WarSclerotic

Dan Meridor: Iran scared of int’l… JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

( WTF ? ! – JW )

Photo: The Israel Project

U.S. must show tougher stance against Iran – Netanyahu confidant | Reuters.

(Reuters) – A confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that U.S. President Barack Obama had yet to present a credible military threat that could deter Iran from seeking nuclear weapons.

The latest criticism was voiced by Tzachi Hanegbi, an influential former legislator who quit the opposition Kadima party in July to join up with Likud and Netanyahu, with whom he has always maintained a close relationship.

“I don’t see that there is a credible threat for American action, the rhetoric of the U.S. president is too vague, very amorphous … I don’t see that (Obama’s words) will be translated into more tangible intentions and therefore this is probably why the Iranians don’t take it seriously, they speak out against it and they dismiss it,” Hanegbi said.

It was another sign of Israeli impatience with its closest ally, the United States, which has urged Israel not to attack Iran on its own and to give international diplomacy more time to try to curb Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Obama has insisted he will not allow Iran to build atomic weapons and that all options were on the table, but Israeli officials have said they wanted to hear stronger language from the president about possible U.S. military action.

In a U.S. election year, Republican candidate Mitt Romney has also sharply criticised Obama’s handling of Iran as not being tough enough.

Tehran says it is refining uranium to fuel a planned network of nuclear power plants so that it can export more of its oil and gas. The United States and its allies accuse Iran of a covert bid to develop the capability to make nuclear bombs.

Israel, believed to have the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, views a nuclear-armed Iran as a threat to its existence.

Israel’s deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon said on Friday he feared Iran did not believe it faced a real military threat because of mixed messages from foreign powers. But he told Reuters in July that the United States should lead the way.

“We believe of course that the military option should be the last resort and we believe that someone else should be doing the job. But we should be ready to defend ourselves by ourselves,” he told Reuters in an interview.

Netanyahu has said he will speak out about the dangers of Iran in an address this month to the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

He is also expected to hold talks with Obama during his visit but no announcement has yet been made. A senior Israeli official told Reuters last week that Netanyahu would seek a firm pledge of U.S. military action if Iran does not back down.

A United Nations report said on Thursday that Iran has sharply increased the number of centrifuges it has in a fortified bunker at Fordow, showing Tehran has continued to expand its nuclear programme despite Western pressure and the threat of an Israeli attack.

CREDIBLE THREAT

Hanegbi, a former chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, told a town hall meeting in northern Israel that a forthright U.S. military threat was the most effective way to stop Iran.

“If there will not be a credible threat of military action, there probably won’t be another way to persuade the Iranians to stop their nuclear program. The most credible threat is the American threat, the American ability and its might are far more worrisome for the Iranians than Israel’s,” Hanegbi said.

But he added that Israeli action could also be effective in causing Iran to abandon its nuclear enrichment ambitions.

“Is the Israeli threat credible? I am not able … to tell the Iranians about our capabilities but the fact that I am talking about it shows that I do not think it is unrealistic,” Hanegbi said.

Hanegbi was convicted of perjury in July 2010 after an eight-year trial which forced him out of parliament but he has been allowed to stand again at the next elections where he is expected to stand as a Likud party candidate.

Hanegbi cited Israel’s 1981 destruction of Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor as an example of how the action had caused Saddam Hussein’s regime to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

The U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, has always cautioned against a go-it-alone approach, but he appeared to up the ante this week by saying Washington did not want to be blamed for any Israeli initiative.

“I don’t want to be complicit if they (Israel) choose to do it,” Dempsey was quoted as saying by Britain’s Guardian newspaper on Friday, suggesting that he would view an Israeli attack as reprehensible or illegal.

(Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Jon Hemming)

‘Iranian official: We’ll act if US stupi… JPost – International.

( Not enough to scorn Israel,  now to tweak America’s nose… – JW )

Photo: Raheb Homavandi/Reuters

Why Israel must ponder pre-emptive strike vs. Iran.

Charles Krauthammer Washington Post Writers Group

Former minister says US not committed to stopping Iran | The Times of Israel.

In light of this week’s IAEA report, Tzachi Hanegbi says Israel has more legitimacy to attack alone

Tzachi Hanegbi in 2010. (photo credit: Kobi Gideon/Flash90)

The United States is not determined to halt Iran from getting a bomb and this week’s IAEA report granted Israel even more legitimacy to strike Iran on its own, former minister Tzachi Hanegbi said on Saturday.

