missile base had destroyed systems intended for missiles with a range of 10,000 kilometers, which could threaten the United States.

Therefore, he concluded, “One way or another, the Iranian nuclear project has to be stopped, because a messianic-apocalyptic regime must not have capabilities of mass destruction.”

Nevertheless, he added, “Any facility that is protected by humans can be penetrated by humans. Every military facility in Iran can be hit, and I say this from my experience as chief of staff.”

This message was directed at Barak no less than at the Iranians. After all, the defense minister recently claimed that time was running out, that in less than a year, Iran’s centrifuges would be deep underground. Ya’alon, one could gather, thinks there is still time for other steps.

IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz is viewed as being in no hurry to launch an immediate attack. In his address Wednesday night, he spoke of “continuing to disrupt Iran’s attempts to attain nuclear weapons.” It is very important, he said, “to continue to build strong, reliable, impressive military capabilities, and to be prepared to use them if and when the need arises.”

But most interesting of all were the remarks by the Military Intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi. Like Gantz, Kochavi chose not to use the term “immune zone,” which has appeared in every one of Barak’s recent speeches.

And like Ya’alon, Kochavi seemed to radiate slightly less urgency than Barak.

Kochavi said that to produce nuclear weapons, Iran has virtually no need of additional capabilities. Thus everything depends on the decision of the country’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. If Khamenei gives the word to create a facility to manufacture the first nuclear warhead, “we believe it would take a year. If he gives a directive to translate that capability into a nuclear warhead, we believe it would take another two or three years,” Kochavi said.

According to Kochavi, Iran has “more than four tons of uranium enriched to three percent, and almost 100 kilos enriched to 20 percent.” If this uranium “is enriched to a higher level, more than 90 percent, that will be enough for four atom bombs,” he added, reiterating earlier assessments.

The MI chief described international sanctions as an “ever-tightening noose” around Iran and said they were showing results: “Iran now has an almost 16 percent unemployment rate and 24 percent annual inflation, with zero growth.”

So far, the pressure has not produced a strategic change in Tehran’s policies, but “the stronger the pressure grows, the greater the potential that the regime will worry first of all about its survival and reevaluate its positions,” he said.

Kochavi barely touched on the Palestinian conflict, citing lack of time. But with regard to Syria, he said, “We are seeing the first cracks” around President Bashar Assad. “The talk within his circle is that the heart of the problem may be Assad himself, so perhaps they should start discussing models for replacing him.”

In some areas of Lebanon, Kochavi continued, “every tenth home” is a storehouse for Hezbollah’s rockets or a launch site for these rockets. Barak subsequently hinted in his address to the conference that if Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel’s home front, Israel would attack Lebanon’s strategic civilian infrastructure.

Altogether, some 200,000 missiles and rockets are aimed at Israel from enemy countries, Kochavi said, but Israeli deterrence has worked. “We are facing a more hostile, more Islamic, more sensitive Middle East,” the MI chief concluded – one “less given to international influence” and facing “permanent instability.”

Shin Bet chief: Iran trying to hit Israeli targets in response to attacks on nuclear scientists – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Yoram Cohen tells audience at a closed forum in Tel Aviv that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are working tirelessly to attack Israeli targets abroad in order to deter Israel.

By Barak Ravid

Iran is trying to strike Israeli targets around the world in a bid to stop the assassinations of its nuclear scientists, the head of the Shin Bet security service, Yoram Cohen, said Thursday.

Lecturing at a closed forum in Tel Aviv, Cohen said that Iran believes Israel is behind the attacks on its nuclear experts, which have killed four scientists since November 2010. “It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not that Israel took out the nuclear scientists,” Cohen said. “A major, serious country like Iran cannot let this go on. They want to deter Israel and extract a price so that decision makers in Israel think twice before they order an attack on an Iranian scientist.”

	Shin Bet head Yoram Cohen
	Photo by: Nir Keidar

Cohen said Iran was working very hard abroad through the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to hit Israeli targets.

“Over the past year three serious attacks were thwarted that were on the verge of being carried out,” the Shin Bet head said. “In Turkey against the general consul in Istanbul; in Baku, Azerbaijan; and two weeks ago in Thailand.”

Israel’s main dilemma in the coming year, Cohen added, was how to stop Palestinian terror groups in Gaza from obtaining rockets that could reach the metropolitan Tel Aviv area, but without becoming embroiled in a large-scale military action in Gaza.

