WarSclerotic

US Air Force prepared if diplomacy with Iran fails general – Channel NewsAsia.

General Norton Schwartz, air force chief of staff, declined to say whether US weapons — including a 30,000-pound massive ordnance penetrator (MOP) bomb — could reach nuclear sites in Iran that were concealed or buried deep underground.

“We have an operational capability and you wouldn’t want to be there when we used it,” said Schwartz, when asked about the MOP bomb.

“Not to say that we can’t continue to make improvements and we are,” he told defence reporters.

Amid speculation that a nuclear site dug into the side of a mountain near Qom is beyond the reach of American weapons, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has acknowledged shortcomings with the giant MOP bomb and said the Pentagon was working to improve the explosive.

“The bottom line is we have a capability but we’re not sitting on our hands, we’ll continue to improve it over time,” Schwartz said.

Asked about recent comments from retired senior officers that some targets in Iran are immune from US air power, Schwartz said: “It goes without saying that strike is about physics. The deeper you go the harder it gets.”

But he added that the US arsenal “is not an inconsequential capability.”

The former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired general James Cartwright, suggested last week that one nuclear facility in Iran could not be taken out in a bombing campaign.

Cartwright appeared to be referring to the Fordo plant built deep inside a mountain near the Shiite shrine city of Qom, some 150 kilometres (90 miles) south of Tehran.

Schwartz also declined to say whether air power would be effective against Iran’s nuclear program but said that the outcome of any pre-emptive attack would depend on the goal of the strike.

“What is the objective? Is it to eliminate, is to delay, is to complicate? I mean what is the national security objective. That is sort of the imminent argument on all of this,” he said.

“There’s a tendency I think for all of us to get tactical too quickly and worry about weaponeering and things of that nature.”

The general’s carefully calibrated remarks coincided with a visit to Washington this week by Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, amid renewed speculation of a potential Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear program.

-AFP/ac

Obama Officials Talking Tougher About Iran as Netanyahu Visit Approaches – Bloomberg.

Obama administration officials are escalating warnings that the U.S. could join Israel in attacking Iran if the Islamic republic doesn’t dispel concerns that its nuclear-research program is aimed at producing weapons.

Four days before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to arrive in Washington, Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz told reporters that the Joint Chiefs of Staff have prepared military options to strike Iranian nuclear sites in the event of a conflict.

 

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg

“What we can do, you wouldn’t want to be in the area,” Schwartz told reporters in Washington yesterday.

Pentagon officials said military options being prepared start with providing aerial refueling for Israeli planes and also include attacking the pillars of the clerical regime, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its elite Qods Force, regular Iranian military bases and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Pentagon plans are classified.

“There’s no group in America more determined to prevent Iran from achieving a nuclear weapon than the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Joint Chiefs Chairman Army General Martin Dempsey told the House Budget Committee yesterday. “I can assure you of that.”

Separately, unnamed U.S. officials told the Washington Post (WPO) that U.S. military planners are increasingly confident that sustained attacks with the Air Force’s 30,000-pound “bunker- buster” bombs could put Iran’s deeply buried uranium enrichment plant at Fordo out of commission.

Meetings Failing

The latest American warnings of possible military action against Iran come after a series of meetings between top Israeli and Obama administration officials failed to resolve differences over when an attack would become necessary, according to officials of both countries who have participated in the discussions.

“Because there is uncertainty about the administration’s will to act in the Israelis’ minds, and more importantly in the Iranians’ minds, it’s very important that we don’t just say that all options are on the table, but also show that they are, by some overt means,” Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican who heads the House Intelligence Committee and was one of the recent visitors to Israel, said in a telephone interview.

Other U.S. officials spoke only on condition of anonymity because the discussions have been private and because the administration is trying to reassure Israel and its American supporters of its determination while also tamping down fears that are helping drive up oil prices.

Drawing the Line

The most significant difference between the U.S. and Israel, said American officials, is where to draw the line on Iran’s nuclear program.

Obama administration officials have suggested that the trigger for military action should be a decision by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to enrich uranium beyond a current level of 20 percent that supports nuclear power generation to a weapons-grade level 85 or 90 percent.

U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials said they agree that such a decision would be hard to detect until sometime after it had been made.

While their American counterparts are focused on enrichment, Israeli officials described Iran’s nuclear program as a three-legged stool that also includes efforts in different locations to develop a missile warhead capable of delivering a nuclear weapon, a trigger for nuclear explosions and other components of a nuclear device.

Targets Measured

While Israeli officials told the Americans that their ability to strike Iran is greater than most people recognize, Iran’s enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordo would be extremely difficult for the Israeli Air Force to destroy with its largest weapon, the 5,000-pound GBU-28.

