WarSclerotic

Obama’s air-sea blockade plan for Iran delays Israeli strike. Hormuz at stake?.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 4, 2012, 8:41 PM (GMT+02:00)

IRGC Chief Gen. Ali Jafari on Abu Musa island

US President Barack Obama has again persuaded Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to hold off attacking Iran’s nuclear program in the coming months by promising a new set of severe sanctions against Iran.

US administration officials assured debkafile’s Washington sources that Israel’s leaders were won over by the Obama administration’s promise to ratchet up US and Europe sanctions against Iran if the next round of negotiations with the six world powers in less than two weeks gets bogged down again.
These are the new sanctions hanging over Iran as reported by our sources

1. On July 1, the Europeans will activate the embargo that left pending on Iranian oil exports and banks.

2.  In the fall, the US administration will bring out its most potent economic weapon: an embargo on aircraft and sea vessels visiting Iranian ports. Any national airline or international aircraft touching down in Iran will be barred from US and West European airports. The same rule will apply to private and government-owned vessels, including oil tankers. Calling in at an Iranian port will automatically exclude them from entry to a US or European harbor.
This sanction would clamp down an air and naval siege on the Islamic Republic without a shot being fired.
Word of the US plan prompted a deliberately provocative visit by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari Thursday, May 31 to his forces stationed on the disputed three islands commanding the Strait of Hormuz, Abu Musa, Little Tunb and Big Tumb.

The islands are claimed by the United Arab Emirates. A previous visit by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on April 11 stirred up a major outcry in the Gulf region.

In Washington, Jafari’s visit it was taken as Tehran’s reminder of its repeated threat to close the Hormuz Straits in the event of a blockade to the transit of a large part of the world’s oil.
3.  President Obama promised Prime Minister Netanyahu to deal personally with India and Indonesia, the most flagrant violators of anti-Iran sanctions who make their financial networks available for helping Tehran evade restrictions on its international business activities.
Washington, according to our sources, made sure its sanctions plan was leaked to Tehran through diplomatic and intelligence back channels as a means of twisting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s arm into instructing his negotiators at the Moscow talks on June 16 to start showing flexibility on the world powers’ demands to discontinue uranium enrichment up to 20 percent and stop blocking international nuclear agency inspectors’ access to sites suspected of engaging in nuclear weapons development.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton no doubt had Israel’s latest concession to the Obama administration in mind, Sunday, June 3, when she brushed aside as “nothing new” questions about Khamenei’s threat to respond to an Israeli attack with “thunderous response.” She explained, “We look forward to what the Iranians actually bring to the table in Moscow. We want to see a diplomatic resolution. We now have an opportunity to achieve it, and we hope it is an opportunity that’s not lost, for everyone’s sake.”
Tehran has now been made aware that if that opportunity is indeed lost, there may be some pretty heavy music to face in the form of an international air and sea embargo.

The Consequences Of Attacking Iran.

Doug Mataconis   ·   Monday, March 19, 2012

The New York Times reports this afternoon on the results of a war game conducted earlier this month that attempted to play out what might happen if Israel struck Iranian nuclear facilities, as many have speculated they might end up doing this year:

WASHINGTON — A classified war simulation exercise held this month to assess the American military’s capabilities to respond to an Israeli attack on Iran forecast that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials.

The officials said the so-called war game was not designed as a rehearsal for American military action — and they emphasized that the exercise’s results were not the only possible outcome of a real-world conflict. But the game has raised fears among top American planners that it may be impossible to preclude American involvement in any escalating confrontation with Iran, the officials said. In the debate among policymakers over the consequences of any possible Israeli attack, that reaction may give stronger voice to those within the White House, Pentagon and intelligence community who have warned that a strike could prove perilous for the United States.

The results of the war game were particularly troubling to Gen. James N. Mattis, who commands all American forces in the Middle East, Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia, according to officials who either participated in the Central Command exercise or who were briefed on the results and spoke on condition of anonymity because of its classified nature. When the exercise had concluded earlier this month, according to the officials, General Mattis told aides that an Israeli first-strike would likely have dire consequences across the region and for United States forces there.

The two-week war game, called “Internal Look,” played out a narrative in which the United States found it was pulled into the conflict after Iranian missiles struck a Navy warship in the Persian Gulf, killing about 200 Americans, according to officials with knowledge of the exercise. The United States then retaliated by launching its own strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

The initial Israeli attack was assessed to have set back the Iranian nuclear program by roughly a year, and the subsequent American strikes did not slow the Iranian nuclear program by more than an additional two years. However, other Pentagon planners have said that America’s arsenal of long-range bombers, refueling aircraft and precision missiles could do far more damage to the Iranian nuclear program — if President Obama were to decide on a full-scale retaliation.

