WarSclerotic

Iran Dominates as Netanyahu Set for White House Talks With Obama – Bloomberg.

After Eliot Engel and Jerrold Nadler, two Democratic congressmen from New York, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem last month, Engel’s wife summed it up:

“They talked about Iran, and then they talked about Iran, and then they talked about Iran,” Pat Engel said of the Feb. 20 meeting, which lasted roughly an hour and included additional participants including both lawmakers’ wives. “Did I mention that they talked about Iran?”

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U.S. President Barack Obama, right, listens to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Sept. 21, 2011. Photographer: Aaron Showalter/Pool via Bloomberg

How to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program is now the dominant issue in the Israel-American alliance as Netanyahu and President Barack Obama — two men with a history of frosty relations — prepare to meet at the White House on March 5.

“It’s like a psychological showdown when Netanyahu comes to Washington,” Shlomo Brom, senior research fellow at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies.

Their closed-door talks will cap weeks of indirect messaging via emissaries and public positioning, including a speech March 4 by Obama before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington, the biggest pro-Israel organization in the U.S. Netanyahu, who is stopping in Canada on his way to the U.S., speaks to AIPAC on March 5 after his talks with Obama.

The White House meeting and AIPAC speeches come amid growing concerns about Iran’s growing nuclear capabilities.

The U.S. and European Union tightened economic sanctions following a Nov. 8, 2011, report by United Nations inspectors that Iran’s nuclear research program may include pursuing the capability to build a nuclear weapon. It said there was evidence Iran was working on a design to fit on a missile capable of reaching Israel and Europe. Iran says its nuclear program is for civilian energy and medical research.

Question of Time

Israeli leaders, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak, have said time is running out for a military strike to succeed in derailing the program. U.S. officials say there is still time to let sanctions work before resorting to military action.

Iran has nuclear facilities at Natanz and Fordo that were built to withstand air attacks. It now produces almost 31 pounds (14 kilograms) of 20 percent-enriched uranium a month compared with almost nine pounds (4 kilograms) in November, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Feb. 24.

Iran may be able to stockpile enough enriched uranium to make two nuclear devices if it decides to continue enriching to weapons-grade, according to Olli Heinoinen, a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a former IAEA chief inspector.

Obama said at a fundraiser in New York last night that the U.S. has a “sacrosanct commitment” to Israel’s security.

‘Red Lines’

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Jewish Republican from Virginia who’s critical of Obama, said the president should use his speech at AIPAC to set out “red lines” that would prompt the U.S. to initiate or support for military action. “What we need is more clarity from the administration,” Cantor said.

That’s unlikely, said David Makovsky, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a policy institute in Washington. It is “not serious to believe that the United States is going to publicly define its red lines at this time.”

That topic is “crucial,” however, for Obama and Netanyahu to discuss in private, Makovsky said.

“The U.S. making clear to Israel what are the thresholds that would trigger a U.S. intervention could really reshape the debate in Israel about whether Israel should strike out alone,” he said.

Israel’s Economy

Netanyahu’s visit comes as Israel’s economy probably expanded at a rate of 4.8 percent in 2011, according to the International Monetary Fund, compared with 1.7 percent for the U.S., according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The Bloomberg Riskless Return Ranking showed the Tel Aviv TA-25 Index (TA-25) returned 7.6 percent in the 10 years ended Feb. 17, after adjusting for volatility, the highest of 24 developed- nation benchmark indexes, even as the country has faced threats of violence.

Oil prices have increased 8.3 percent this year, partly because of prospects of military action involving Iran, which might disrupt Gulf oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.

Brom, of Tel Aviv University, a retired general and former head of the Israeli army’s strategic planning branch, said Israel is “very seriously considering taking military action.” Obama must convince Israel that the U.S. is “serious about getting tougher” on Iran, he said, and “there’s a difference between demonstrating ‘seriousness’ and a commitment that the U.S. going to take military action.”

No ‘Big Gaps’

Dennis Ross, Obama’s former Iran policy adviser and a counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the distance between Israel and the U.S. is overstated.

“I don’t think there are these big gaps between the two sides,” Ross said. “There’s agreement on objectives. I think there’s even agreement on preferred means. I think there’s a question of how much time you give diplomacy to work.”

Next week’s events also serve as an opportunity for Obama, 50, and Netanyahu, 62, to repair their personal relationship.

They’ve been at odds since the start of Obama’s presidency. Soon after taking office, Obama pushed Israel to freeze construction of Jewish settlements in Palestinian areas to restart peace talks. Netanyahu’s been approving more.

Last November, journalists at a G-20 meeting in France overheard a conversation between Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in which Obama acknowledged Sarkozy’s dislike for Netanyahu by saying, “I have to deal with him even more often than you.”

Trust and Suspicion

“There’s very little trust and there’s a lot of suspicion” between Obama and Netanyahu, said Aaron David Miller, a public policy fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington and a former Mideast peace negotiator. “The subtext of this relationship is a broken and dysfunctional one.”

Fen Hampson, director of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, said Netanyahu will seek “strong expressions of support” from Canada, where he stops before he visits Washington.

“The whole situation is fraught with escalatory risk,” Hampson said, likening it to “a Cuban-missile-crisis in slow motion.”

How Obama and Netanyahu communicate through the AIPAC conference and at their White House meeting may signal to Iran the degree to which the U.S. and Israel are working together.

Netanyahu ‘Upset’

Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, who met with Netanyahu in Jerusalem last month, said the Israeli prime minister was “very, very upset” with the Obama administration.

McCain’s meeting came after Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey said on CNN on Feb. 19 that “it’s not prudent at this point to decide to attack Iran,” that Iran “has not decided” to weaponize its nuclear capability and that Iran’s regime is “a rational actor.”

McCain said he shared Netanyahu’s frustrations because “the best way to encourage continued Iranian nuclear buildup is to create public perceptions of a split between the U.S. and Israel.”

McCain said he hopes Obama and Netanyahu, in their private discussions, can agree on red lines such as levels of uranium enrichment by Iran that are unacceptable and other benchmarks for weapons assembly or increased capability.

Jon Alterman, director of the Mideast Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a policy center in Washington, said while both leaders have a policy interest in moving closer together, “I just wonder if either politician, as elections draw closer, feels comfortable to expose himself to the other. I don’t see either one of them going out of his way to make life easier for the other.”

Groundwork for Talks

In the weeks leading up to Netanyahu’s visit to the U.S., dozens of Obama administration officials, U.S. lawmakers from both political parties and leaders of American Jewish organizations have flown to Israel to meet with Netanyahu and other top Israel officials. Likewise, top Israeli officials have visited Washington.

Antony Blinken, national security adviser to U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, told participants at an Israeli Policy Forum briefing in New York on Feb. 27 that Israel would make “its own decisions” regarding Iran, according the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Blinken said the U.S. does not tell its “allies and partners what to do when it comes to their own national security.”

U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz said Feb. 29 that the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs have prepared military options to strike Iranian nuclear sites in the event of a conflict.

Cooperation

Tensions between Obama and Netanyahu haven’t prevented cooperation. Intelligence is shared. Obama opposed a Palestinian bid for statehood through the United Nations; and the U.S. authorized the sale of 5,000 pound (2,268 kilogram) bunker- buster bombs to Israel in 2009 and funds for its Iron Dome missile defense system.

Nathan Diament, director of the Institute for Public Affairs of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, met with Netanyahu and other Israeli political and military leaders last month on a visit with roughly 100 American Jewish organizational leaders.