Iran’s warhead and weaponization facilities at the military complexes at Parchin and Bidganeh and elsewhere are more vulnerable, at least for now, the Israeli officials said, according to Americans who met with them.

Iran barred inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency from the Parchin site in February, and a still- unexplained Nov. 14 explosion at the Bidganeh missile base killed an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps general.

The Israelis said what worries them is that Iran could complete work on warheads, triggers, neutron reflectors and the other ingredients of a nuclear weapon or move that work to harder-to-hit facilities.

Intelligence Report

A recent U.S. intelligence analysis concluded that, if Iran can get its centrifuges to produce weapons-grade uranium and assemble in different locations the 33-44 pounds (15-20 kilograms) of material needed for a weapon, a delivery system and other necessary components, it could build a nuclear weapon in two months, said two U.S. officials who have read the analysis.

Further underscoring the timing issue, U.S. and Israeli officials have concluded that Iran might be content with a computer test of a new weapon rather than detonating one in the desert, thanks in part to confidence inspired by what they said is significant North Korean assistance. These officials also spoke only on the basis of anonymity because intelligence matters are classified.

The American officials said their Israeli counterparts are less inclined than the Obama administration is to give the toughening economic sanctions on Iran more time to work for a second reason: They are skeptical that sanctions can ever persuade Iran to abandon its pursuit of a nuclear weapon.

Israel’s Role

In different meetings with American counterparts in Washington, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Netanyahu, Barak and Tamir Pardo, the head of Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, argued that only Israeli military action prevented Iraq and Syria from going nuclear.

They also argued that witnessing the dictators of non- nuclear Iraq and Libya toppled by or with Western assistance, coupled with a deep sense that Shiite Muslim Persia is entitled to a weapon that Christians, Jews, Sunnis, Hindus, Russia and China all possess may reinforce Iran’s intentions of continuing to develop a weapon.

High-level visitors have included Barak, Pardo, Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director David Petraeus, Dempsey, U.S. National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, White House adviser Dennis Ross, Rogers and C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger, the ranking Democrat on the U.S. House Intelligence Committee.

U.S. Resolve Questioned

These talks have failed to dispel Israeli doubts that President Barack Obama is willing to do whatever is necessary to keep nuclear weapons out of Iranian hands, the American officials said. Barak described a meeting with Panetta yesterday only as “important and useful.”

Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, the U.S. officials reported, said they don’t think Iran is convinced of Obama’s determination, either. They said they base that on the administration’s continued emphasis on sanctions.

Responding to a question during a House Appropriations subcommittee budget hearing yesterday about concerns Israel might attack Iran, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton responded: “Let’s focus on economic sanctions that we have the world behind right now. We believe we’re making progress on the sanctions front.”

U.S. Policies

Still, the Israeli officials also have told their U.S. counterparts they think the Iranians see what they consider a pattern of irresolute administration behavior that includes abandoning former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, taking only a supporting role in the overthrow of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, indecision on how to deal with violence in Syria and a rush to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan in response to domestic political pressures.

Finally, the Israelis told some U.S. officials that the administration’s failure to retaliate against Iran for plotting to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. and its inability to get Egypt to free the son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who is one of 16 American pro-democracy activists charged with operating without government permission, has reinforced an image of American weakness.

Some Republicans share those doubts. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the Obama administration should be “more clear” in its determination to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capability.

“The intelligence community is uncertain about Iranian intentions,” Graham told reporters at a news conference yesterday. ”You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure this out.”

To contact the reporter on this story: John Walcott in Washington at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net

EDITORIAL: Keeping Obama guessing on Iran – Washington Times.

Jewish state adopts a don’t ask, don’t tell policy

Israel has adopted a new “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. In this case, it refers to not telling President Obama about presumed plans to take military action against Iran.

High-ranking Israeli officials reportedly have informed their American counterparts they will not give the United States advance warning should the Jewish state decide to make a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The idea is to offer the United States plausible deniability in dealing with the repercussions of an attack.

It’s a bit implausible to think the Iranians would ever believe we were not involved in any such attack’s planning and execution. Tehran assumes that America, the “Great Satan,” secretly manipulates Israel, the “Little Satan,” and that nothing happens in the region without the White House seal of approval. Reports of this new policy will be read by the mullahs as simply a way of confusing the issue, a planned disinformation campaign ahead of an attack that already has the green light from Washington.

The policy makes sense from Israel’s perspective. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no reason to believe Mr. Obama would back military action against Iran, even if the mission were already under way. If Israel is being forced to go it alone, operational security demands that Washington be kept in the dark. The situation is similar to the way the United States keeps Pakistan guessing about American operations in that part of the world. Decision-makers in Israel have to ask themselves whether someone in the Obama administration might just leak news of an impending attack in the misguided notion that it would forestall military action and advance the cause of peace.