Hanegbi said that Israel is not bluffing and that “if there is no credible threat of military action, then there is no other way to convince the Iranians of halting their nuclear enrichment program.” An IAEA report published earlier this week stated that Iran increased its uranium enrichment capacity by 30% in recent months.

Without the Americans, however, Israel will have no choice but to attack on its own. “The American threat is the most genuine threat there is,” he continued. “American capabilities, the might this superpower possesses… worry the Iranians much more than Israel does.”

Hanegbi was skeptical that the Obama administration’s would indeed employ military force to halt Iran’s nuclear program. He called White House statements like one made the day before that it is President Barack Obama’s “firm commitment that we must prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon,” amorphous and general.

“In practice, I don’t see this phrase being translated into a more concrete intent. That may be the main reason why the Iranians belittle this threat, protest it, show contempt for it,” he said.

Besides, Hanegbi added, what does the United States have to worry about 5 nuclear bombs for when it has survived under the threat of thousands of Soviet and Chinese nuclear missiles for decades.

“The US really doesn’t have any wish to pay the price of a confrontation between Israel and Iran, should such a thing occur. Otherwise it would have initiated such a confrontation to begin with, without waiting for us.”

The last-minute attempt to prevent an Israeli strikeIsrael News – Haaretz Israeli News source..

Short of standing in front of the camera and telling Israel’s Prime Minister directly not to attack Iran, downsizing the joint U.S.-Israeli military drill next month is the clearest message Obama could have sent Netanyahu.

If we needed any more proof that Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak are still seriously considering an attack on Iran in the near future, the Time Magazine report Friday supplied it. The report said the U.S. has decided to downsize the scale of American forces participating in next month’s joint U.S.-Israeli missile defense exercise. There could have been no clearer message from the Obama Administration to Israel’s leaders that they want nothing to do with an independent Israeli strike.

The Austere Challenge 2012 military drill, already postponed once, has been planned for a long time. Nearly 5,000 American troops are scheduled to arrive to Israel and attend the exercise, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsy declared only a month ago.

But now, the very same Dempsey who is on close terms with his Israeli counterparts and apparently speaking with IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz almost on a weekly basis, said Thursday in London that he doesn’t want to be “complicit” in an Israeli attack on Iran, as if it was some sort of an international crime. And now the news broke that the U.S. is downsizing the military force participating in the Austere Challenge drill by about three-quarters.

Short of standing in front of the camera and specifically telling Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “do not attack Iran,” an unthinkable act so close to the November 6 U.S. elections, this is the clearest message Barack Obama could have sent.

Now, the number of U.S. troops who would potentially be exposed to a retaliatory attack by Iran and its proxies has been minimized, as also the impression that the Austere Challenge drill is actually used as a cover for the positioning of anti-missile defense batteries in preparation of an American attack on Iran.

In fact, the U.S. administration has now announced quite openly that it will not be striking Iran this side of November, and will do everything in its power to discourage Israel from doing so either.

The latest quarterly report issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran’s full-throttle-ahead uranium enrichment efforts also changes nothing. None of the information specified in the report was new to both the U.S. and Israel. Clearly, the two countries have supplied the IAEA with much of the information, while there is no longer a dispute over the facts. The disagreement between Israel and the U.S. over the timing, effectiveness and desirability of a strike still remains, as does the political distrust between Netanyahu and Obama, which only deepens as Netanyahu’s patron Sheldon Adelson intensifies his efforts to bring about Obama’s defeat in two months.

The scaling back of Austere Challenge along with Dempsey’s words is also an indication that the Americans are not willing to bank on the assumption that Netanyahu is bluffing. As President Shimon Peres, who two weeks ago abandoned the Israeli President’s constitutional non-political position to warn against a unilateral attack on Iran, the Americans also realize that this is crunch-time – this is the time that the opposition to an Israeli strike, within Israel and in the U.S., has to pull out all the stops.

Iran to hold major air defense drill: commander – chicagotribune.com.

Iran, North Korea sign technology agreement | The Times of Israel.

Scientific cooperation pact signed in Tehran in the presence of Ahmadinejad and Pyongyang’s number two; Khamenei says both states have ‘common enemies’

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, right, and president of the Presidium of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly Kim Yong-nam, listen to their national anthems during an official welcoming ceremony in Tehran, Iran, Saturday. (photo credit: AP)

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran and North Korea on Saturday signed a scientific and technological cooperation agreement, bringing the two nations deeply at odds with the US closer together.