“What you hear from government officials on both sides in public and private conversations is that the two governments are constantly communicating and coordinating.”

Diament said what he hopes to see next week is “a clear message” to Iranians “that they will not drive a wedge between Israel and the United States, and the western community generally.”

Iran and U.S. Domestic Politics

AIPAC will also hear from Obama’s Republican rivals including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Michigan Governor Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. Obama won in 2008 with 78 percent support from Jewish voters, according to national exit polls. By portraying Obama as anti-Israel, Republicans aim to cut into that majority.

There’s “a lot of doubt within the American-Jewish community about this president,” Cantor said. “There’s a real prospect now that this president will suffer at the polls.”

McCain said while he wished that were true, he’s less convinced because Jewish-American voters still tend to favor Democrats on domestic issues and “the Jewish vote, as it was in 2008, cares more about domestic issues than national security.”

“I guarantee you it will be a charm offensive while he’s here,” McCain said of Obama’s rhetoric during Netanyahu’s visit. “They don’t want to alienate a large bloc of Jewish voters.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Margaret Talev in Washington at mtalev@bloomberg.net; Jonathan Ferziger in Tel Aviv at jferziger@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steven Komarow at skomarow1@bloomberg.net

A question of credibility – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Does the United States back an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities? It depends on the day of the week. Meanwhile, all the dithering is leaving Tehran unfazed.

By Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff

What does the United States think about a military attack on Iranian nuclear facilities? The Obama administration is a vocal opponent of such an operation, certainly given what’s to come: sharper sanctions against Iran, U.S. presidential elections, fear of a global fuel crisis. So under what circumstances would the United States support bombing Iranian sites (or back an Israeli attack in retrospect)?

The answer to that essential question depends on who you ask. In fact, sometimes it seems to depend mostly on the day of the week. For example, on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta seems to reject an attack outright, while he takes a different line on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Complaints are often voiced about the “loose lips” of senior Israeli officials, particularly Defense Minister Ehud Barak (which also provides good material for the satirical program “A Wonderful Country”). But the Americans are not much better. This week Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey told the Senate he had not recommended that Israel abstain from an attack on Iran – exactly 10 days after telling CNN that such an attack would not be “prudent at this point.” Just to be on the safe side, Dempsey reminded the senators that “all options are on the table.”

	Ayatolah Khamenei (left) has taken a more stubborn line on the nuclear issue than President Ahmadinejad (far right).
	Photo by: AFP

Furthermore, the U.S. declarations are accompanied by daily media leaks – many of them contradictory – by officials at the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department. These appear to reflect general confusion within the Obama administration.

Almost three years after Obama’s reconciliation speech to the Arab world in Cairo, the Middle East is in turmoil and the Americans are zigzagging accordingly. Time after time they clarify statements, correct themselves and then change direction again.

The flip-flopping over Iran was preceded by dramatic shifts in Washington’s approach to the Mubarak regime in Egypt (which it abandoned to its fate), and its use of force against Libya’s Gadhafi regime. Now there is much stuttering and stammering over how much to assist Syrian opposition groups.

Israel is not viewing these developments with equanimity. Even though the question of whether to attack Iran is still a matter of sharp controversy, the impression in Jerusalem is that the many and contradictory statements by leading figures in Washington are not serving the main purpose: increasing pressure on Iran. A senior political figure told Haaretz that many of the statements have led the Iranians to believe there is no real Western threat to their nuclear program, and therefore no need to halt it.

“If the United States does not project toughness all along the way, both in terms of sanctions and in terms of threatening military action, Tehran is liable to conclude – mistakenly – that 2012 is a lost year for the international community and that its nuclear program can proceed normally,” said the source. “At the moment, owing to the contradictory messages from Washington, the Iranians are assuming that nothing military will happen until the U.S. presidential elections in November. They believe the administration fears an attack because fuel prices could soar, and that Israel will not move without a green light from Washington. The sanctions are pressuring Iran, but without a determined, unified front, Tehran will not budge.”

Crossed wires

Barak made a lightning two-day visit to Washington this week and then rushed back home to prepare for the publication of the state comptroller’s draft report on the Harpaz affair, set for Sunday. The affair involves alleged attempts within the defense establishment to block the appointment of Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant as chief of staff.

Barak, leader of Israel’s hawkish camp on Iran, had hoped to find greater American understanding for his new term: “zone of immunity.” By this he means the date by which the Iranians will have concealed enough uranium-enrichment equipment underground so that a military attack will no longer work.

Next week, it will be the turn of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As opposed to his catastrophic White House visit last May, during the AIPAC conference, this time he can expect a warmer embrace. After all, this is an election year. Playing to the Jewish vote is not the only consideration for Obama, who will be addressing the AIPAC conference for the second year in a row. In the months ahead, Washington will do all it can to make Jerusalem feel it is getting everything it wants – except, of course, for an American green light to bomb Iran. In addition to public expressions of support, this backing will include reinforcing joint defense systems and expanding joint military maneuvers. Republican presidential contenders are also calling for giving Israel more advanced munitions, including upgraded bunker-buster bombs. However, this is unlikely to receive administration support.

Still, Netanyahu and Barak, as well as ministers advocating a more moderate line, are having a hard time understanding Washington’s behavior vis-a-vis Iran. Presuming sanctions may force the ayatollahs to freeze the nuclear project, such measures still need to be backed by a credible military threat. If Panetta is busy explaining why an attack will not achieve anything, as he did at last December’s Saban Forum, what will make the Iranians think the threat is real?

The lack of understanding is not a one-way street. Over the past three months, believing that an Israeli attack is an increasingly viable option, European and U.S. delegations have been flying into Israel almost weekly. Like the Americans, the Europeans don’t know what Israel wants, either.

It is not only a question of understanding the seriousness of Israel’s threats. Western diplomats say the international community has gone farther than Israel ever thought in approving sanctions. And yet, they say, Israel is continuing to scatter warnings about an impending Doomsday.

North Korea’s surprising announcement Wednesday that it was suspending its nuclear weapons program will undoubtedly be taken by many in the West as a signal that a similar agreement can be extorted from Iran as well. Given the Obama administration’s repeated embarrassments in the Middle East, the agreement with Pyongyang is in itself an impressive accomplishment.

Despite the tremendous upheaval in the Middle East over the past year, some things apparently never change. A case in point is the ancient enmity between Shi’ites and Sunnis, which intensified amid the Arab Spring. If it had seemed that Iran was tearing down the walls around it over the past two decades, that assumption has been rebuffed lately.

Losing legitimacy

Indeed, over those years, Iran established reasonable relations with a Sunni state, Qatar, and with a Sunni-Palestinian organization, Hamas. Qatar, as reflected in Al Jazeera’s lenient attitude toward Iran, viewed itself as a bridge between the Sunnis and Iranians. Hamas for its part was thrust into Iran’s arms due to financial plight. But the ferocious civil strife in Syria is turning back the clock. Qatar, like other Sunni countries, is demanding the immediate removal of President Bashar Assad, despite Iran’s objections. Now senior Hamas figures are leaving Damascus – and some are trying to distance themselves from Tehran, too.

In the meantime, Iran’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has other headaches. Alongside his leading role backing Assad, Khamenei is also in the midst of his own political survival campaign. Western experts say he views the nuclear project as a war over his own future, not that of his country.