There is reason to believe this would be the case. On Monday, Deputy National Security Adviser Antony Blinken said the administration believes that Iran “has not made a decision to produce a nuclear weapon, they are not on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon, and there is still time and space for diplomacy to work.” The objective of U.S. Iran policy is “buying time and continuing to move this problem into the future, and if you can do that – strange things can happen in the interim.” Thus, thwarting an Israeli strike is consistent with stated White House policy. In an election year, the president will want to avoid a new Mideast crisis, which would drive up oil prices.

We’ve been in this position before. President Eisenhower reacted strongly to being excluded from plans by Britain, France and Israel to intervene in Egypt during the 1956 Suez crisis. America brought diplomatic and financial pressure to bear to force the three powers to withdraw. Mr. Obama may not have the necessary leverage to compel Israel to back down. In 1956, the United States was an ascendant global power led by a general. Mr. Obama’s America is in decline and leading from behind.

The Washington Times

Israel’s Last Chance to Strike Iran – NYTimes.com.

ON July 7, 1981, I was one of eight Israeli fighter pilots who bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak. As we sat in the briefing room listening to the army chief of staff, Rafael Eitan, before starting our planes’ engines, I recalled a conversation a week earlier when he’d asked us to voice any concerns about our mission.

We told him about the risks we foresaw: running out of fuel, Iraqi retaliation, how a strike could harm our relationship with America, and the limited impact a successful mission might have — perhaps delaying Iraq’s nuclear quest by only a few years. Listening to today’s debates about Iran, we hear the same arguments and face the same difficulties, even though we understand it is not 1981.

Shortly after we destroyed Osirak, the Israeli defense attaché in Washington was called into the Pentagon. He was expecting a rebuke. Instead, he was faced with a single question: How did you do it? The United States military had assumed that the F-16 aircraft they had provided to Israel had neither the range nor the ordnance to attack Iraq successfully. The mistake then, as now, was to underestimate Israel’s military ingenuity.

We had simply maximized fuel efficiency and used experienced pilots, trained specifically for this mission. We ejected our external fuel tanks en route to Iraq and then attacked the reactor with pinpoint accuracy from so close and such a low altitude that our unguided bombs were as accurate and effective as precision-guided munitions.

Today, Israel sees the prospect of a nuclear Iran that calls for our annihilation as an existential threat. An Israeli strike against Iran would be a last resort, if all else failed to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program. That moment of decision will occur when Iran is on the verge of shielding its nuclear facilities from a successful attack — what Israel’s leaders have called the “zone of immunity.”

Some experts oppose an attack because they claim that even a successful strike would, at best, delay Iran’s nuclear program for only a short time. But their analysis is faulty. Today, almost any industrialized country can produce a nuclear weapon in four to five years — hence any successful strike would achieve a delay of only a few years.

What matters more is the campaign after the attack. When we were briefed before the Osirak raid, we were told that a successful mission would delay the Iraqi nuclear program for only three to five years. But history told a different story.

After the Osirak attack and the destruction of the Syrian reactor in 2007, the Iraqi and Syrian nuclear programs were never fully resumed. This could be the outcome in Iran, too, if military action is followed by tough sanctions, stricter international inspections and an embargo on the sale of nuclear components to Tehran. Iran, like Iraq and Syria before it, will have to recognize that the precedent for military action has been set, and can be repeated.

Others claim that an attack on the Iranian nuclear program would destabilize the region. But a nuclear Iran could lead to far worse: a regional nuclear arms race without a red phone to defuse an escalating crisis, Iranian aggression in the Persian Gulf, more confident Iranian surrogates like Hezbollah and the threat of nuclear materials’ being transferred to terrorist organizations.

Ensuring that Iran does not go nuclear is the best guarantee for long-term regional stability. A nonnuclear Iran would be infinitely easier to contain than an Iran with nuclear weapons.

President Obama has said America will “use all elements of American power to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.” Israel takes him at his word.

The problem, however, is one of time. Israel doesn’t have the safety of distance, nor do we have the United States Air Force’s advanced fleet of bombers and fighters. America could carry out an extensive air campaign using stealth technology and huge amounts of ammunition, dropping enormous payloads that are capable of hitting targets and penetrating to depths far beyond what Israel’s arsenal can achieve.

This gives America more time than Israel in determining when the moment of decision has finally been reached. And as that moment draws closer, differing timetables are becoming a source of tension.

On Monday, Mr. Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel are to meet in Washington. Of all their encounters, this could be the most critical. Asking Israel’s leaders to abide by America’s timetable, and hence allowing Israel’s window of opportunity to be closed, is to make Washington a de facto proxy for Israel’s security — a tremendous leap of faith for Israelis faced with a looming Iranian bomb. It doesn’t help when American officials warn Israel against acting without clarifying what America intends to do once its own red lines are crossed.