Cohen said the terror groups’ main goal was to increase the range of their missiles to the greater Tel Aviv area, as well as their precision and the size of their warheads.

Cohen said missile experts from abroad were now in Gaza helping Hamas and Islamic Jihad increase the range of the missiles, but conceded that this put Israeli security experts in a difficult place.

Cohen also said that over the past 18 months, Iran has distanced itself from Hamas and invested more in Islamic Jihad in Gaza, because the Iranians “realized that Hamas has political considerations.”

The situation in the south has grown worse due to conditions in Sinai, said Cohen. “It’s no problem to shoot from Sinai at Israeli planes or ships,” he said. “At the moment, Egypt can’t take control of the situation because of internal difficulties.”

Israel is “in a dilemma over what to do if squads are spotted that are about to attack us from the area of a country with which we have a peace treaty, but has been having difficulty implementing their sovereignty,” Cohen said.

During the hour-long lecture, Cohen also discussed the attitude of the security establishment toward Israel’s Arab community.

“They are not a fifth column and we don’t consider them as such,” Cohen noted. “We relate to them as a Palestinian public that identifies with their brethren in Judea and Samaria.”

Cohen presented statistics showing that over the past year, there had been only three terror attacks in which Israeli Arabs had been involved, and that Israeli-Arab involvement in terror has declined.

“Their involvement in terror is not great,” Cohen said. “We arrested 20 to 30 Arab Israelis last year, as opposed to 2,000 Palestinians from Judea and Samaria. The problems with Arab Israelis are complex, but they are not security problems. They are alienation, integration, employment, poor municipal management, crime and drugs.

“The ideological leadership of the Arab public in Israel,” Cohen continued, “is much more extreme than the public, and sometimes pulls in directions with which the public does not identify.”

Cohen said another group that feels growing alienation from the state is the faction in the religious public that has lost confidence in its leadership. Cohen said these were a few dozen extremists, mainly from Yitzhar (referring to a West Bank settlement ).

“They have decided to take the road of terror,” Cohen said, adding that “because they can’t harm the government and the Israel Defense Forces, they lash out at Arabs and [their] sacred symbols. To their mind, the worse it gets, the more the government will have to think before it destroys a shack in a settlement. We treat this as terror.”

Cohen said the Shin Bet was trying to deal with Jewish terror “in the best way possible,” and noted that the past two months had seen a significant decline in violence by the group.

With regard to the Palestinians, Cohen said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas did not want to negotiate with Israel, because Abbas believes the current government will offer no more than what he had received from previous regimes.

“They see what the boundaries of the prime minister’s flexibility are and who makes up the coalition, and they know the maximum this government will offer will not reach their minimum,” Cohen said. Therefore, he added, the international community was focusing its efforts on preventing escalation between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

‘Fight against Iran nukes hamstr… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

Analysis: An Irani… JPost – Iranian Threat – Opinion & Analysis.

By Screenshot

The Associated Press: Israel: military action may be needed against Iran.

HERZLIYA, Israel (AP) — Israel’s defense minister says there is growing international awareness that military action against Iran’s nuclear program will have to be considered.

Ehud Barak told a security conference on Thursday that he senses a change in international thinking. He says world leaders are increasingly realizing that if sanctions don’t stop Iran’s nuclear program, “there will be a need to consider action.”

Israel, like the West, believes Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Israel has been a leading voice in calls to curb the Iranian program. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful.

Israel has repeatedly hinted it is ready to attack Iran, saying that while it prefers a diplomatic solution, “all options are on the table.”

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

HERZLIYA, Israel (AP) — Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons installations are vulnerable to possible military strikes, Israel’s vice premier warned Thursday, suggesting that underground bunkers don’t offer sufficient protection.

The comments by Moshe Yaalon contradicted an assessment shared by foreign experts and Israeli defense officials that it would be difficult to strike sensitive Iranian nuclear targets, as they are being built underground.

The international community has grown increasingly worried that Israel could be preparing to strike Iran’s nuclear program. Yaalon, who also serves as strategic affairs minister, gave no indication that Israel is close to a decision on an attack.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently said even the most sophisticated U.S. bunker-buster bombs aren’t powerful enough to penetrate all of Iran’s defenses.