In recent years Khamenei has taken a more stubborn line on the nuclear issue than even President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He is now apparently concerned that his domestic critics will take any compromise as a sign of weakness and as capitulation to Western pressure. However, it is this line and its consequences – the West’s economic sanctions – that are subjecting Khamenei to sharp criticism even by regime loyalists.

“Khamenei has less legitimacy with every passing day,” says Meir Javedanfar, an expert on Iran at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya. “Even the first commander of the Revolutionary Guards came out against him. Iranian television shows people who want the next supreme spiritual leader to be elected by the people. Khamenei is making mistakes under pressure. He could have embraced the reformists and their aid, but he did exactly the opposite.”

Yet one indication that Khamenei continues to retain considerable power can be seen in Iran’s parliamentary elections, which are scheduled for today. The reformists have been left completely out of the picture. The contest is between two conservative groups and a third group of Ahmadinejad loyalists, whom Khamenei is expected to “politically assassinate.” The spiritual leader has not actually declared public war against the president, but has suggested that in the future the parliament, and not the public, will elect the president. Hence the great significance of today’s elections.

Two camps are emerging, says Javedanfar. The first is the moderate-conservative camp called the United Front of Conservatives. It includes several well-known politicians, including Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani, parliament speaker Ali Larijani and Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. The members of this group are considered Ahmadinejad’s bitter political foes. The second camp, the Front for Stability of Islamic Revolution, has been joined by some of the country’s most extreme politicians – “messianists,” led by Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi.

There are no great differences between the camps; they all espouse tough positions on the nuclear issue and are hostile to the president and his deputy Esfandiar Rahim-Mashei. Both accept Khamenei’s leadership without question. This is probably a succession battle between the two ayatollahs. Mesbah Yazdi is watching with concern the growing strength of his rival, Mahdavi Kani, who heads the Council of Experts, which will choose Iran’s next spiritual leader when the time comes. Still, Javedanfar observes, a victory by the ultra-conservatives under Mesbah Yazdi will mean the West can forget about nuclear talks with Iran.

Obama to Iran and Israel: ‘As President of the United States, I Don’t Bluff’ – Jeffrey Goldberg – International – The Atlantic.

(A truly amazing interview with Obama.  This is a MUST READ. – JW)

At the White House on Monday, President Obama will seek to persuade the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to postpone whatever plans he may have to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months. Obama will argue that under his leadership, the United States “has Israel’s back,” and that he will order the U.S. military to destroy Iran’s nuclear program if economic sanctions fail to compel Tehran to shelve its nuclear ambitions.

In the most extensive interview he has given about the looming Iran crisis, Obama told me earlier this week that both Iran and Israel should take seriously the possibility of American action against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “I think that the Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don’t bluff.” He went on, “I also don’t, as a matter of sound policy, go around advertising exactly what our intentions are. But I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say.”

The 45-minute Oval Office conversation took place less than a week before the president was scheduled to address the annual convention of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, and then meet, the next day, with Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House. In the interview, Obama stated specifically that “all options are on the table,” and that the final option is the “military component.” But the president also said that sanctions organized by his administration have put Iran in a “world of hurt,” and that economic duress might soon force the regime in Tehran to rethink its efforts to pursue a nuclear-weapons program.

“Without in any way being under an illusion about Iranian intentions, without in any way being naive about the nature of that regime, they are self-interested,” Obama said. “It is possible for them to make a strategic calculation that, at minimum, pushes much further to the right whatever potential breakout capacity they may have, and that may turn out to to be the best decision for Israel’s security.”

The president also said that Tehran’s nuclear program would represent a “profound” national-security threat to the United States even if Israel were not a target of Iran’s violent rhetoric, and he dismissed the argument that the United States could successfully contain a nuclear Iran.

“You’re talking about the most volatile region in the world,” he said. “It will not be tolerable to a number of states in that region for Iran to have a nuclear weapon and them not to have a nuclear weapon. Iran is known to sponsor terrorist organizations, so the threat of proliferation becomes that much more severe.” He went on to say that “the dangers of an Iran getting nuclear weapons that then leads to a free-for-all in the Middle East is something that I think would be very dangerous for the world.”

The president was most animated when talking about the chaotic arms race he fears would break out if Iran acquired a nuclear weapon, and he seemed most frustrated when talking about what he sees as a deliberate campaign by Republicans to convince American Jews that he is anti-Israel. “Every single commitment I have made to the state of Israel and its security, I have kept,” he told me. “Why is it that despite me never failing to support Israel on every single problem that they’ve had over the last three years, that there are still questions about that?”

Though he struck a consistently pro-Israel posture during the interview, Obama went to great lengths to caution Israel that a premature strike might inadvertently help Iran: “At a time when there is not a lot of sympathy for Iran and its only real ally, [Syria,] is on the ropes, do we want a distraction in which suddenly Iran can portray itself as a victim?”

He also said he would try to convince Netanyahu that the only way to bring about a permanent end to a country’s nuclear program is to convince the country in question that nuclear weapons are not in its best interest. “Our argument is going to be that it is important for us to see if we can solve this thing permanently, as opposed to temporarily,” he said, “and the only way historically that a country has ultimately decided not to get nuclear weapons without constant military intervention has been when they themselves take [nuclear weapons] off the table. That’s what happened in Libya, that’s what happened in South Africa.”

And though broadly sympathetic to Netanyahu’s often-stated fear that Iran’s nuclear program represents a Holocaust-scale threat to the Jewish state, and the Jewish people, Obama suggested strongly that historical fears cannot be the sole basis for precipitous action: “The prime minister is head of a modern state that is mindful of the profound costs of any military action, and in our consultations with the Israeli government, I think they take those costs, and potential unintended consequences, very seriously.”

But when I asked the president if he thought Israel could damage its reputation among Americans with an attack on Iran — an attack that could provoke Iranian retaliation against American targets, and could cause massive economic disruption — he said, “I think we in the United States instinctively sympathize with Israel.” President Obama also shared fascinating insights about his sometimes tension-filled relationship with Netanyahu — and spoke at length about Syria — but for that, you’ll have to read the entire interview. Here is a transcript of our conversation:

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: From what we understand, Prime Minister Netanyahu is going to ask you for some specific enunciations of red lines, for specific promises related to the Iranian nuclear program. What is your message to the prime minister going to be? What do you want to get across to him?

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: First of all, it’s important to say that I don’t know exactly what the prime minister is going to be coming with. We haven’t gotten any indication that there is some sharp “ask” that is going to be presented. Both the United States and Israel have been in constant consultation about a very difficult issue, and that is the prospect of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon. This is something that has been one of my top five foreign-policy concerns since I came into office.

We, immediately upon taking over, mapped out a strategy that said we are going to mobilize the international community around this issue and isolate Iran to send a clear message to them that there is a path they can follow that allows them to rejoin the community of nations, but if they refused to follow that path, that there would be an escalating series of consequences.

Three years later, we can look back and say we have been successful beyond most people’s expectations. When we came in, Iran was united and on the move, and the world was divided about how to address this issue. Today, the world is as united as we’ve ever seen it around the need for Iran to take a different path on its nuclear program, and Iran is isolated and feeling the severe effects of the multiple sanctions that have been placed on it.

At the same time, we understand that the bottom line is: Does the problem get solved? And I think that Israel, understandably, has a profound interest not just in good intentions but in actual results. And in the conversations I’ve had over the course of three years, and over the course of the last three months and three weeks, what I’ve emphasized is that preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon isn’t just in the interest of Israel, it is profoundly in the security interests of the United States, and that when I say we’re not taking any option off the table, we mean it. We are going to continue to apply pressure until Iran takes a different course.