Mr. Obama will therefore have to shift the Israeli defense establishment’s thinking from a focus on the “zone of immunity” to a “zone of trust.” What is needed is an ironclad American assurance that if Israel refrains from acting in its own window of opportunity — and all other options have failed to halt Tehran’s nuclear quest — Washington will act to prevent a nuclear Iran while it is still within its power to do so.

I hope Mr. Obama will make this clear. If he does not, Israeli leaders may well choose to act while they still can.

Some U.S. allies foresee a nuclear-armed Iran – Washington Times.

World not speaking with one voice on response to regime’s activities

Security is always heavy around the annual policy conference of the pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, but with the presidents of the United States and Israel and the Israeli prime minister in attendance, along with an uptick in Iranian terrorism and a foiled Arab suicide bombing last month inside the U.S. Capitol, look for it to be even tighter this year.

The terror threat will reinforce the message of AIPAC and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that will permeate the conference: Stop Iran Now.

President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, shown here in May 2009, will meet again next week. Photo by Pete Souza/White House t

AIPAC’s annual forum March 4-6 is expected to attract a record-setting 11,000 to 13,000 activists to the Washington Convention Center, including some 400 individuals from the Philadelphia area.

Iran will also be high on the agenda during a meeting between Netanyahu and President Barack Obama that is slated for March 5, the same day as Netanyahu’s speech to the AIPAC gathering.

Obama’s greatest challenge will be keeping Netanyahu from turning the conference into a war rally aimed at tying American hands and giving Israel a free hand to attack Iran at a time of its choosing.

Republicans are barking at Obama’s heels, accusing him of being too soft on Iran and too tough on Israel, and three GOP presidential hopefuls — Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich — are telling Netanyahu he has their backing if he decides to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Iran has been AIPAC’s No. 1 issue for two decades, and when its thousands of members spread out across Capitol Hill on Tuesday to lobby their senators and representatives, their top assignment will be getting sponsors for a new Senate resolution seeking to lower the threshold for going to war.

The non-binding resolution — initiated by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) and Robert Casey (D-Pa.) — aims to move the red line for an American attack from “acquiring” nuclear weapons to having the “capability.” That is Israel’s standard and it wants Washington to publicly adopt it as well.

The resolution stops just short of threatening military action, but Lieberman leaves no doubt what he has in mind. The message to Iran, he said, is, “you have only two choices — peacefully negotiate” an end to your program or “expect a military strike.”

Even more than in past years, the call to arms is meant to intensify pressure on Iran. Obama has said all options are on the table, but Republicans insist that’s not enough — for Iran to take the military threat seriously it must see visible preparations for an attack. They’re telling Obama he should give full backing to whatever Israel decides.

That conflicts with what the Pew Research Center found in its recent polling. While 58 percent of Americans support using military force, if necessary, to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, only 40 percent support such action by Israel and half would want to remain neutral if Israel does go it alone.

Obama will address AIPAC on Sunday and will stress America’s “ironclad” commitment to Israel’s security, his record of support and his determination to keep Iran out of the nuclear club.

When the two leaders meet Monday at the White House, the president is expected to tell Netanyahu that international sanctions are working and urge him not to attack Iran this year. Reports from both capitals say Obama will seek advance warning of an Israeli attack, and Netanyahu will turn him down.

Senior diplomatic, intelligence and security officials have been traveling back and forth between Washington and Jerusalem quite a bit lately. The Americans have been urging patience and the Israelis, at least at the political level, are saying it’s later than you think.

Behind the unusual media coverage of these exchanges is said to be an American concern that their message isn’t getting through in private so it is necessary to go public. And it’s clear there is little trust on either side when it comes to Iran.

Netanyahu’s message to AIPAC will pound home his theme that international sanctions aren’t working. Without openly calling for military action, he will remind the audience that in the past week, the U.N. nuclear oversight agency reported that Iran has significantly expanded its uranium enrichment beyond levels required for peaceful production of energy and its inspectors were refused access to a key nuclear facility.

Obama has the strong backing of the former heads of Israel’s security services, who share his opposition to a pre-emptive strike.  And Netanyahu has the backing of Republicans trying to make support for Israel a partisan wedge issue in the presidential campaign.

Some observers in Israel and Washington say that if Netanyahu opts for an attack before November, it will be as much for political as strategic reasons. He is believed to feel that if he strikes before the presidential election, Obama, whom Republicans and some in the Jewish community accuse of not being supportive enough for Israel, would have little choice but to stand with him no matter how much the attack damages U.S. interests. But after November, it would be a far riskier game for the Israeli prime minister.