Yaalon, a former military chief of staff, suggested Thursday that forces guarding the nuclear installations could be targeted. Referring to the debate over bunker-buster bombs, he said that “at the end of the day it’s possible to strike all the installations.”

At an academic conference, Yaalon and Israel’s chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, presented details about Iran’s weapons programs.

Yaalon said Iran is trying to develop missiles that could target the United States with a range of 6,250 miles (10,000 kilometers). The vice premier said this was discovered in the aftermath of a mysterious explosion several months ago at what he described as a missile research and development site in Iran. The cause of the blast remains unknown, and Yaalon did not elaborate.

Iran insists the blast was accidental, but speculation over sabotage remains strong. The remarks by Yaalon appeared to be the first public suggestion that the missile site was the scene of highly advanced projects and could boost suspicions that outside forces played a role in the explosion.

Israel has been a leading voice in the international calls to curb Iran’s nuclear program. Iran denies it’s trying to develop nuclear weapons, insisting it seeks nuclear power for nonmilitary uses.

Kochavi told the conference that Iran has already produced enough enriched uranium to eventually make four nuclear bombs. Such material would serve as the basis for further enrichment, up to weapons grade.

Israeli media quoted Kochavi as saying that once Iran moves into the so-called “breakout stage” and decides to produce weapons grade uranium, it would need about a year to make a rudimentary bomb and an additional year or two to craft a nuclear warhead.

“Iran keeps advancing its capabilities, keeps developing its very ambitious nuclear program, at the basis of which is to get nuclear power,” Kochavi said.

An Iranian counterstrike at Israel is seen as likely if Tehran’s nuclear installations are attacked.

Kochavi said Israel’s enemies have about 200,000 rockets and missiles that could strike Israel. Most have a range of about 25 miles (40 kilometers), but several thousand have a range of several hundred miles (kilometers), he said.

Iranian proxies in the region, mainly Gaza’s Islamic militant Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah, have fired thousands of rockets into Israel and have been building up their arsenals in recent years.

Associated Press writer Brian Murphy in Dubai contributed reporting.

Israel could launch military strike on Iran ‘within nine months’ – Telegraph.

Israel could launch an air strike against Iran within nine months in a bid to slow Tehran’s progress towards building a nuclear weapon, according to a former senior White House aide.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Photo: EPA/OLIVER WEIKEN

By Alex Spillius

6:59PM GMT 02 Feb 2012

Mr Ross, who left the US national security council in November but is still consulted by the White House, told the Daily Telegraph:

“The Israelis view this [Iranian threat] in existential terms. If the Israelis feel this is an existential threat it doesn’t matter what anybody says to them. They could do it unilaterally.”

He added: “Whatever the American point of view Israel is a sovereign state and will make its own decisions. We certainly don’t control them.”

Speculation has mounted inside Israel that Mr Netanyahu could give the order for a strike against Iranian facilities as early as the summer, and so risk fierce retaliation by Iran or terror groups in its pay such as Hezbollah and Hamas against Israeli, US and possibly other Western targets.

Mr Ross, who maintains high level contacts with Israel, said that while the US is keen to allow time for new, tougher sanctions on Iran to force the Islamist regime into compromise, Israel is operating on a shorter time frame given Tehran’s long-standing hostility to the Jewish state’s existence.

“They talk about nine to 12 months. There is a time frame from their end,” he said.

Mr Netanyahu’s hand could be stayed if confidence-building measures are adopted by the Iranians. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have just completed a visit to discuss what the watchdog has called “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear programme.

The Iranian foreign minister has also indicated a willingness to meet international powers, though his country maintains that its nuclear programme is designed purely for civilian purposes.

Tensions have risen markedly in recent months, with unexplained explosions at missile research centres and accusations from Iran that Israel and the US are assassinating its nuclear scientists.

Mr Obama and other top officials have reportedly privately sought assurances from Israeli leaders that they won’t take military action against Iran, only to be met with noncommittal responses. The White House is well aware that Mr Netanyahu has previously been unafraid of snubbing the US president.

The Pentagon is so concerned about the possibility of an Israeli bombing raid that it is preparing for a number of possible responses, including assaults by pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq against the US embassy in Baghdad.

Supported by his defence minister Ehud Barak, Mr Netanyahu fears that Tehran is entering what Israeli officials call the “immunity zone”, at which point Iran’s nuclear facilities would be immune, or almost immune, to an air strike.