GOLDBERG: Go back to this language, ‘All options on the table.’ You’ve probably said it fifty or 100 times. And a lot of people believe it, but the two main intended audiences, the supreme leader of Iran and the prime minister of Israel, you could argue, don’t entirely trust this. The impression we get is that the Israeli government thinks this is a vague expression that’s been used for so many years. Is there some ramping-up of the rhetoric you’re going to give them?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I think the Israeli people understand it, I think the American people understand it, and I think the Iranians understand it. It means a political component that involves isolating Iran; it means an economic component that involves unprecedented and crippling sanctions; it means a diplomatic component in which we have been able to strengthen the coalition that presents Iran with various options through the P-5 plus 1 and ensures that the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] is robust in evaluating Iran’s military program; and it includes a military component. And I think people understand that.

I think that the Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don’t bluff. I also don’t, as a matter of sound policy, go around advertising exactly what our intentions are. But I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say. Let describe very specifically why this is important to us.

In addition to the profound threat that it poses to Israel, one of our strongest allies in the world; in addition to the outrageous language that has been directed toward Israel by the leaders of the Iranian government — if Iran gets a nuclear weapon, this would run completely contrary to my policies of nonproliferation. The risks of an Iranian nuclear weapon falling into the hands of terrorist organizations are profound. It is almost certain that other players in the region would feel it necessary to get their own nuclear weapons. So now you have the prospect of a nuclear arms race in the most volatile region in the world, one that is rife with unstable governments and sectarian tensions. And it would also provide Iran the additional capability to sponsor and protect its proxies in carrying out terrorist attacks because they are less fearful of retaliation.

GOLDBERG: What would your position be if Israel weren’t in this picture?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: It would still be a profound national-security interest of the United States to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

GOLDBERG: Why, then, is this issue so often seen as binary, always defined as Israel versus Iran?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I think it has to do with a legitimate concern on the part of Israel that they are a small country in a tough neighborhood, and as a consequence, even though the U.S. and Israel very much share assessments of how quickly Iran could obtain breakout capacity, and even though there is constant consultation and intelligence coordination around that question, Israel feels more vulnerable. And I think the prime minister and the defense minister, [Ehud Barak,] feel a profound, historic obligation not to put Israel in a position where it cannot act decisively and unilaterally to protect the state of Israel. I understand those concerns, and as a consequence, I think it’s not surprising that the way it gets framed, at least in this country, where the vast majority of people are profoundly sympathetic to Israel’s plight and potential vulnerabilities — that articles and stories get framed in terms of Israel’s potential vulnerability.

But I want to make clear that when we travel around the world and make presentations about this issue, that’s not how we frame it. We frame it as: this is something in the national-security interests of the United States and in the interests of the world community. And I assure you that Europe would not have gone forward with sanctions on Iranian oil imports — which are very difficult for them to carry out because they get a lot of oil from Iran — had it not been for their understanding that it is in the world’s interest, to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. China would not have abided by the existing sanctions coming out of the National Security Council, and other countries around the world would not have unified around those sanctions had it not been for us making the presentation about why this was important for everyone, not just one country.

GOLDBERG: Is it possible that the prime minister of Israel has over-learned the lessons of the Holocaust?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I think the prime minister has a profound responsibility to protect the Israeli people in a hostile neighborhood, and I am certain that the history of the Holocaust and of anti-Semitism and brutality directed against the Jewish people for more than a millennium weighs on him when he thinks about these questions.

I think it’s important to recognize, though, that the prime minister is also head of a modern state that is mindful of the profound costs of any military action, and in our consultations with the Israeli government, I think they take those costs, and potential unintended consequences, very seriously.

GOLDBERG: Do you think Israel could cause damage to itself in America by preempting the Iranian nuclear program militarily?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I don’t know how it plays in America. I think we in the United States instinctively sympathize with Israel, and I think political support for Israel is bipartisan and powerful.

In my discussions with Israel, the key question that I ask is: How does this impact their own security environment? I’ve said it publicly and I say it privately: ultimately, the Israeli prime minister and the defense minister and others in the government have to make their decisions about what they think is best for Israel’s security, and I don’t presume to tell them what is best for them.

But as Israel’s closest friend and ally, and as one that has devoted the last three years to making sure that Israel has additional security capabilities, and has worked to manage a series of difficult problems and questions over the past three years, I do point out to them that we have a sanctions architecture that is far more effective than anybody anticipated, that we have a world that is about as united as you get behind the sanctions; that our assessment, which is shared by the Israelis, is that Iran does not yet have a nuclear weapon and is not yet in a position to obtain a nuclear weapon without us having a pretty long lead time in which we will know that they are making that attempt.

In that context, our argument is going to be that it is important for us to see if we can solve this thing permanently, as opposed to temporarily. And the only way, historically, that a country has ultimately decided not to get nuclear weapons without constant military intervention has been when they themselves take [nuclear weapons] off the table. That’s what happened in Libya, that’s what happened in South Africa. And we think that, without in any way being under an illusion about Iranian intentions, without in any way being naive about the nature of that regime, they are self-interested. They recognize that they are in a bad, bad place right now. It is possible for them to make a strategic calculation that, at minimum, pushes much further to the right whatever potential breakout capacity they may have, and that may turn out to be the best decision for Israel’s security.

These are difficult questions, and again, if I were the prime minister of Israel, I’d be wrestling with them. As president of the United States, I wrestle with them as well.

GOLDBERG: Could you shed some light on your relationship with the prime minister? You’ve met with him more than with any other world leader. It’s assumed that you have a dysfunctional relationship. What is it like?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I actually think the relationship is very functional, and the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The fact of the matter is, we’ve gotten a lot of business done with Israel over the last three years. I think the prime minister — and certainly the defense minister — would acknowledge that we’ve never had closer military and intelligence cooperation. When you look at what I’ve done with respect to security for Israel, from joint training and joint exercises that outstrip anything that’s been done in the past, to helping finance and construct the Iron Dome program to make sure that Israeli families are less vulnerable to missile strikes, to ensuring that Israel maintains its qualitative military edge, to fighting back against delegitimization of Israel, whether at the [UN] Human Rights Council, or in front of the UN General Assembly, or during the Goldstone Report, or after the flare-up involving the flotilla — the truth of the matter is that the relationship has functioned very well.

GOLDBERG: Are you friends? Do you talk about things other than business?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know, the truth of the matter is, both of us have so much on our plates that there’s not always a lot of time to have discussions beyond business. Having said that, what I think is absolutely true is that the prime minister and I come out of different political traditions. This is one of the few times in the history of U.S.-Israeli relations where you have a government from the right in Israel at the same time you have a center-left government in the United States, and so I think what happens then is that a lot of political interpretations of our relationship get projected onto this.

But one thing that I have found in working with Prime Minister Netanyahu is that we can be very frank with each other, very blunt with each other, very honest with each other. For the most part, when we have differences, they are tactical and not strategic. Our objectives are a secure United States, a secure Israel, peace, the capacity for our kids to grow up in safety and security and not have to worry about bombs going off, and being able to promote business and economic growth and commerce. We have a common vision about where we want to go. At any given moment — as is true, frankly, with my relationship with every other foreign leader — there’s not going to be perfect alignment of how we achieve these objectives.

