WarSclerotic

Netanyahu Sees Israel as a Top Developed Nation Amid Iran Threat.

As the Iranian nuclear threat dominates Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s second term, nothing motivates him more than making economic history.

The son of 101-year-old Benzion Netanyahu, a former Cornell University history professor, the Israeli premier says his ambition is to overtake France and the U.K., the world’s fifth- and sixth-largest economies, in terms of output per head. It’s the push for growth that drives Netanyahu’s policies, even as he heads to Washington next week for talks on Iran.

Since the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-educated Netanyahu began selling state assets and loosening labor laws as finance minister from 2003 to 2005, Israel’s economy has boomed, growing at an average 4.2 percent each year. The expansion will help ensure Israel’s survival, as an “island of democracy that is surrounded by a sea of troubles” in the Middle East, the 62- year-old premier told U.S. Jewish leaders at a Feb. 19 conference in Jerusalem.

“If we are to address our defense needs that we are being challenged with, we have to continue this growth,” Netanyahu said at the meeting. “It is not a question of living standard. It’s a question of national security.”

As part of his plan to spur growth, Netanyahu has set up a committee to boost competition, introduced reforms to lower the cost of living after social protests, passed a law to free up public land for private development, maintained fiscal discipline, and introduced a two-year budget, a move praised by the International Monetary Fund.

Fischer’s Stature

Israel’s economy probably expanded 4.8 percent in 2011, according to the IMF, matching the 2010 figure and exceeding the 1.7 percent growth in the U.S. The Finance Ministry estimates gross domestic product will increase 3.2 percent in 2012.

With Stanley Fischer steering monetary policy at the Bank of Israel, Netanyahu says there’s scope for the nation to match some of the world’s most developed economies. Fischer was Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s thesis adviser at MIT.

“There’s no reason why we can’t eventually surpass Britain and France in GDP per capita,” Netanyahu said during a Feb. 20 interview in his Jerusalem office, kept warm by two free- standing electric radiators. “We have to keep growing at 5 percent.”

The IMF calculates Israeli GDP per head was $32,300 last year, compared with $39,600 in the U.K. and $44,400 in France. Unemployment was 5.4 percent in Israel in the fourth quarter, the lowest since at least 1985. The jobless rate was about 9.3 percent in France and 8.4 percent in Britain.

Riskless Return

Having never fully resolved the state of war with its neighbors that accompanied Israel’s founding in 1948, the country produced better risk-adjusted returns than all other developed stock markets in the past decade, according to the Bloomberg Riskless Return Ranking.

The Tel Aviv TA-25 Index returned 7.6 percent in the 10 years ended Feb. 17, after adjusting for volatility, the highest among 24 developed-nation benchmark indexes. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was the next-best market with a risk-adjusted gain of 6.7 percent, followed by Norway, which had the highest total return.

“This is a great achievement,” Netanyahu told the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, on Feb. 20.

It’s one that the premier argues can help ward off the challenges such as the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, set to be the key theme of his talks with President Barack Obama at the White House on March 5.

Iranian Sanctions

In the run-up to the meeting, Obama has sent emissaries to Jerusalem, including Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and Middle East envoy David Hale, to assure Netanyahu that the U.S. won’t allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. Netanyahu sent Defense Minister Ehud Barak to Washington on Feb. 27 to meet with Vice President Joe Biden.

Netanyahu remains skeptical about the effect on Iran of international economic sanctions. Barak has suggested that time is running out to stop Iran by staging a military attack on suspect nuclear facilities as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government presses ahead with the enrichment of uranium.

An Israeli attack would have precedents. The country staged an air strike in September 2007 to destroy a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor under Netanyahu’s predecessor, Ehud Olmert. Menachem Begin ordered a similar operation against an Iraqi reactor 26 years earlier.

Netanyahu’s family background has equipped him with a sense of history. His father, an expert on the Spanish Inquisition, appeared with him in a 2009 election campaign commercial, showing the two playing chess at home.