Iran recently admitted that it had begun enriching uranium at an underground site near the holy city of Qom that some Israeli officials believe could be switched to weapons-grade level in less than 12 months. This crossed one of Israel’s “red lines” that would precipitate an air raid on Iranian facilities, such as it launched successfully on Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1982.

“The Israelis feel there is a point past which their own use of force loses its effectiveness, where if they acted they would buy such little time it wouldn’t be worth it,” said Mr Ross, who is regarded by his critics as too close to Israel to be impartial.

Mr Netanyahu is desperate to preserve Israel’s status as the only nuclear power in the Middle East, but the Israeli establishment is divided about military action.

Many senior generals and intelligence officials either think that Iran is more than a year away from building a nuclear weapon or question whether setting the programme back by a couple of years, which is the limit of its ambitions, is worth the risk of retaliation and possible destabilisation in the Middle East.

Despite expressing concern about Iran’s intentions, Gen Kochavi suggested it could take three years before Tehran was actually capable of firing a nuclear warhead.

He stressed that Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has not yet issued the command to achieve a first nuclear explosive device, despite allowing significant steps in that direction.

International sanctions, which included Britain severing all ties with Iranian banks, were already biting and could yet force a “strategic shift” by Tehran, he said.

Barak: If Iran sanctions don’t work, military action must be considered – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Defense minister says confronting a nuclear Iran would be much more dangerous, and would cost many more lives, than confronting the country today.

By Haaretz

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Thursday that if sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program do not prove effective, then military action against the Islamic Republic must be considered.

“Today, unlike in the past, there is widespread international belief that it is vital to prevent Iran from becoming ‘nuclear’ and that no option should be taken off the table,” Barak said at the closing day of the Herzliya Conference.

	Defense Minister Ehud Barak gestures as he speaks during a session at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012.
	Photo by: AP

“Should sanctions fail to stop Iran’s nuclear program, there will be a need to consider taking action,” he said.

He noted that many analysts believe that confronting a nuclear Iran will be much more complicated and dangerous, and will cost many more lives, than taking action today.
“Whoever says ‘later’, could find that it is too late,” he stressed.

Barak added that Israel’s challenge is to continue aiding the international community to work toward halting Iran’s nuclear program, “without taking any option off the table.”

Earlier Thursday, Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon said that all of Iran’s nuclear facilities are vulnerable to a military strike, adding that the specter of a nuclear Iran would be a “nightmare to the free world.”

Ya’alon also indicated that an explosion which virtually destroyed an Iranian Revolutionary Guard missile base near Tehran late last year targeted a system that was “preparing to produce a missile with a range of 10,000 kilometers, thus threatening the United States.”

Is Israel preparing to attack Iran? – The Washington Post.

By David Ignatius, Thursday, February 2, 5:42 PM

BRUSSELS

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has a lot on his mind these days, from cutting the defense budget to managing the drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. But his biggest worry is the growing possibility that Israel will attack Iran militarily over the next few months.

Panetta believes there is strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June — before Iran enters what Israelis described as a “zone of immunity” to commence building a nuclear bomb. Very soon, the Israelis fear, the Iranians will have enough enriched uranium in deep underground facilities to make a weapon — and only the U.S. could then stop them militarily.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t want to leave the fate of Israel dependent on American action, which would be triggered by intelligence that Iran is building a bomb, which it hasn’t done yet.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak may have signaled the prospect of an Israeli attack soon when he asked last month to postpone a planned U.S.-Israel military exercise that would culminate in a live-fire phase in May. Barak apologized that Israel couldn’t devote the resources to the annual exercise this spring.

President Obama and Panetta are said to have cautioned the Israelis that the United States opposes an attack, believing that it would derail an increasingly successful international economic sanctions program and other non-military efforts to stop Iran from crossing the threshold. But the White House hasn’t yet decided precisely how the United States would respond if the Israelis do attack.

The Obama administration is conducting intense discussions about what an Israeli attack would mean for the United States: whether Iran would target U.S. ships in the region or try to close the Strait of Hormuz, and what effect the conflict and a likely spike in oil prices would have on the fragile global economy.

The administration appears to favor a policy of staying out of the conflict, unless Iran hits U.S. assets, which would trigger a strong U.S. response.