Netanyahu will have the AIPAC audience and many politicians cheering the war talk, but he also knows the American people don’t want another Mideast conflagration. They can’t ignore the danger of terrorism, attacks on American interest in the region, igniting an oil crisis and setting back the global economic recovery, all possible repercussions of an Israeli attack.

As he makes his decision about whether to strike Iran or not, Netanyahu also has to consider his country’s security in terms of the long-range impact on bilateral relations if the American public blames Israel for dragging the United States into a war.

AIPAC to Target Iran | The Jewish Exponent.

Security is always heavy around the annual policy conference of the pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, but with the presidents of the United States and Israel and the Israeli prime minister in attendance, along with an uptick in Iranian terrorism and a foiled Arab suicide bombing last month inside the U.S. Capitol, look for it to be even tighter this year.

The terror threat will reinforce the message of AIPAC and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that will permeate the conference: Stop Iran Now.

President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, shown here in May 2009, will meet again next week. Photo by Pete Souza/White House t

AIPAC’s annual forum March 4-6 is expected to attract a record-setting 11,000 to 13,000 activists to the Washington Convention Center, including some 400 individuals from the Philadelphia area.

Iran will also be high on the agenda during a meeting between Netanyahu and President Barack Obama that is slated for March 5, the same day as Netanyahu’s speech to the AIPAC gathering.

Obama’s greatest challenge will be keeping Netanyahu from turning the conference into a war rally aimed at tying American hands and giving Israel a free hand to attack Iran at a time of its choosing.

Republicans are barking at Obama’s heels, accusing him of being too soft on Iran and too tough on Israel, and three GOP presidential hopefuls — Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich — are telling Netanyahu he has their backing if he decides to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Iran has been AIPAC’s No. 1 issue for two decades, and when its thousands of members spread out across Capitol Hill on Tuesday to lobby their senators and representatives, their top assignment will be getting sponsors for a new Senate resolution seeking to lower the threshold for going to war.

The non-binding resolution — initiated by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) and Robert Casey (D-Pa.) — aims to move the red line for an American attack from “acquiring” nuclear weapons to having the “capability.” That is Israel’s standard and it wants Washington to publicly adopt it as well.

The resolution stops just short of threatening military action, but Lieberman leaves no doubt what he has in mind. The message to Iran, he said, is, “you have only two choices — peacefully negotiate” an end to your program or “expect a military strike.”

Even more than in past years, the call to arms is meant to intensify pressure on Iran. Obama has said all options are on the table, but Republicans insist that’s not enough — for Iran to take the military threat seriously it must see visible preparations for an attack. They’re telling Obama he should give full backing to whatever Israel decides.

That conflicts with what the Pew Research Center found in its recent polling. While 58 percent of Americans support using military force, if necessary, to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, only 40 percent support such action by Israel and half would want to remain neutral if Israel does go it alone.

Obama will address AIPAC on Sunday and will stress America’s “ironclad” commitment to Israel’s security, his record of support and his determination to keep Iran out of the nuclear club.

When the two leaders meet Monday at the White House, the president is expected to tell Netanyahu that international sanctions are working and urge him not to attack Iran this year. Reports from both capitals say Obama will seek advance warning of an Israeli attack, and Netanyahu will turn him down.

Senior diplomatic, intelligence and security officials have been traveling back and forth between Washington and Jerusalem quite a bit lately. The Americans have been urging patience and the Israelis, at least at the political level, are saying it’s later than you think.

Behind the unusual media coverage of these exchanges is said to be an American concern that their message isn’t getting through in private so it is necessary to go public. And it’s clear there is little trust on either side when it comes to Iran.

Netanyahu’s message to AIPAC will pound home his theme that international sanctions aren’t working. Without openly calling for military action, he will remind the audience that in the past week, the U.N. nuclear oversight agency reported that Iran has significantly expanded its uranium enrichment beyond levels required for peaceful production of energy and its inspectors were refused access to a key nuclear facility.

Obama has the strong backing of the former heads of Israel’s security services, who share his opposition to a pre-emptive strike.  And Netanyahu has the backing of Republicans trying to make support for Israel a partisan wedge issue in the presidential campaign.

Some observers in Israel and Washington say that if Netanyahu opts for an attack before November, it will be as much for political as strategic reasons. He is believed to feel that if he strikes before the presidential election, Obama, whom Republicans and some in the Jewish community accuse of not being supportive enough for Israel, would have little choice but to stand with him no matter how much the attack damages U.S. interests. But after November, it would be a far riskier game for the Israeli prime minister.

Netanyahu will have the AIPAC audience and many politicians cheering the war talk, but he also knows the American people don’t want another Mideast conflagration. They can’t ignore the danger of terrorism, attacks on American interest in the region, igniting an oil crisis and setting back the global economic recovery, all possible repercussions of an Israeli attack.