GOLDBERG: In an interview three years ago, right before he became prime minister, Netanyahu told me that he believes Iran is being run by a “messianic apocalyptic cult.” Last week, General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. referred to the Iranian leadership as “rational.” Where do you fall on this continuum? Do you feel that the leaders of Iran might be so irrational that they will not act in what we would understand to be their self-interest?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I think you’re right to describe it as a continuum. There is no doubt they are isolated. They have a very ingrown political system. They are founded and fueled on hostility towards the United States, Israel, and to some degree the West. And they have shown themselves willing to go outside international norms and international rules to achieve their objectives. All of this makes them dangerous. They’ve also been willing to crush opposition in their own country in brutal and bloody ways.

GOLDBERG: Do you think they are messianic?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I think it’s entirely legitimate to say that this is a regime that does not share our worldview or our values. I do think, and this is what General Dempsey was probably referring to, that as we look at how they operate and the decisions they’ve made over the past three decades, that they care about the regime’s survival. They’re sensitive to the opinions of the people and they are troubled by the isolation that they’re experiencing. They know, for example, that when these kinds of sanctions are applied, it puts a world of hurt on them. They are able to make decisions based on trying to avoid bad outcomes from their perspective. So if they’re presented with options that lead to either a lot of pain from their perspective, or potentially a better path, then there’s no guarantee that they can’t make a better decision.

GOLDBERG: It seems unlikely that a regime built on anti-Americanism would want to appear to succumb to an American-led sanctions effort.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I think the question here is going to be: What exactly are their genuine interests? Now, what we’ve seen, what we’ve heard directly from them over the last couple of weeks is that nuclear weapons are sinful and un-Islamic. And those are formal speeches from the supreme leader and their foreign minister.

GOLDBERG: Do you believe their sincerity?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: My point here is not that I believe the sincerity of the statements coming out of the regime. The point is that for them to prove to the international community that their intentions are peaceful and that they are, in fact, not pursuing weapons is not inconsistent with what they’ve said. So it doesn’t require them to knuckle under to us. What it does require is for them to actually show to the world that there is consistency between their actions and their statements. And that’s something they should be able to do without losing face.

GOLDBERG: Let me flip this entirely around and ask: Why is containment not your policy? In the sense that we contained the Soviet Union, North Korea —

PRESIDENT OBAMA: It’s for the reason I described — because you’re talking about the most volatile region in the world. It will not be tolerable to a number of states in that region for Iran to have a nuclear weapon and them not to have a nuclear weapon. Iran is known to sponsor terrorist organizations, so the threat of proliferation becomes that much more severe.

The only analogous situation is North Korea. We have applied a lot of pressure on North Korea as well and, in fact, today found them willing to suspend some of their nuclear activities and missile testing and come back to the table. But North Korea is even more isolated, and certainly less capable of shaping the environment [around it] than Iran is. And so the dangers of an Iran getting nuclear weapons that then leads to a free-for-all in the Middle East is something that I think would be very dangerous for the world.

GOLDBERG: Do you see accidental nuclear escalation as an issue?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Absolutely. Look, the fact is, I don’t think any of it would be accidental. I think it would be very intentional. If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, I won’t name the countries, but there are probably four or five countries in the Middle East who say, “We are going to start a program and we will have nuclear weapons.” And at that point, the prospect for miscalculation in a region that has that many tensions and fissures is profound. You essentially then duplicate the challenges of India and Pakistan fivefold or tenfold.

GOLDBERG: With everybody pointing at everybody else.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: With everybody pointing at everybody else.

GOLDBERG: What I’m getting at specifically is, let’s assume there’s a Hezbollah attack on Israel. Israel responds into Lebanon. Iran goes on some kind of a nuclear alert, and then one- two-three —

PRESIDENT OBAMA: The potential for escalation in those circumstances is profoundly dangerous, and in addition to just the potential human costs of a nuclear escalation like that in the Middle East, just imagine what would happen in terms of the world economy. The possibilities of the sort of energy disruptions that we’ve never seen before occurring, and the world economy basically coming to a halt, would be pretty profound. So when I say this is in the U.S. interest, I’m not saying this is something we’d like to solve. I’m saying this is something we have to solve.

GOLDBERG: One of the aspects of this is the question of whether it’s plausible that Barack Obama would ever use military power to stop Iran. The Republicans are trying to make this an issue — and not only the Republicans — saying that this man, by his disposition, by his character, by his party, by his center-left outlook, is not going to do that.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Look, if people want to say about me that I have a profound preference for peace over war, that every time I order young men and women into a combat theater and then see the consequences on some of them, if they’re lucky enough to come back, that this weighs on me — I make no apologies for that. Because anybody who is sitting in my chair who isn’t mindful of the costs of war shouldn’t be here, because it’s serious business. These aren’t video games that we’re playing here.

Now, having said that, I think it’s fair to say that the last three years, I’ve shown myself pretty clearly willing, when I believe it is in the core national interest of the United States, to direct military actions, even when they entail enormous risks. And obviously, the bin Laden operation is the most dramatic, but al-Qaeda was on its [knees] well before we took out bin Laden because of our activities and my direction.

In Afghanistan, we’ve made very tough decisions because we felt it was very important in order for an effective transition out of Afghanistan to take place for us to be pushing back against the Taliban’s momentum.

So aside from the usual politics, I don’t think this is an argument that has a lot of legs.  And by the way, it’s not an argument that the American people buy. They may have complaints about high unemployment still, and that the recovery needs to move faster, but you don’t hear a lot of them arguing somehow that I hesitate to make decisions as commander in chief when necessary.

GOLDBERG: Can you just talk about Syria as a strategic issue? Talk about it as a humanitarian issue, as well. But it would seem to me that one way to weaken and further isolate Iran is to remove or help remove Iran’s only Arab ally.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Absolutely.

GOLDBERG: And so the question is: What else can this Administration be doing?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, look, there’s no doubt that Iran is much weaker now than it was a year ago, two years ago, three years ago. The Arab Spring, as bumpy as it has been, represents a strategic defeat for Iran because what people in the region have seen is that all the impulses towards freedom and self-determination and free speech and freedom of assembly have been constantly violated by Iran. [The Iranian leadership is] no friend of that movement toward human rights and political freedom. But more directly, it is now engulfing Syria, and Syria is basically their only true ally in the region.

And it is our estimation that [President Bashar al-Assad’s] days are numbered. It’s a matter not of if, but when. Now, can we accelerate that? We’re working with the world community to try to do that. It is complicated by the fact that Syria is a much bigger, more sophisticated, and more complicated country than Libya, for example — the opposition is hugely splintered — that although there’s unanimity within the Arab world at this point, internationally, countries like Russia are still blocking potential UN mandates or action. And so what we’re trying to do – and the secretary of state just came back from helping to lead the Friends of Syria group in Tunisia — is to try to come up with a series of strategies that can provide humanitarian relief. But they can also accelerate a transition to a peaceful and stable and representative Syrian government.  If that happens, that will be a profound loss for Iran.

GOLDBERG: Is there anything you could do to move it faster?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, nothing that I can tell you, because your classified clearance isn’t good enough. (Laughter.)

This is part of, by the way, the context in which we have to examine our approach toward Iran, because at a time when there is not a lot of sympathy for Iran and its only real ally is on the ropes, do we want a distraction in which suddenly Iran can portray itself as a victim, and deflect attention from what has to be the core issue, which is their potential pursuit of nuclear weapons?

That’s an example of factors that — when we are in consultation with all our allies, including the Israelis, we raise these factors, because this is an issue of many dimensions here, and we’ve got to factor all of them in to achieve the outcome that hopefully we all want.