This U.S. policy — signaling that Israel is acting on its own — might open a breach like the one in 1956, when President Eisenhower condemned an Israeli-European attack on the Suez Canal. Complicating matters is the 2012 presidential campaign, which has Republicans candidates clamoring for stronger U.S. support of Israel.

Administration officials caution that Tehran shouldn’t misunderstand: The United States has a 60-year commitment to Israeli security, and if Israel’s population centers were hit, the United States could feel obligated to come to Israel’s defense.

Israelis are said to believe that a military strike could be limited and contained. They would bomb the uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz and other targets; an attack on the buried enrichment facility at Qom would be harder from the air. Iranians would retaliate, but Israelis doubt the action would be an overwhelming barrage, with rockets from Hezbollah forces in Lebanon. One Israeli estimate is that the Jewish state might have to absorb 500 casualties.

Israelis point to Syria’s lack of response to an Israeli attack on a nuclear reactor there in 2007. Iranians might show similar restraint, because of fear the regime would be endangered by all-out war. Some Israelis have also likened a strike on Iran to the 1976 hostage-rescue raid on Entebbe, Uganda, which was followed by a change of regime in that country.

Israeli leaders are said to accept, and even welcome, the prospect of going it alone and demonstrating their resolve at a time when their security is undermined by the “Arab Spring.”

“You stay to the side, and let us do it,” one Israel official is said to have advised the United States. A “short-war” scenario assumes five days or so of limited Israeli strikes, followed by a U.N.-brokered cease-fire. Israelis are said to recognize that damage to the nuclear program might be modest, requiring another strike in a few years.

U.S. officials see two possible ways to dissuade the Israelis from such an attack: Tehran could finally open serious negotiations for a formula to verifiably guarantee that its nuclear program will remain a civilian one; or the United States could step up its covert actions to degrade the program so much that Israelis would decide military action wasn’t necessary.

U.S. officials don’t think that Netanyahu has made a final decision to attack, and they note that top Israeli intelligence officials remain skeptical of the project. But senior Americans doubt the Israelis are bluffing. They’re worrying about the guns of spring — and the unintended consequences.

BBC News – UN Syria text drops call for Assad power handover.

(The “weasel factor” reigns supreme… – JW )

Diplomats at the UN Security Council have watered down a resolution on Syria in an apparent attempt to overcome Russian objections to an earlier draft.

The revised text – seen by the BBC – drops the call for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to hand over powers to his deputy – the key part of a peace plan proposed by the Arab League.

It also removes a reference to stopping the flow of arms to Syria.

The Russians argued that the Arab plan imposed regime change.

Ambassadors began intense negotiations on Wednesday, after a high-level meeting urging the Council to back an Arab plan to end the crisis.

Diplomatic sources say Western states appear to support the new text – drawn up by Morocco – on condition that it gets a yes vote from Russia, rather than an abstention, according to the BBC’s Barbara Plett at the UN headquarters in New York.

So far the Russians have been non-committal, she says.

Human rights groups and activists say more than 7,000 people have been killed by Syrian security forces since the uprising began in March.

Security forces closed public squares and set up checkpoints on Thursday in the flashpoint central city of Hama.

It came after protesters splashed red paint in the streets to mark 30 years since an uprising there was crushed by Mr Assad’s father Hafez, with the deaths of at least 10,000 people.

“They want to kill the memory and they do not want us to remember,” said an activist in the city, where residents said tanks blocked main squares to prevent demonstrations.

“But we will not accept it,” the activist told Reuters news agency.

Mr Assad’s forces have been fighting back against rebels – in recent days claiming back suburbs of Damascus and areas north-west of the capital.

‘Brutal regime’

On Wednesday, diplomats said discussions had been positive, with US Ambassador Susan Rice saying talks had been conducted in a “constructive and roll-up-your-sleeves manner”.

The Arab League suspended its monitoring mission last month after it failed to stop the violence

However, she also admitted that the call for Mr Assad to hand over power to his deputy remained “one of the more difficult issues”.

Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin also said progress had been made, saying: “I think we have a much better understanding of what we need to do to reach consensus.”

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had earlier said Council members must decide whether they supported the Syrian people or “a brutal, dictatorial regime”.

At least 43 people were killed by security forces on Wednesday, according to one activist group.

The UN stopped estimating the death toll in Syria after it passed 5,400 in January, saying it was too difficult to confirm.

The government says at least 2,000 members of the security forces have been killed combating “armed gangs and terrorists”.