Chess Board

“You need the steadfastness to act, to do the unpopular thing that may ultimately save the country,” Netanyahu said in the ad after his father moved a piece across the board.

When it comes to policy discussions, it’s the economy that moves the premier most. The former commando gets positively electric when he talks about strategies for growth, jumping away from his desk and grabbing a marker to sketch plans on a white board built into a wall of his private office for, say, cutting taxes or deregulating the real-estate market, according to his spokesman, Mark Regev.

In the Feb. 20 interview, Netanyahu highlighted the strength of Israel’s technology companies such as Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., the world’s No. 2 software security firm.

First Term

“Israel produces more conceptual products than any other country,” he said.

Israel, whose population of 7.8 million is similar to Switzerland’s, has about 60 companies traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market, the most of any country outside the U.S. after China. The nation also is home to more startup companies per capita than the U.S.

During his first term as prime minister in the 1990S, Netanyahu encouraged foreign investment and helped the growth of software, telecommunications and other technology firms. He liked to refer to the burgeoning industry as “Silicon Wadi,” using the Arabic term for a dry river bed. His government lightened restrictions on trading the shekel, narrowed the budget deficit, slowed inflation and limited the scale of wage increases by standing up to organized labor.

Suez Challenge

In Netanyahu’s 30-month stint as finance minister, the economy rebounded from the recession of 2001 and 2002 as he instituted spending cuts, sold off state-owned companies and introduced deregulation. Netanyahu oversaw the sale of El Al Israel Airlines Ltd., the country’s largest airline, Israel Discount Bank, the No. 3 bank, and Bezeq Israeli Telecommunication Corp., the biggest telecommunications provider. He also started the sale of Bank Leumi Le-Israel Ltd.

“How can we get the great Asian economies interested?” Netanyahu said in the interview. “First of all, with our technology. And we have that. We can also build a train line from the Red Sea to Ashdod to link Asia and Europe. And we can pump gas the other way, from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea.”

That rail line would link Ashdod on the Mediterranean with the southern port of Eilat on the Red Sea, enabling Israel to compete for cargo traffic with Egypt’s Suez Canal. Another line Netanyahu is planning would run from the northern port of Haifa to the eastern border town of Beit Shean, potentially giving the Palestinian Authority and Jordan rail access to the Mediterranean.

Gas Find

Confidence in Israel’s economic future has been bolstered by the discovery of offshore natural-gas deposits by a group led by Houston-based Noble Energy Inc. and Netanya, Israel-based Delek Group Ltd., which could make the country both energy- independent and a gas exporter.

Israel’s Leviathan gas field may hold as much as 20 trillion cubic feet of gas, Noble, a partner with Israeli companies in the site, said in a Dec. 19 statement. The field is Noble’s biggest find. Noble operates Leviathan and has a 39.66 percent interest. The second-largest Israeli gas find is the Tamar, which is estimated at about 9 trillion cubic feet.

Sending gas and other Israeli products to China and India, the world’s most populous nations, are among Netanyahu’s highest priorities in building the economy, he told the Jewish leaders last month.

“We have to be like a nimble mammal that finds its way in a perilous world,” Netanyahu said.

White House Press Briefing by Jay Carney, February 29, 2012.

Q And in light of the President’s pending speech at AIPAC and the visit of Prime Minister Netanyahu, I was talking to a national security expert who was telling me that he didn’t think that there had been enough of a discussion of what if Israel did launch a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities and things went wrong. And one of the issues he raised was the idea that Iran obviously borders Afghanistan and has stayed relatively — has stayed pretty much out of Afghanistan in terms of — compared to some of the things that it’s done in Iraq, for instance, in terms of arming the insurgents in Iraq. It has not done so in Afghanistan. And the official — the expert, rather, expressed concerns that if things went wrong then it would be possible that Iran might start helping to attack or at least arm insurgents in Afghanistan and try to kill American soldiers. In light of publicly discussing the things that could go wrong in such a strike, is that a concern being discussed here at the White House?