Iran’s state TV reported that the agreement was signed in Tehran in the aftermath of last week’s Non-Aligned summit, in the presence of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and North Korea’s No. 2, Kim Yong Nam. State TV did not provide further details on the document.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Kim that the Islamic Republic and North Korea have common enemies and that both should resist threats and pressures to reach their goals.

Both countries are bitter enemies of the US and the West. Iranian and North Korean officials have said in the past that their nations are in “one trench” in the fight against the Western powers.

Now is not the time to strike Iran – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Analysis: Iran racing towards nuclear ‘breakout’ capability, but conditions not ripe for solo Israeli attack

Although the most recent report published by the International Atomic Energy Agency supports Israel’s claims and indicates that Iran could produce enough highly-enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb within four to six months, this is not the time for an Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic.

The report indicates that by February 2013, at the latest, Iran will have nuclear-weapons “breakout” capability, meaning it will have all the skills and parts needed to quickly build an atomic bomb if Supreme Leader Khamenei gives the order to do so. Essentially, this is Israel’s red line.

This does not mean that by the end of 2013 Iran will have a nuclear bomb. Khamenei will most likely delay the decision on a measure that would result in additional sanctions and perhaps even a military strike. He will also want to accumulate fissionable material and a few warheads so that when Iran “comes out of the closet” it will already pose a credible nuclear threat.

This may occur in 2015, maybe even toward the end of 2014. But even before this, as a country “on the brink of nuclear capability” at the end of 2013, Iran will be able to directly threaten its neighbors and Israel to achieve its strategic goals and become a regional and global power.

This situation, which would accelerate the nuclear arms race in our region, threatens our security in the long term more than Hezbollah‘s rockets, Syria and Hamascombined. Washington fears that the Non-Proliferation Treaty will collapse and allow terror groups and other rogue states to acquire a nuclear bomb.

The IAEA’s quarterly report is basically an admission that the efforts exerted by the UN and the West to set Iran’s nuclear program back have failed completely. The report also determined that the military installation in Parchin was built in 2000, but the IAEA learned of its existence only in 2010.

This forced Iran to halt activity at the site and work to conceal the suspected nuclear weapons-related experiments there. The facility has been covered with pink tarps, effectively blocking the UN agency’s attempts to monitor a suspected cleanup of the site. The agency has tried to gain access to Parchin since February – and failed. The Pink plastic sheeting hiding the suspected nuclear facility is apparently also aimed preventing the site’s detection by drone and satellite sensors.

In any case, the IAEA said it would not resume negotiations with Iran until its inspectors are given access to the Parchinmilitary site. Even if the inspectors are allowed into the site, the UN nuclear agency sees no point in looking for poof at a site which has been cleaned up.

The IAEA further revealed that Iran is enriching uranium not only with centrifuges but with laser technology as well. Iran, the report said, is also developing new, faster centrifuges for uranium enrichment that will allow it to produce fissionable material at a record pace. It is safe to assume that Iran wants to produce uranium and develop nuclear warheads before the US, Britain and France (and maybe Israel) get organized and launch a military operation against it.

The report also indicates that Iran accelerated the production of low-enriched uranium (a level of less than 5%) and uranium enriched to 20% purity during the months when the “stifling sanctions” went into effect and Tehran was negotiating with the western powers.

Strike justified?

The West demanded that Iran halt the activity at the Fordo facility, near the city of Qom. The site is buried deep inside a mountain to better protect it against any enemy strikes. Defense Minster Barak is referring to Fordo when he speaks of an “immunity zone.” According to Barak, Israel will find it difficult to launch an effective military strike to delay Iran’s nuclear program after the Islamic Republic implements its plan to install 3,000 advanced centrifuges at Fordo and after it transfers its enriched uranium to the site. Some 1,400 centrifuges have already been installed in Fordo, but most of them are not operational.

The IAEA report says Iran’s facilities have produced 189.4 kilograms (417.6 pounds) of uranium enriched to 20%. In order to produce a bomb or a nuclear warhead Iran would need 260kg (about 570 pounds) of uranium refined to a fissile concentration of 20%. This means that Iran is on track to stockpile enough 20% enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon by February 2013.

The report seemingly justifies an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. There is no doubt that if and when Iran installs an additional 3,000 centrifuges in Fordo and activates them, a solo Israeli strike would most likely not succeed in stopping or even delaying Iran’s race towards a nuclear bomb.

