WarSclerotic

Israel remains wild card amid US bluster – FT Specials News – IBNLive.

Washington: “We are on the same page at this moment,” Hillary Clinton said earlier this week in Jerusalem, shortly after posing for photos with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, at the David Citadel Hotel.

The subject was Iran and its nuclear programme. Just in case that message was not loud enough, the US secretary of state has been getting a lot of back-up from her Obama administration colleagues. A few days before Mrs Clinton arrived in Jerusalem, she was preceded by Tom Donilon, the national security adviser, and before that by her number two at State, Bill Burns.

After she left Israel on Tuesday, the local protocol team started to prepare for the impending visit of defence secretary Leon Panetta. Even in an election year and with Mitt Romney planning his own trip to Israel at the end of next week, that is a lot of official visits.

The flurry of talks with Israel come as tensions between the US and Iran appear to be escalating again, the result of the apparent stalemate in the negotiations between Iran and the leading powers over its nuclear programme and the implementation of tough new sanctions by the US and Europe.

Amid Iran’s repeated threats to close down the Straits of Hormuz, Monday’s incident near Dubai, when the US navy fired on a fishing boat that came close to one of its ships and killed one of the men on board, underscores the nervousness in the region.

Over the past few weeks, the Pentagon has not missed an opportunity to remind Iran of the quiet military build-up it has put in place in the Gulf since the end of last year. An aircraft carrier, the USS Stennis, has been sent to the region four months ahead of schedule – as has the USS Ponce, a 46 year-old transport ship that has been remodelled as a potential floating base for special forces.

The Pentagon said on Tuesday that the US would lead a big minesweeping operation in the Gulf in September, involving about 20 other countries. The choreographed announcements are a clear message to the Iranians not to try anything.

Yet amid all the bluster and troop movements, the contours of the Iran nuclear issue remain little changed. For their own reasons, the US and Iran would both probably prefer to delay difficult decisions until next year.

The Obama administration is acutely aware of the narrow political space in which it is operating over Iran, given the pressure it would come under from Republicans were it to make anything looking like a substantial concession. If President Barack Obama wins re-election, however, he will have more room to pursue a deal with Iran.

And if Iran really is interested in negotiating over its nuclear programme – something which remains disputed – it too might wish to wait until after the election, even with the rising economic pain from sanctions. Not only would a re-elected Obama have a freer hand, but Tehran could worry that a future Romney administration might not accept any deal that is reached now.

That means that the wild-card this year remains the reaction of the Israelis. Although the speculation about an Israeli military strike is nowhere near as intense as it was earlier in the year, it has not disappeared.

The unofficial signals from Israel continue to play down the prospects of an attack. A recent interview by a former military planning chief, Giora Eiland, has attracted a lot of attention in Washington. Echoing the views of former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, he warned of the possibility that an Israeli strike might end up accelerating the creation of an Iranian nuclear bomb if Israel had little international support.

But the unanswered question is whether Mr Netanyahu really believes the US would launch its own military strike if that were the only way to prevent an Iranian bomb. In Jerusalem, Mrs Clinton repeated the familiar promise that “all elements of American power [will be used] to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon”. However, the flurry of visitors from Washington suggests that the Obama administration is still not certain it has convinced Mr Netanyahu. The US and Israel are still not completely on the same page.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012

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