GOLDBERG: Do the Israelis understand that? There have been disagreements between Israel and the U.S. before, but this is coming to a head about what the Israelis see as an existential issue. The question is: In your mind, have you brought arguments to Netanyahu that have so far worked out well?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I think that in the end, Israel’s leaders will make determinations based on what they believe is best for the security of Israel, and that is entirely appropriate.

When we present our views and our strategy approach, we try to put all our cards on the table, to describe how we are thinking about these issues. We try to back those up with facts and evidence. We compare their assessments with ours, and where there are gaps, we try to narrow those gaps.  And what I also try to do is to underscore the seriousness with which the United States takes this issue. And I think that Ehud Barak understands it.  I think that Prime Minister Netanyahu, hopefully when he sees me next week, will understand it.

And one of the things that I like to remind them of is that every single commitment I have made to the state of Israel and its security, I have kept. I mean, part of your — not to put words in your mouth — but part of the underlying question is: Why is it that despite me never failing to support Israel on every single problem that they’ve had over the last three years, that there are still questions about that?

GOLDBERG: That’s a good way to phrase it.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: And my answer is: there is no good reason to doubt me on these issues.

Some of it has to do with the fact that in this country and in our media, this gets wrapped up with politics. And I don’t think that’s any secret. And if you have a set of political actors who want to see if they can drive a wedge not between the United States and Israel, but between Barack Obama and a Jewish-American vote that has historically been very supportive of his candidacy, then it’s good to try to fan doubts and raise questions.

But when you look at the record, there’s no “there” there. And my job is to try to make sure that those political factors are washed away on an issue that is of such great strategic and security importance to our two countries. And so when I’m talking to the prime minister, or my team is talking to the Israeli government, what I want is a hardheaded, clear-eyed assessment of how do we achieve our goals.

And our goals are in sync. And historically, one of the reasons that the U.S.-Israeli relationship has survived so well and thrived is shared values, shared history, the links between our peoples. But it’s also been because it has been a profoundly bipartisan commitment to the state of Israel. And the flip side of it is that, in terms of Israeli politics, there’s been a view that regardless of whether it’s a Democratic or Republican administration, the working assumption is: we’ve got Israel’s back. And that’s something that I constantly try to reinforce and remind people of.

GOLDBERG: Wait, in four words, is that your message to the prime minister — we’ve got Israel’s back?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: That is not just my message to the prime minister, that’s been my message to the Israeli people, and to the pro-Israel community in this country, since I came into office. It’s hard for me to be clearer than I was in front of the UN General Assembly, when I made a more full-throated defense of Israel and its legitimate security concerns than any president in history. Not, by the way, in front of an audience that was particularly warm to the message. So that actually won’t be my message. My message will be much more specific, about how do we solve this problem.

Netanyahu to Demand Obama Commit to Iran Strike – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Netanyahu and Obama

Reuters

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will press U.S. President Barack Obama for an explicit threat of military action against Iran if sanctions fail and Tehran’s nuclear program advances beyond specified “red lines,” it was reported on Thursday.

According to the British Guardian, Netanyahu is expected to raise the issue during his meeting on Monday at the White House with Obama.

The report quoted diplomats as having said that Israel is angered by the Obama administration’s public disparaging of early military action against Iran, saying that it weakens the prospect of Tehran taking the warnings from Israel seriously.

While the two sides are attempting to agree on a joint public statement to paper over the divide, the Guardian noted, the talks will not be made easier by a deepening distrust in which the Israelis question Obama’s commitment to confront Iran.

One diplomatic source was quoted as having told the Guardian that Netanyahu and Obama “are poles apart.”

“The White House believes there is time for sanctions to work and that military threats don’t help. The Israelis regard this as woolly thinking,” said the source, adding, “They see Iran as headed towards a bomb, even though they agree there is no evidence Tehran has made that decision yet, and they want the White House to up the ante. The White House has the Europeans behind its position but it’s losing Congress.”

Israeli officials, the Guardian reported, say that Netanyahu is not happy with Obama’s “vague assertion” that all options are on the table in dealing with Iran. Netanyahu wants Obama to state unequivocally that Washington is prepared to use force if Iran’s nuclear program advances beyond specified red lines, they said.

Sources in the U.S. administration say, however, that Obama is unlikely to make a major shift in policy in public although he may give Netanyahu firmer assurances in private.

Despite Obama’s position, U.S. military officials said Wednesday that America is preparing a plan to strike Iranian nuclear targets in the event that sanctions fail to persuade Tehran to halt its hurtle towards atomic development.

A report by the Bloomberg news agency quoted U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz as saying such a strike would be carried out if Iran fails to prove its nuclear develop program is geared solely towards peaceful purposes.

The report indicated that options under consideration included the possibility of aerial refueling for Israeli planes as part of the assault. Targets under consideration included the regime in Tehran, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, the Quds Force, and various Iranian military bases.

Meanwhile, a poll released Thursday said that 81 percent of Israelis oppose a solo Israeli attack against Iran.

The poll, taken by the Dahaf organization in Israel on behalf of the Brookings Institution, found that if, on the other hand, Washington approved an Israeli action against Iran, some two thirds of Israelis would support it. 34% would oppose a strike regardless of Washington’s approval.

Netanyahu and Obama play high-stakes poker over Iran – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Haaretz’s editor-in-chief Aluf Benn says PM’s planned trip to Washington will be the most fateful of his political career.

By Aluf Benn

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming trip to Washington will be the most important one in his long career as ambassador, politician and national leader. On Monday, Netanyahu will meet President Barack Obama in the White House for a game of diplomatic poker, where the greatest gamble of all will be right on the table: an attack on Iran’s nuclear installations. Each of the two players will try to push the other to act. Netanyahu would prefer to see the American superpower, with its vast range of military capabilities, pulverize Iran’s nuclear project. For his part, Obama would prefer, if an attack must be launched, that the job be done by Israel, while the United States would serve as the “responsible adult” who comes in afterward to make order in the Middle East.

	Illustration by Amos Biderman

For three years, Netanyahu has been preparing for this very moment. During this period, he has chalked up for himself a diplomatic coup that initially was seen as unimaginable: He has managed to turn the superpower’s political agenda upside-down – from “Palestine first” to “Iran as top priority.” In his first meeting with Obama, in May 2009, after both had taken office, the premier was very clear about his concern about the Iranian threat, while Obama insisted on talking about a freeze on settlements in the West Bank. At the time, the U.S. president described a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and an end to the occupation and the settlements in the territories as a vital American security interest. He forced Netanyahu to support the creation of a Palestinian state and to freeze all construction in the settlements for 10 months.

Today, in retrospect, these ideas sound ludicrous. The settlements have long since disappeared from America’s national agenda and Israel’s right-wing government has been diligently developing and expanding them, in accordance with its ideology and without any annoying external interference. Netanyahu has defeated his Palestinian rival, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who tried unsuccessfully to secure the United Nations’ recognition of a Palestinian state, while the reaction in Israel to talk of the threat of a third intifada is little more than one big yawn.

Israeli public opinion is chiefly preoccupied today with the price of gasoline and the issue of ultra-Orthodox Jews serving in the army. The Palestinians have been forgotten. Netanyahu has proven that it is possible to drastically reduce the dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute to a war of speeches and press statements that he is waging with Abbas without having to pay an international price.