The exercise was designed specifically to test internal military communications and coordination among battle staffs in the Pentagon, Tampa, where the headquarters of the Central Command is located, and in the Persian Gulf in the aftermath of an Israeli strike. But the exercise was written to assess a pressing, potential, real-world situation.

In the end, the war game reinforced to military officials the unpredictable and uncontrollable nature of a strike by Israel, and a counterstrike by Iran, the officials said.

For example, we don’t know how the Iranians would react to an Israeli attack. Direct retaliation against Israel would seem to be the most likely response, but there’s also the possibility that they’ll engage in unconventional means of response. In fact, the posited outcome in this war game, a direct Iranian attack on an American warship strikes me as the least likely possibility of all. Say what you might about the Iranians, but they aren’t stupid, and a direct attack on an American ship in the Persian Gulf or the Straits of Hormuz would likely bring down a rain of fire upon their heads, not just bombing attacks on nuclear facilities, but on other elements of the Iranian military and political infrastructure. It would be, arguably, the only thing that any American President could do and still maintain their own political credibility. Of course, there’s always the unknown factor:

Many experts have predicted that Iran would try to carefully manage the escalation after an Israeli first-strike in order to avoid giving the United States a rationale for attacking with its far superior forces. Thus, it might use proxies to set off car bombs in world capitals or funnel high explosives to insurgents in Afghanistan to attack American and NATO troops. While using surrogates might, in the end, not be enough to hide Iran’s instigation of these attacks, the government in Tehran could at least publicly deny all responsibility.

Some military specialists in the United States and in Israel who have assessed the potential ramifications of an Israeli attack believe that the last thing Iran would want is a full-scale war on its territory. Thus, they argue that Iran would not directly strike American military targets, whether warships in the Persian Gulf or bases in the region.

Their analysis, however, also includes the broad caveat that it is impossible to know the internal thinking of the senior Iranian leadership, and is informed by the awareness that even the most detailed war games cannot predict how nations and their leaders will react in the heat of conflict.

This is always a problem, of course, but it strikes me as a bigger one with respect to Iran since it seems pretty clear that our intelligence regarding the internal operations of the Islamic Republic is pretty thin. At least during the Cold War we had agents in place that were supported to be providing us with intelligence about what the Soviet leadership was thinking and doing, although even in that case it was clear that we didn’t really quite understand how the men in Moscow viewed the world. For example, in 1983 NATO undertook a ten day military exercise called Able Archer that was designed to play out a war game scenario that envisioned escalating tensions between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, ground war, and eventual nuclear exchanges. What nobody what was participating in the exercise seemed to realize, though, was how the game was being interpreted in Moscow. According to some versions of the events published later, the Soviet leadership was taking the increased communications between military officials in Europe and the United States as signs that a first strike was being planned, despite continued assurances from their own agents on the ground that there were absolutely no signs of increased military activity in Europe. According to some versions of this event, including this report the CIA  makes available on their website, preparations were being made for a possible pre-emptive strike before assurances were finally received and believed. Whatever actually happened, though, the point is that even in a situation where we thought we knew our enemy, we really didn’t know how they were reacting to our actions. What makes us think we have any real idea how the Iranians are going to react in the event of an Israeli (or American) attack?

With every new development, we seem to be finding ourselves pushed closer and closer to military conflict with Iran. Given the ongoing civil war in Syria and the presence of about 100,000 of our own troops in neighboring Afghanistan, it strikes me that we’re taking quite a risk without fully thinking through the consequences of what we’re doing. The last time we did that, we ended up fighting two wars for ten years.

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mannning says:

If Obama is another Carter, we may be heading for yet another significant loss of men and equipment due to surrogate attacks on our ME facilities, or anywhere, for that matter, spurred on by an Israeli attack on Iran. We, the Great Satin, will be targetted if Israel does attack, and it matters not at all that the top minds in Iran are, or could be, “rational actors.” Iran cannot control fully their own weirdos nor the weirdos in Lebanon, Palestinian Territories, or even in Syria and some in Jordan, if not also in Egypt.