As he makes his decision about whether to strike Iran or not, Netanyahu also has to consider his country’s security in terms of the long-range impact on bilateral relations if the American public blames Israel for dragging the United States into a war.

Jerusalem, Washington and the bomb – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Next Monday, in the White House, the man from Washington and the man from Jerusalem will look into each other’s eyes. Each will see the abyss in the other’s pupils.

By Ari Shavit

In Ottawa visit, Netanyahu will seek backing for strike on Iran – The Globe and Mail.

Stephen Harper is caught between two allies. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travels to North America in a high-stakes gambit to find political support for a strike on Iran, Mr. Harper wants to back his Israeli ally without ticking off a bigger one in Washington.

The two prime ministers are planning to stand side by side at a press conference on Friday, where Mr. Netanyahu’s case for war to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons is likely to be the hot topic. Mr. Harper faces a decision about whether to endorse it, or urge restraint.

For the Israeli Prime Minister, it’s a stop on the way to a far more charged meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, whose administration has urged Mr. Netanyahu to cool the rush to strike Iran. The Israeli leader will look to Mr. Harper, a staunch supporter, for signals of sympathy.

Mr. Netanyahu made the purpose of his trip clear on Monday when he said that in both meetings with Mr. Obama and Mr. Harper, Iran’s nuclear program “will be at the centre of our talks.” Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, citing a senior official, said Mr. Netanyahu will push Mr. Obama to go beyond his line that an attack is “not off the table” and threaten to strike Iran if its nuclear program crosses “red lines.”

Ottawa could be his first platform in a North American campaign to gain some international backing for an early strike. If Mr. Netanyahu is true to past form, that effort could see him appeal over Mr. Obama’s head to American public opinion in an election year.

Mr. Harper has already offered some rhetorical support, in January, when he said Iran is the greatest threat to global security, in language that lends credence to a pre-emptive strike.

“In my judgment, these are people who have a particular, you know, fanatically religious worldview, and their statements imply to me no hesitation of using nuclear weapons if they see them achieving their religious or political purposes,” he told the CBC.

Senior U.S. officials have since taken issue with that mad-mullahs analysis. The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, described Iran as a “rational actor” and opined that a strike now would be premature. But officials in the United States have floated concerns Israel will strike this spring, as early as April.

“The Obama administration is clearly not interested in this happening in an election year – if at all. They believe that sanctions are having a considerable effect, and that they can modify Iranian behaviour in that way,” said Peter Jones of the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. “It’s going to be a real tug of war in Washington.”

Timing is a key issue: Israel’s government worries that its military won’t be able to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons after this summer, even if it doesn’t yet have the bomb. The United States argues there’s still more time, but Israel’s concern is that even if the U.S. military still has the capability to hit Iran after that, Israel’s own unilateral ability to strike effectively may be gone in a few months, Mr. Jones said.

For Mr. Obama, the debate is already a feature of an election year, in which Republican contenders have charged he is soft on Iran. Both the President and then Mr. Netanyahu will deliver speeches early next week to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a major pro-Israel lobby, on either side of their meeting Monday at the White House.

For Mr. Harper, wading into the question on Friday means stepping into highly charged political terrain in the United States. He has made it a policy to back Israel, blocking, for example, language in a G8 resolution last summer that pressed Israel to negotiate peace based on pre-war 1967 boundaries, arguing it didn’t underline similar concessions for Palestinians.

His staunch support, according to some who have worked closely with him on the issue, stems not from electoral politics, on an issue that is likely to have a major impact in only a handful of ridings, but on a fairly black-and-white view of Israel as the only Western-style democracy surrounded by undemocratic, hostile neighbours.

But Mr. Harper’s hot rhetoric on Iran has led to criticisms that he is helping Mr. Netanyahu shrink the last opportunities for a negotiated, diplomatic solution for Iran – which insists its nuclear program is for civilian energy – to back away from developing weapons.

The former Canadian ambassador to Iran, John Mundy, penned a piece in The Globe and Mail last week urging him to cool the tone, and oppose a unilateral Israeli attack. He said that encourage diplomatic space for Iranian leaders – motivated, like others, by their own interests – to come to the negotiating table.

Houchang Hassan-Yari, an Iran expert at the Royal Military College in Kingston, said the Iranian regime won’t want to appear to negotiate under threat of attack, but sanctions are biting.

Beyond the fear of Iranian retaliation, including the sponsoring of terror attacks through Hezbollah and threats to close oil shipping routes, Mr. Hassan-Yari said there is another danger: military strikes might only delay Iran’s development of nuclear weapons, and in the meantime, harden the regime’s resolve to acquire them, and tighten its grip on power at home.

“Although the rhetoric coming from Tehran is extremely harsh, now the sanctions are proving their effectiveness. Internally, the Islamic Republic is challenged by many people,” he said. “And I would say the situation could be ripe for negotiations.”