Netanyahu has made good use of Obama’s Republican rivals, who have made threatening Iran a central issue in their presidential primaries and have forced the president to go on the defensive. The upheavals of the “Arab Spring” have positioned Israel as an island of stability in the Middle East, in comparison with the disintegrating Arab states. To outflank Turkey, Iran and Egypt, Netanyahu has invested considerable efforts into creating a new Israeli “peripheral alliance” with Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania, Azerbaijan and Uganda.

However, the prime minister’s greatest achievement has been to persuade the international community that Israel intends to bomb Iran and has the capability to do so, and that Israel intends to plunge the entire Middle East into a war that will cause gasoline prices to skyrocket. The combination of threatening declarations and briefings, especially from Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and long-range training missions conducted by the Israel Air Force has shown the world that Israel means business. That is the reason for the flurry of visits by senior U.S. administration officials, who have been coming here and asking Israel to “give the sanctions a chance.”

The recent behavior of Iran – which has accelerated its nuclear development program despite the imposition of tougher sanctions, the assassination of Iranian scientists, and the threats of war – only strengthens the credibility of the Israeli message that time is running out and that the window of opportunity for taking action is about to close.

Position of strength

Benjamin Netanyahu now returns to Washington from a position of strength: Both the politicians and the media in America seem to be focusing their attention almost exclusively on Iran, while Obama is fighting to be reelected and needs the American Jewish community’s support.

Lest anyone be mistaken or confused, it must be reiterated that the contacts between Netanyahu and Obama are devoid of warmth, mutual esteem and credibility. Whereas the president sees the premier as a liar who uses subversive tactics, shamelessly meddles in American politics and is encouraging the Republican campaign to topple him – Netanyahu sees Obama as a spineless left-winger whose fantasies about world peace are threatening Israel with the prospect of a second Holocaust, should Iran be allowed to realize its nuclear ambitions and arm itself with a bomb.

When he returned to the post of prime minister three years ago, Netanyahu regarded his chief task as recruiting the United States to participate in a decisive confrontation with Iran that would remove the threat to Israel’s survival. It is now obvious that he is coming close to achieving his goal: More and more Americans are talking about the idea of going to war against Iran. According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 58 percent of all Americans support such a move. However, such support is not enough. Obama is still not convinced, and the danger that Tehran poses appears less threatening when seen from the safe distance of Washington and Los Angeles .

In recent weeks, an interesting change has taken place in the American position. Statements by Obama and senior administration officials are now focusing on the timing of a potential Israeli move – declaring, “Israel has not decided on attacking Iran” or “a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June” – rather than on warning Israel not to attack. Opposition to an attack, which once seemed resolute, is becoming more and more reminiscent of America’s lip-service opposition to the settlements (“obstacle to peace” and “illegitimate” ), which has never prevented Israel from settling additional Jews in the territories. The new American position can be explained as posing a challenge to Netanyahu, along the lines of: “If you are such a hero, then go attack Iran. But don’t hide behind us.”

Netanyahu’s position involves a big risk. Wars break out when leaders are pushed into a corner and feel they have no other option, and when the political price of refraining from going to war takes precedence over the logical calculation of the pros and cons of war itself. This was the background of two world wars and most of the Israeli-Arab wars. It could happen on the Iranian front as well, if Tehran continues along its present course, if Obama remains adamant in his opposition to an American military operation, and if Netanyahu finds himself in a situation where he will be asked, “So what have you done to prevent a second Holocaust?”

Will Netanyahu feel compelled to make a highly risky move even though the Israeli home front is not prepared for barrages of missiles and rockets, and when the arguments of opponents to an attack are already well known and laid out for the future commission of inquiry?

That is why prime minister’s mission in Washington is the most sensitive and important of his political career. Deriving support from the usual discourse about “all the options on the table” and about Israel’s “right to defend itself against dangers,” he will try to understand from his meeting with the president what America’s “red line” is regarding Iran and whether there is are any circumstances that could lead the United States to launch its bombers and destroy the Iranian facilities in Natanz, Isfahan and Qom – or whether everything is just a lot of empty talk and the decision on whether to attack is solely in the hands of Israel’s leader. That will be the moment when Netanyahu’s leadership ability will really be tested.

Israel told U.S. Iran must halt enrichment ahead of nuclear talks, sources say – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Official says Israel raised the subject in talks over the past two weeks with the United States, Britain, France, Germany and other countries.

By Barak Ravid

Israel wants the United States and Western countries to make halting uranium enrichment a condition for renewing talks with Iran, a senior Foreign Ministry official says.

The official said Israel had raised the subject in talks over the past two weeks with the United States, Britain, France, Germany and other countries.

	An aerial photograph showing Iran’s uranium conversion facility just outside the city of Isfahan, March 30, 2005.
	Photo by: AP

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who left for Canada on Thursday, is expected to broach the issue in his talks in Washington next week.

Two weeks ago Iran sent a letter to Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, saying it was interested in renewing the negotiations with six world powers – the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.

Ashton, who is coordinating the talks with the Iranians, has said in recent days the dialogue with the Iranians might be resumed in April, probably in Turkey.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said at a Senate hearing on Wednesday that if the talks with Iran reopen, they will be tough.

Foreign Ministry sources said Israel believes that the Iranians have no real intention of negotiating over their nuclear program and are merely trying to buy time.

Israel has made it clear to the United States, Britain, France and Germany that if they enter into a dialogue with Iran, they must set clear conditions and a rigid timetable.

“The most important condition to set before the Iranians is halting the uranium enrichment concurrently with the negotiations,” a Foreign Ministry source said.

The possibility of opening negotiations with Iran came up in Israel’s talks about a week ago with Tom Donilon, the U.S. national security adviser. It also came up in Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s talks with senior White House officials this week.

At his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, Netanyahu is also expected to raise Israel’s concern that the talks with Iran will waste valuable time and achieve nothing.

How to prevent an Israeli strike on I… JPost – Opinion – Op-Eds.

Russian bank shuts down Iranian embassy … JPost – International.

DEBKA.

Last minute: In a dramatic U-turn showing Israel that Washington is serious about its military option against Iran’s nuclear program, Pentagon officials disclosed Thursday, March 1, that “military options being prepared start with providing refueling for Israeli planes and include attacking the pillars of the clerical regime. They include the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and its elite Qods Force, regular Iranian military bases and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security.”
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in Washington’s first public reference to possible joint military action with Israel against Iran.
These comments came in response to an Israeli request to the Obama administration to finally set red lines for Iran’s nuclear program and abandon its “shifting red lines” option. Washington was also asked to spell out US military contingencies in place of the tired “all options are on the table” mantra.
Two days earlier, on Feb. 28, the never-ending spate of American evaluations rolling out these days – for and against an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities – produced an odd AP news agency dispatch: Its correspondent on intelligence, Kimberly Dozier, wrote that Jerusalem had decided once and for all not to notify Washington in advance of an attack on Iran so as to save Washington from blame for not preventing it.
And then the article ended with this paragraph:
U.S. intelligence and special operations officials have tried to keep a dialogue going with Israel, despite the high-level impasse, sharing with them options such as allowing Israel to use U.S. bases in the region from which to launch such a strike, as a way to make sure the Israelis give the Americans a heads-up.
The proposition that America would let Israel use bases for an action against Iran to which it is flatly opposed merely to discover when it starts is, on the face of it, even more outlandish.
And why would the Israelis use American bases if they wanted to save America from blame?
However, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources, the AP “analysis” was far from foolish. Looked at sideways, its double meanings represented a trial balloon released by Washington to shed light on three sources of US anxiety, the foremost of which is whether Saudi Arabia and Israel have secretly gone back to military and intelligence cooperation for an attack on Iran’s nuclear program.