A Carter would probably take the hits and order that our people merely defend themselves agains immediate attacks, and not go to the source to retaliate. One wonders just how many of our lives Obama would stand to be lost through “terrorist attacks” before acting forcefully to stop the attacks with a full military response against Iran?

If Israel employs their EMP weapons against Iran when they attack, it would be most likely multiple substratospheric bursts sufficiently high to avoid excess civilian casualties over key military installations and weapon sites, and low enough to confine the effects largely to Iranian space.–yes, plural weapons in phases to ensure the necessary immobilization of Iran’s military. The IAF would then proceed with the destruction of anything military in Iran.

One hopes there is sufficient coordination with us that we can avoid the EMP effects in the Gulf. Some bank on the use of effectively Faraday cages in vehicles and electronics equipment. Hence the probable use of multiple bursts to seek out the defective holes in the cages with multiple high power pulses and thus disable the equipment despite the protection.

This idea of Israel sacrificing a large percentage of their air force to effect a year or two delay in the Iranian nuclear effort is ludicrous. Repeat every two years or so? Their survival logic would dictate that they use their weapons at hand to largely knock out Iran’s military retaliation capability. And, yes, we used the bombs 67 years ago and none since: the Israeli calculus would seem to be similar–to save their citizens and their nation from extinction, while, in this instance, not exacting a horrific toll on the Iranian population.

Further to this line of attack, the Israelis must fear exactly the same scenario followed by Iran, once Iran achieves a sufficient number of EMP bombs, if not a full nuclear bombing as a followup. That Iran hasn’t started a war in recent history means nothing at all; it most certainly it isn’t a thought to hang the existence of the nation of Israel and its 6 million people upon.

U.S. confers with Israel on future Iran sanctions.

Monday, 04 June 2012

Israel has signaled increasing impatience with the lack of progress towards circumscribing the nuclear program during the negotiations, involving Iran. (File photo)

inShare1

Israel to Unveil World’s Smallest Missile – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Spike missile

Israel news photo: PR from Rafael Systems

Israel’s Rafael Defense Systems will unveil the world’s smallest military missile at the annual Eurosatory “Land and Airland Defense and Security” exhibition in Paris next week, Israel Defense reports.

The Mini-Spike electro-optic guided missile is the first missile to implement an anti-personnel precision attack missile. It has range of approximately three quarters of a mile (1.5 km) and is intended for deployment against enemy forces in shelters or trenches.

The entire missile weighs only 8.8 pounds (4 kilograms) and uses wireless communications to view and guide the missile to its target. The Mini-Spike is less than 30 inches long, and a soldier can carry four of them in one carrier. Another soldier carries to launch system.

The missile is 70 cm in length and 75 mm in diameter. Each soldier can carry four missiles.

Rafael was established as part of the Ministry of Defense more than 50 years ago and was incorporated in 2002. Its sales last year were nearly $2 billion.

Rafael also will display at Eurosatory the Iron Dome system that intercepts short-range rockets.

The Real Reason to Intervene in Syria – By James P. Rubin | Foreign Policy.

Cutting Iran’s link to the Mediterranean Sea is a strategic prize worth the risk.

BY JAMES P. RUBIN | JUNE 4, 2012

We’re not done with the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iran. Given that the current round of negotiations with the world’s major powers will not fundamentally change Iran’s nuclear program, the question of an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is likely to return to center stage later this year. In addition to hard-headed diplomacy and economic sanctions, there is an important step the United States can take to change Israel’s calculations — helping the people of Syria in their battle against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Iran’s nuclear program and Syria’s civil war may seem unconnected, but in fact they are inextricably linked. Israel’s real fear — losing its nuclear monopoly and therefore the ability to use its conventional forces at will throughout the Middle East — is the unacknowledged factor driving its decision-making toward the Islamic Republic. For Israeli leaders, the real threat from a nuclear-armed Iran is not the prospect of an insane Iranian leader launching an unprovoked nuclear attack on Israel that would lead to the annihilation of both countries. It’s the fact that Iran doesn’t even need to test a nuclear weapon to undermine Israeli military leverage in Lebanon and Syria. Just reaching the nuclear threshold could embolden Iranian leaders to call on their proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, to attack Israel, knowing that their adversary would have to think hard before striking back.

That is where Syria comes in. It is the strategic relationship between the Islamic Republic and the Assad regime that makes it possible for Iran to undermine Israel’s security. Over the three decades of hostility between Iran and Israel, a direct military confrontation has never occurred — but through Hezbollah, which is sustained and trained by Iran via Syria, the Islamic Republic has proven able to threaten Israeli security interests.