Israel v. Iran: A War of Words.

The debate over when or if Israel will attack Iran’s nuclear facilities has been raging of late and I am beginning to suspect that much of what passes for news represents a charade being orchestrated between Israel and the United States to ratchet up pressure on Iran’s leaders.

President Obama will address the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on Sunday and no doubt his speech will be closely parsed for any indication of an official U.S. position regarding Iran’s aggressive pursuit of nuclear weapons. The address by Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will likewise be analyzed. Suffice to say, both oppose a nuclear Iran.

One fact stands out. U.S. efforts, in concert with other Western nations and aided by some Middle Eastern nations, have put tremendous pressure on Iran’s ability to sell its oil and to collect the revenues. It is having some success.

Another fact that is often overlooked is that Iran has avoided war since its conflict with Iraq from September 1980 to August 1988. It was costly in lives and treasure for Iran and ended in a stalemate. Later Saddam Hussein would attack Kuwait an act that played a role in the decision to put together a coalition to drive the Iraqis out and to later invade Iraq and depose Saddam.

Iran has preferred to use proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza to pursue its attacks on Israel. It supports terrorist activity. Its alliance with Syria is going to be affected by the outcome of the internal attacks on the Assad dictatorship. The bulk of the Middle Eastern nations are united in their condemnation of the Syrian leader. Except for pro-forma support from Russia and China in the United Nations, Iran is increasingly isolated.

As Prof. Barry Rubin recently wrote in The Jerusalem Post, credible observers and analysts of the Middle East believe that Iran wants nuclear weapons because “Iran’s main goal, like that of Pakistan, is to make itself immune to any reprisals for terrorism and subversion by having nuclear weapons.” Prof. Rubin asserted that “In part, the rationale for the nuclear program is outdated, though that certainly won’t stop Tehran from pursuing it.” Prof. Rubin is an Israeli scholar, a research director, and a member of the editorial board of the Middle East Quarterly.

Prof. Rubin noted that, “After 32 years in power the Islamist regime in Tehran has yet to do something really adventurous abroad.”

Then there is the belief by military experts that Israel may, in fact, lack the capability to effectively neutralize Iran’s nuclear program. Richard Russell, a professor at the U.S. National Defense University’s Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies in Washington, D.C., has said that “The Israelis actually have limited means of attacking Iran’s nuclear program. This is a very, very difficult problem for the Israelis, and it’s getting more and more acute.”

While acknowledging that Israel’s air force is “capable of launching an attack on Iran and causing damage”, Yifah Shaper, director of the Military Balance Program at Tel Aviv’s University for National Security Studies, has said that “It is far from capable of disabling the Iran nuclear program. That would take at least a month of sustained bombing, That’s not something Israel can carry out alone.”

Retired U.S. Air Force General, Charles ‘Chuck’ Wald, calculates that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would require in excess of one thousand sorties. None of this is lost on the Israelis.

While Israel has previously destroyed nuclear reactors in Iraq in 1981 and again in Syria in 2007, the logistics of disabling Iran’s extensive nuclear facilities would be daunting. Israel would simultaneously have to invade southern Lebanon to deter Hezbollah’s use of thousands of missiles there.

While I have previously expressed the view that Israel would, if it lacked any other option, attack Iran, a closer examination of the many factors involved in such an operation suggests that it would only occur if there was credible evidence that Iran was preparing to launch nuclear-armed missiles. Current intelligence analysis suggests that Iran is still far from manufacturing the nuclear warheads for its missiles.

The question remains whether the ayatollahs running Iran would risk any attack by Israel and while, in general, that option exists, the economic weakening of Iran by current sanctions, they would likely exacerbate Iran’s leadership facing problem a restive, unhappy population that wants them out of power. An attack might serve to unite Iranians..

Finally, Iran’s military is far from capable of dealing with an Israeli air attack that might conceivably trigger support by the U.S. and allied nations. None of the Gulf nations has any love for Iran. There are lots of U.S. military assets in the region.

As the rhetoric heats up, Iran has been making a show of its military strength holding military exercises and by sending elements of its limited naval capability through the Suez canal and meaningless trips in the Mediterranean. It continues to threaten to close the Strait of Hormuz. Its Air Force is nothing to write home about either. It is composed of aged U.S. aircraft and Russian aircraft.

While a war of words will continue between Israel, the United States, and Iran, a cold calculation argues against an Israeli attack and against U.S. involvement after more than a decade of U.S. conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Neither nation wants a shooting war with Iran.

The odds, in this observer’s view, are against an Israeli attack despite my earlier concerns that it could or would occur in the near term.

Global Edmonton | New deadline for Iran penalties passes with no action from Obama administration.