Failure to complain would implicate Gulf nations in colluding with Israel
1. By the improbable offer of US bases in the region for an Israeli attack on Iran, the Americans hope to find out if any Persian Gulf emirates have got in first by secretly offering their own facilities for this purpose. If so, Washington would feel compelled to draw Israel back into the US fold by an offer of full American cooperation for abandoning its Gulf option.
2. The US does not have extraterritorial bases in the Persian Gulf. Before offering Israel the use of the Gulf facilities at its disposal, Washington would first have to ask the emirs for permission. So what was the point of making this option public?
Because that was another trial balloon.
The Gulf emirates which host US military facilities were expected to respond to the article by asking Washington for clarifications with assurances that Israel was not offered bases located on their soil.
The administration expected to be illuminated by a process of elimination: The Gulf governments which didn’t ask for clarifications would be presumed to be secretly cooperating with Israel in the run-up to a strike in Iran, with military or intelligence support – or other means.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources disclose that to date, three Gulf nations have omitted to query Washington on the AP article: Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
Our Washington sources were not surprised. Those very governments recently offered to place their air forces and air and naval bases at the disposal of a Saudi plan for military intervention in Syria. (See the separate articles in this issue on the Riyadh-Washington rift)
They would obviously be even keener to follow the Saudi lead for busting Iran.

Saudi air bases once offered for an Israeli strike on Iran
3. Saudi-Israel military and intelligence cooperation is not new – especially when it comes to working together to preempt a nuclear Iran.
Four years ago, senior Israeli officials held a series of secret high-level consultations with prominent Saudi princes, one at least attended by a prime minister, Ehud Olmert, to discuss the division of labor for an operation to cripple Iran’s nuclear program. National Security Adviser Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who last year took over undercover operations against the Arab Spring, was part of the collaboration.
In this framework, Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, Director of Saudi General Intelligence got together with Israel counterparts, including former Mossad director, Meir Dagan.
Over the past four years, the Saudis leaked reports attesting to their willingness to grant refueling facilities at their air bases to Israeli warplanes heading to attack Iran and open them up for emergency landings by any Israel planes hit by Iranian anti-aircraft missiles or damaged in dogfights. Saudi medical services were made available in case wounded Israeli air crews required treatment.
These reports were covered extensively at the time by DEBKA-Net-Weekly.
One prominent item published in 2010 disclosed that Saudi Arabia had given Israel the use of tracts of desert land converted to landing fields with jet refueling facilities installed nearby.

Saudi-Israel cooperation back on track?
In recent months, Washington learned of a new round of meetings between the new Israeli Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo and high-ranking Saudi intelligence officials.
Washington was made additionally suspicious by the apparent overlap between messages addressed to the White House by the Saudi royal house and the offices of the Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
Two out of three of those messages were almost identical: One called for the Obama administration to publicly warn Iran that failure to live up to preset terms for terminating its nuclear weapon program would elicit a military attack.
The other asked Washington to lay down red lines which Iran’s nuclear program was forbidden to cross – also on pain of a military strike.
The third message came exclusively from Riyadh and demanded American military action against President Bashar Assad of Syria.

Obama knows time is short for an Iran policy revision
President Obama knows time is running out for a decision on whether to accept or reject the demands for putting Iran on the spot coming from Saudi Arabia and Israel, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Washington sources report. Saudi patience with Obama’s reluctance to confront Iran is more or less exhausted, as Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal told US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when they met in Tunis on Feb. 24.
Disappointed with Washington, Riyadh has turned its face toward alternatives, he said.
Israel refuses to give Washington any commitments to hold off attacking Iran or giving the administration advance notice of one.
The US president also understands that the speech he is invited to deliver Sunday March 4 at the national convention of AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee) in Washington is one of the most important events of his career.
Disappointing the audience of more than 14,000 Jewish delegates from across the United States, who are hanging on his words in expectation of a new strategy on Iran beyond sanctions and diplomatic pressure – may cost him their support for his reelection to the White House. It would also doom his summit with Netanyahu the following day to failure, thereby boosting the prospects of a potential Israeli-Saudi partnership for striking Iran.

DEBKA.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Like President Barack Obama in Washington, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is deep in calculations for a fateful decision: Should he prepare his country for negotiations on its nuclear program with the five permanent UN Security Council powers plus Germany in April or for a US and/or Israel attack?
His third option might be a preemptive strike on Israel and US regional assets.
To help him decide, Khamenei commissioned a detailed and authoritative balance sheet listing the prospects and the risks of the various options from three government agencies: the Supreme National Security Council, the Revolutionary Guards intelligence branch and the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence Services.
Khamenei’s personal intelligence bureau distilled the three reports and compiled a single, unified 32-page document which was presented to the Supreme Leader this week.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Iranian and intelligence sources secured extensive passages of this document.
Its main conclusions, they report, are that the US will not risk attacking Iran until after the November presidential election – and only if Obama is returned for a second term. It will then be one of his first actions in early 2013.
The chances of a unilateral Israel attack are slim but cannot be ignored. The long-term effects of increased sanctions are cause for concern. But some of the conclusions are contradictory.
Surgical strikes followed by a long war of attrition

Tracing the history of US and international pressure to prevent Iran going nuclear, the document concludes that these efforts were never in earnest and betokened Western reluctance for military action rather than its resolve.
Another conclusion is that the US and Israel will not be satisfied with destroying Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure but will seek to stir the Iranian people into rising up and overthrowing the Islamic regime.
Contrary to some opinions voiced in the US that a strike on Iran’s nuclear assets would unify the country behind the regime, the report presented to Khamenei stresses the risk of it triggering a popular uprising which would sweep up all the opposition factions and ethnic minorities.
While ruling out enemy ground operations on the heels of aerial bombardments, the three intelligence agencies predict a protracted war of attrition lasting six months to a year to weaken the regime and undermine its regional and international standing.
They also expect advance “softening up” operations to be mounted inside Iran to foment destabilizing upsets such as large-scale strikes and shutdowns in the electricity, fuel, water supply and transportation systems. Then, the military blow when it comes will find the regime too shaken up to survive.
The report’s authors expand on the possibility of the enemy confining itself to surgical strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and missile bases so as to diminish the risk of Iranian missile counter-strikes against US bases as well as Saudi Arabia and Israel and the explosion of a regional war.
Iran’s enemies expected to continue to stir up domestic dissent

The report put before Khamenei weighs the outcome of secret negotiations between Tehran and Moscow, which DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Iranian sources reveal here for the first time, for a Russian nuclear and aerial protective shield much like the US umbrella provided for Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Failure of these negotiations, according to the Iranian intelligence experts, would exacerbate the chances of a regional war.
Even surgical strikes knocking out parts of Iran’s nuclear program would give Iran the right to openly continue its development as the victim of a “vicious attack.”
No more than six months to two years would be needed to restore Iran’s nuclear capabilities to their former state, in the view of Khamenei’s top intelligence advisers.
The reports authors trace at length US, Israeli and Saudi efforts to stir up Iran’s restive ethnic and religious minorities against the regime – the Baluchis in the south, the Kurds in the North, the Arabic-speakers in the southwest and the Turkmen in the northeast. Although all these efforts fell flat, the West is expected to keep on strengthening the regime’s political foes.
Still, they expect the March 2 elections for a new Majlis to go smoothly and enhance the fundamentalist regime’s grip on power.