The collapse of the Assad regime would sunder this dangerous alliance. Defense Minister Ehud Barak, arguably the most important Israeli decision-maker on this question, recently told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that the Assad regime’s fall “will be a major blow to the radical axis, major blow to Iran…. It’s the only kind of outpost of the Iranian influence in the Arab world … and it will weaken dramatically both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza.”

The rebellion in Syria has now lasted more than a year. The opposition is not going away, and it is abundantly clear that neither diplomatic pressure nor economic sanctions will force Assad to accept a negotiated solution to the crisis. With his life, his family, and his clan’s future at stake, only the threat or use of force will change the Syrian dictator’s stance. Absent foreign intervention, then, the civil war in Syria will only get worse as radicals rush in to exploit the chaos there and the spillover into Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey intensifies.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has been understandably wary of engaging in an air operation in Syria similar to the campaign in Libya, for three main reasons. Unlike the Libyan opposition forces, the Syrian rebels are not unified and do not hold territory. The Arab League has not called for outside military intervention as it did in Libya. And the Russians, the longtime patron of the Assad regime, are staunchly opposed.

Libya was an easier case. But other than the laudable result of saving many thousands of Libyan civilians from Muammar al-Qaddafi’s regime, it had no long-lasting consequences for the region. Syria is harder — but success there would be a transformative event for the Middle East. Not only would another ruthless dictator succumb to mass popular opposition, but Iran would no longer have a Mediterranean foothold from which to threaten Israel and destabilize the region.

A successful intervention in Syria would require substantial diplomatic and military leadership from the United States. Washington should start by declaring its willingness to work with regional allies like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey to organize, train, and arm Syrian rebel forces. The announcement of such a decision would, by itself, likely cause substantial defections from the Syrian military. Then, using territory in Turkey and possibly Jordan, U.S. diplomats and Pentagon officials could start strengthening and unifying the opposition. Once the opposition knows real outside help is on the way, it should be possible over time to build a coherent political leadership based on the Syrian National Council as well as a manageable command and control structure for the Free Syrian Army, both of which are now weak and divided. This will be difficult and time-consuming, but we should remember that the Syrian civil war is now destined to go on for years, whether the outside world intervenes or not.

A second step worth serious consideration is to secure international support for a coalition air operation. Russia will never support such a mission, so there is no point operating through the U.N. Security Council. And given the reluctance of some European states, NATO may be difficult as well. Therefore, this operation will have to be a unique combination of Western and Middle East countries. Given Syria’s extreme isolation within the Arab League, it should be possible to gain strong support from most Arab countries, led by Saudi Arabia and Turkey. U.S. leadership is indispensable, since most of the key countries will follow only if Washington leads.

Some worry that U.S. involvement risks a confrontation with Russia. However, the Kosovo example — where NATO went to war against another Russian ally, while Moscow did little more than complain — shows otherwise. In that case, Russia had genuine ethnic and political ties to the Serbs, which don’t exist between Russia and Syria. Managing Russia’s reaction to outside intervention will be difficult but should not be exaggerated.

Arming the Syrian opposition and creating a coalition air force to support them is a low-cost, high-payoff approach. Whether an air operation should just create a no-fly zone that grounds the regimes’ aircraft and helicopters or actually conduct air to ground attacks on Syrian tanks and artillery should be the subject of immediate military planning. And as Barak, the Israeli defense minister, also noted, Syria’s air defenses may be better than Libya’s but they are no match for a modern air force.

The larger point is that as long as Washington stays firm that no U.S. ground troops will be deployed, à la Kosovo and Libya, the cost to the United States will be limited. Victory may not come quickly or easily, but it will come. And the payoff will be substantial. Iran would be strategically isolated, unable to exert its influence in the Middle East. The resulting regime in Syria will likely regard the United States as more friend than enemy. Washington would gain substantial recognition as fighting for the people in the Arab world, not the corrupt regimes.

With the Islamic Republic deprived of its gateway to the Arab world, the Israelis’ rationale for a bolt from the blue attack on its nuclear facilities would diminish. A new Syrian regime might eventually even resume the frozen peace talks regarding the Golan Heights.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah would be cut off from its Iranian sponsor, since Syria would no longer be a transit point for Iranian training, assistance, and missiles. All these strategic benefits combined with the moral purpose of saving tens of thousands of civilians from murder at the hands of the Assad regime — some 12,000 have already been killed, according to activists — make intervention in Syria a calculated risk, but still a risk worth taking.