MR. CARNEY: Well, I would say two things about that. First, our approach to this has been to galvanize and mobilize the international community to make it clear that Iranian behavior is the issue, to pressure and sanction Iran for its failure to live up to its international obligations, and to ratchet up that pressure and increase the sanctions on Iran to the point where we hope Iran will change its behavior.

We believe that there is time and space to continue to pursue that approach, even as we refuse and make clear that we do not take any option off the table in our effort to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

It is certainly the case — and I think we have been clear about this — that any military action in that region threatens greater instability in the region, threatens — as you point out, because Iran borders both Afghanistan and Iraq — we have civilian personnel in Iraq, we have military personnel as well as civilians in Afghanistan. There are all sorts of potential consequences to more military activity in that region and in Iran specifically.

But our approach right now is to continue to pursue the diplomatic path that we’ve taken, combined with very aggressive sanctions, and we continue to ratchet up the pressure on Tehran. And I think it’s important to note that while Tehran does not and has not lived up to its international obligations, that it does not do the things it needs to do to demonstrate that it does not have nuclear weapons ambitions, we do have visibility into their programs and Iran has not broken out and started to pursue a weapon. So there is time and space to continue to pursue the policy that we have been pursuing since the President took office.

Q You just said that we do not believe that Iran has broken out to pursue a weapon. Is that why the administration is reluctant to outline when it may use a military option?

MR. CARNEY: Well, no. I think that we’ve made very clear that we do not take any option off the table as we pursue a policy designed to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. We believe that the policy that we’ve been pursing, unifying the international community and pressuring and isolating Tehran, creates the best opportunity for ensuring that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon. It is the best option. And because there is time and space still to allow that option to work, we are continuing to pursue it.

But speculation about what we would do if this were to happen and what would trigger what response is not something I would do here from the podium, and it’s not productive to the success of our policy.

Q To clarify, is U.S. policy to prevent Iran from a nuclear weapon, or to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons capability?

MR. CARNEY: Well, I think I’ve been clear that we are determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. We obviously monitor through IAEA inspectors their nuclear programs, and there is no question that Iran has not lived up to its international obligations with regards to uranium enrichment and their level of cooperation with the IAEA.

So the fact that we do have inspectors who are able to provide visibility into their programs does not mean that they have been entirely cooperative, because they have not. And it is Iran’s refusal to behave in accordance with their international obligations, to take the necessary steps to assure the international community that they do not have the intention of developing a nuclear weapons program and developing nuclear weapons, that they are subject to these broad and increasing sanctions by the United States and the entire international community. And that pressure will continue and it has had an effect on both the economy and on the political leadership.

Q Can you speak to some of the reports in the Israeli papers that Prime Minister Netanyahu is going to pressure President Obama to be more specific about these “all options on the table”? Will the President be more specific?

MR. CARNEY: The President is very specific and direct in his many conversations with the Prime Minister of Israel, and I’m sure that will be the case when they meet again next week. Our approach is very clear — and I do not expect that I or anyone else will engage in speculation about how we might react should something or the other happen in the future with regards to Iran’s program. So I think you’ll hear from us a very consistent message and I fully expect that the President’s conversations with Prime Minister Netanyahu will continue to be as detailed and candid as they always have been.

Q And if Israel attacks Iran and Iran retaliates, will we defend Israel?

MR. CARNEY: That’s a couple of “ifs” down the road. What I can say is we have an unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security. It’s a commitment that’s demonstrated by the unprecedented level of military-to-military and intelligence-to-intelligence service cooperation that we’ve established with Israel, a fact that has been testified to not just by Obama administration officials but by Israeli government officials, including the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister. And that level of cooperation will continue. We are absolutely committed to Israel’s security.

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.”