Read it on Global News: Global Edmonton | New deadline for Iran penalties passes with no action from Obama administration

WASHINGTON – A congressional deadline for the Obama administration to begin enforcing new financial penalties on foreign firms that do business with Iran passed Wednesday with no fresh action from Washington.

While some congressional authors of a bill President Barack Obama signed Dec. 31 expected the administration to announce new punishments on foreign banks, the Treasury Department said it did not have the authority to take that step now.

Top administration officials instead pointed to success in persuading friendly countries and financial institutions to cut ties with the Islamic republic on their own.

The legislation gave the administration 60 days to investigate private foreign financial institutions engaged in non-petroleum transactions with Iran’s powerful Central Bank. That is a run up to heavier sanctions on Iran’s lucrative oil business that take effect this summer.

The White House hopes that tough commitment to financial pressure will persuade Israel to back away from the possibility of launching a military strike on Iran, an approach the U.S. believes is shortsighted. Obama will make that case directly to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday when the two leaders meet at the White House.

Some in Washington expected Obama to strengthen his position ahead of the high-stakes meeting by announcing fresh economic penalties that went into effect Wednesday. The penalties were included in a law Obama signed on Dec. 31.

But the administration chose not to immediately take action, and officials disagreed about when they could. A Treasury official said the administration has been identifying financial institutions that may be involved with transactions that could be sanctioned so they would be prepared to act following the deadline.

A senior Senate aide involved in Iran sanctions said that by not announcing new penalties Wednesday, the administration had failed to comply with the law as it was intended.

Both officials requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

In testimony on Capitol Hill and private negotiations with key allies around the world, Obama administration officials insisted sanctions already levied on Iran were working and that more economic pressure can thwart Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told Congress the administration is having success in pushing U.S. allies to cut ties with Iran on their own rather than face American sanctions.

“We have faced some challenges because even some of our very best friends have to make serious adjustments in order to comply,” Clinton said. “But we’ve laid the groundwork so that they understand that … this is an important international commitment and they’re stepping up.”

The legislation said that “beginning on the date that is 60 days after the date of the enactment of this act, the president shall prohibit” any privately owned foreign financial institutions from engaging in significant non-oil transactions with Iran’s Central Bank. Oil sanctions would be added later under the same legislation.

The United States would have had ample examples of foreign firms that have continued to do lucrative business with the powerful Iranian central bank since December.

“Our approach right now is to continue to pursue the diplomatic path that we’ve taken, combined with very aggressive sanctions,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday. “There is time and space to continue to pursue the policy that we have been pursuing since the president took office.”

Since the United States does little real business with Iran, its economic leverage comes largely from the threat of U.S. financial punishment on foreign government or businesses.

Iran has an extensive international trade network, including longstanding economic relationships with many U.S. allies. Since long before the current crisis over a possible Israeli strike, the U.S. has taken a cautious approach to punishing friendly foreign entities.

The sanctions that went into effect Wednesday put the White House in the awkward position of choosing whether to punish financial institutions in countries that are friendly to the U.S., mainly in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

The U.S. has approached financial institutions around the world to caution them to stop doing business with Iranian banks.

One such institution, the Dubai-based Noor Islamic Bank, said Wednesday that it had stopped doing business with Iranian banks in December, shortly before Obama signed the defence bill into law. Noor appears to have acted, at least indirectly, in response to Washington’s efforts to tighten the screws on Tehran.

“When we became aware in December 2011, that unilateral U.S. sanctions were to be applied against a number of Iranian banks, we took pre-emptive action to end our business relationships with Iranian banks licensed in the UAE,” the bank said.

Dubai, just across the Gulf from Iran, is a major Middle East banking and commercial hub and an important trading centre for Iranian merchants. It is one of seven semiautonomous sheikdoms that make up the United Arab Emirates, a key U.S. ally.

Mark Dubowitz, a sanctions expert advising the administration on Iran, said announcing more penalties Wednesday would have sent a message that the administration was serious about sanctions enforcement.

“I think it would have been wise to have welcomed the prime minister with a show of force on the economic warfare front,” Dubowitz said of the meeting between Obama and Netanyahu.

Israel has largely stayed out of the debate about specific sanctions. Israel has made the case to U.S. officials privately that its decision about whether to attack Iran is based on its own calculations about when such a strike would be effective.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak was in Washington Tuesday and Wednesday for unusually private meetings with the Pentagon and White House. Neither the White House nor Israel offered details of Barak’s meetings Tuesday with Vice-President Joe Biden and National Security Adviser Tom Donilon.

A Pentagon spokesman said Barak and Defence Secretary Leon Panetta “discussed the U.S.-Israel defence relationship and a range of regional issues including Syria, Iran, and the ongoing changes in the Middle East.”

___

Associated Press writer Donna Cassata contributed to this report.