With the veil of fear now lifted, the Syrian people are determined to fight for their freedom. America can and should help them — and by doing so help Israel and help reduce the risk of a far more dangerous war between Israel and Iran.

Syria violence flares after rebel deadline – JPost – Middle East.

By REUTERS

06/04/2012 16:30

Rebels apparently follow through on threat to attack Assad’s troops if ceasefire not recognized by gov’t, 80 soldiers killed.

Photo: REUTERS/SANA/Handout

BEIRUT – Syrian rebels killed at least 80 army soldiers at the weekend, an opposition watchdog said on Monday, in a surge of attacks that followed their threat to resume fighting if President Bashar Assad failed to observe a UN-backed ceasefire.

The latest violence and Assad’s defiant speech to parliament on Sunday raised questions about how long UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan can realistically pursue his threadbare peace plan.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said local doctors had confirmed the names of 80 dead government soldiers.

Insurgents told the British-based group they had killed more than 100 soldiers and destroyed some tanks in clashes across Syria, including Damascus and Idlib province in the northwest.

Syria’s state news agency reported the burial on Monday of 30 members of the security forces killed by rebels.

Some commanders in the rebel Free Syrian Army had announced last week they would be “free of any commitment” to Annan’s peace plan if Assad did not end violence by Friday.

The May 25 massacre of at least 108 people, nearly half of them children, in the Houla area of Homs province dealt a possibly fatal blow to Annan’s proposed ceasefire, which was supposed to take effect on April 12 but never did.

A Syrian troop pullback was at the top of Annan’s six-point plan to halt hostilities, allow peaceful protests, supply humanitarian aid and start a political transition in a country controlled by the Assad family with an iron fist for 42 years.

“The Annan mission is essentially dead, and of course most Western powers admit that,” said Michael Stephens, researcher at the Royal United Services Institute’s branch in Qatar.

“Houla changed the game completely in terms of what people were willing to accept and what they were not.”

World at ‘moment of truth’ on Ir… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

Cyber-attacks “bought us time” on Iran: U.S. sources | DefenceWeb.

The United States under former President George W. Bush began building a complex cyber-weapon to try to prevent Tehran from completing suspected nuclear weapons work without resorting to risky military strikes against Iranian facilities, current and former U.S. officials familiar with the program said.

Barack Obama accelerated the efforts after succeeding Bush in 2009, according to the sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the effort. The weapon, called Stuxnet, was eventually used against Iran’s main uranium enrichment facilities.

The effort was intended to bridge the time of uncertainty between U.S. administrations after the 2008 presidential election in which Obama was elected, and allow more time for sanctions and diplomacy to avert Iranian nuclear weapon development, according to the current and former officials, Reuters reports.

The sources gave rare insight into the U.S. development of its cyber-warfare capabilities and the intent behind it.

One source familiar with the Bush administration’s initial work on Stuxnet said it had stalled Iran’s nuclear program by about five years.

“It bought us time. First, it was to get across from one administration to the next without having the issue blow up. And then it was to give Obama a little more time to come up with alternatives, through the sanctions, et cetera,” said the source.

Only in recent months have U.S. officials become more open about the work of the United States and Israel on Stuxnet, the sophisticated cyber-weapon directed against Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment facility that was first detected in 2010.

The cyber-attacks provided the United States with an avenue to try to stop Iran from producing a suspected weapon without turning to military strikes against Iranian facilities – all at a time when U.S. forces already were fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the sources said.

In the end, senior U.S. officials agreed the benefit of stalling Iran’s nuclear program was greater than the risks of the virus being harnessed by other countries or terrorist groups to attack U.S. facilities, one source said.

HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS

Two sources with direct knowledge of the U.S. program said it cost hundreds of millions of dollars to carry out.

The United States for years has been developing – and using – offensive cyber-capabilities to interfere with the computers of adversaries, including during the Battle of Falluja in Iraq in 2004 and in finding Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda figures, the sources said.

Last year, the United States also explicitly stated for the first time that it reserved the right to retaliate with military force against a cyber-attack.

The New York Times reported on Friday that from his first months in office, Obama secretly ordered attacks of growing sophistication on the computer systems running the main Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities, greatly widening the first sustained U.S. use of cyber-weapons. The Times said the attacks were code-named Olympic Games.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest declined comment on the substance of the New York Times article, but denied “in the strongest possible terms” that it was an authorized leak of classified information. Obama is seeking re-election on November 6 in part on the strength of his foreign policy achievements.

Reuters reported on May 29 that the United Nations agency charged with helping member nations secure their national infrastructures plans to issue a sharp warning about the risk of the Flame computer virus that was recently discovered in Iran and other parts of the Middle East.

Stuxnet is one of many weapons in the U.S. cyber-arsenal, which some experts say also includes a data-gathering tool known as Duqu that was deployed to cull information about Iran’s weapons programs.

Iranian officials have described the cyber-attacks as part of a “terrorist” campaign backed by Israel and the United States.

Some current and former U.S. officials, who asked not to be named, criticized the Obama administration for talking too freely to the media about classified operations.

Representative Peter King, the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, said, “I believe that no one, including the White House, should be discussing cyber-attacks.”

“The U.S. will now be blamed for any sophisticated, malicious software, even if it was the Chinese or just criminals,” added Jason Healey, who has worked on cyber-security for the Air Force, White House and Goldman Sachs, and is now with the Atlantic Council research group

US: Israel “supportive” on future Iran sanctions | DefenceWeb.

The United States is conferring with Israel about new sanctions planned against Iran should international negotiations this month fail to curb the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme, a U.S. official said on Monday.

The comment offered a strong hint that Washington is continuing to apply the brakes on any plan by Israel to attack Iranian nuclear facilities preemptively.

Israel has signalled increasing impatience with the lack of progress towards circumscribing the nuclear programme during the negotiations, involving Iran, the United States and five other world powers. The third round of talks will be hosted by Russia on June 18-19, Reuters reports.

“If we don’t get a breakthrough in Moscow there is no question we will continue to ratchet up the pressure,” David Cohen, U.S. Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, told Haaretz newspaper during a visit to Israel.

The United States and European Union have already made clear they will stiffen sanctions should Iran pursue uranium enrichment, a process that can yield fuel for warheads though it insists the objective is civilian energy and medical isotopes.

Cohen stressed the depth of the U.S.-Israeli partnership.

“We have today and over the past years had very close cooperation with the Israeli government across a range of our sanctions programmes,” he said. “They are creative. They are supportive and we will continue to consult with the Israelis.”

Cohen made similar comments to Army Radio, a major Israeli broadcaster, during his 36-hour visit, when he was to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s senior security staff.

In a speech last week, Netanyahu said world powers must both beef up sanctions and demand an immediate end to all uranium enrichment by Iran, whose mid-level 20 percent purification has been the focus of earlier negotiations.

Israel is reputed to have the region’s only atomic arsenal and many international experts, including the top U.S. military officer, General Martin Dempsey, have voiced doubt in the ability of its conventional forces to deliver lasting damage to Iran’s distant, dispersed and well-defended nuclear facilities.

The Israelis have hinted that delaying Iran’s progress could justify a unilateral strike. Ensuing Iranian reprisals would risk drawing in the United States, which has not ruled out force against Tehran but is loath to launch a new military campaign in the Muslim world.

UN nuclear watchdog says to meet… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

By REUTERS

06/04/2012 12:26

UN nuclear watchdog, Iran to hold new talks this week to try to reach agreement on probe of nuclear program; West voices doubt that Iran will follow-through; IAEA wants to check Parchin military site.

Photo: REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger

VIENNA – The UN nuclear watchdog and Iran will hold a new round of talks this week to try to reach an agreement to resume a long-stalled probe into suspected atom bomb research in the Islamic state, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said on Monday.

Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, made a rare visit to Tehran two weeks ago and said when he returned to Vienna that he expected a framework cooperation deal to be signed soon with Iran.

Related:

• US think tank: Iran site buildings ‘completely razed’
• Striking Iran: The parameters of the debate

Western diplomats have voiced doubt that Iran will implement any such agreement with the Vienna-based UN agency, which says Tehran has stonewalled its investigation for almost four years.

“I wish to inform the board that a meeting between Iran and the agency has been scheduled for June 8 in Vienna,” Amano said in a speech to the IAEA’S 35-nation governing board, according to a copy of his remarks.

“I invite Iran to sign and implement the Structured Approach document as soon as possible and to provide early access to the Parchin site,” he said, referring to an agreement on how to conduct the IAEA’s investigation.

The IAEA suspects that Iran had carried out research relevant to developing nuclear weapons at the Parchin military site, southeast of Tehran. Iran denies this.