Iran is not showing any signs that it is succumbing to the West’s pressure, and the pace at which it is installing centrifuges (which at the current phase of the nuclear program is more crucial than the actual uranium enrichment) is impressive and poses a major threat. Therefore, if the decision-makers in Jerusalem have decided not to rely on the US and whoever is elected president in November, they must convene the Cabinet and order the IDF to act soon.

True, it would be very risky for Israel to trust an American president to fight its battles, but there are other reasons why Israel should act with restraint:

• The fighting in Syria is weakening the army and the regime in Damascus, thus reducing the likelihood that Syria would want or be able to take part in any Iranian response to an Israeli strike. The war in Syria minimizes the threat on Israel’s home front and would make it easier for the IDF to act in Lebanon against Hezbollah. The rebels have already taken out two Syrian army anti-aircraft batteries, and they are not through. Therefore, Israel should not rush to launch an attack in Iran.

• Moreover, the IDF has also been improving its long range capabilities. Therefore, it is safe to assume that if we wait, Iran’s “immunity zone” will shrink as a result of Israel’s enhanced military capabilities.

• The best way to stop Iran’s nuclear program is to overthrow the regime in Tehran or force it to change its policy due to pressure from the masses. Only economic sanctions can achieve these objectives. This is why we mustn’t give the international community an excuse to soften the sanctions.

• Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there is no consensus within the Israeli public in support of a military strike. The public senses that Iran’s nuclear sword is not hanging over its neck just yet, and it is not convinced that setting Iran’s nuclear program back a few years justifies the heavy toll Israel would pay for attacking the Islamic Republic. The security establishment is also of the opinion that now is not the time to strike, and it does not believe Iran will obtain nuclear weapons if Israel does not act immediately.

So far, Netanyahu and Barak have failed to create legitimacy in the local and international arena for a military operation. Past experience has taught that we should not go to war in such conditions.

US disowns Israel over Iran strike: No weapons or military backup.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis September 1, 2012, 10:04 AM (GMT+02:00)

Putin gave Obama more time

US Gen. Martin Dempsey’s assertion Thursday, Aug. 30 that the US would not be “complicit” in an Israel strike against Iran, together with the drastic reduction in the scale of next month’s joint US-Israeli war game disclosed by TIME, add up to a blunt message from US President Barack Obama to Israel: You are on your own! See how you manage without special US weapons and US military backup, including a shield against missile counter-attack, if you decide to defy us and go through with a military operation against Iran.
Instead of the 5,000 US troops originally assigned for Austere Challenge 12, the annual joint exercise, the Pentagon will send only 1,200 to 1,500 service members. The missile interception systems at the core of the joint exercise will be reduced in number and potency: Patriot anti-missiles will come without crews and maybe one instead of two Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense warships, according to the magazine.

debkafile’s military sources: The Obama administration has put Israel on harsh notice that an attack on Iran to disrupt or delay its nuclear armament will be refused US missile backup – both in the course of the operation and to cover Israel’s back in the event of a counter-strike widening into a general Middle East conflict. The Netanyahu government will bear full and exclusive responsibility for the consequences of attacking Iran.

Obama, who has repeatedly pledged his commitment to Israeli security, is the first American president to cut Israeli adrift against a major threat to its security explicitly posed by Iran.

The US president has put his campaign for reelection next month at great albeit calculated risk. His rival Mitt Romney will not doubt follow up on the charges he made during his acceptance speech to the Republican convention Thursday that Obama threw “allies like Israel under the bus” and failed utterly to stop Iran’s centrifuges spinning.

Obama may find the Jewish vote and campaign contributions fading. For Romney an incumbent president  throwing Israel to the wolves against the ayatollahs is a dream come true.
Binyamin Netanyahu and his defense minister Ehud Barak must bear some of the onus for one of the most damaging ruptures US-Israel relations have ever faced – as will be discussed later. However, the prime cause must be sought elsewhere.
In the last month, Obama has undergone a change of face: The top US soldier and ambassador Dan Shapiro were told to start treating Israel like a pest and telling its leaders that the administration is fed to the teeth with their clamor for action on Iran.

This change did not come out of the blue. debkafile’s Washington and Moscow sources report it evolved from three events:
1. During this month, President Vladimir Putin severed Russia’s military ties with Iran and Syria as debkafile reported earlier: Obama reciprocated by cutting Israel down to size. Moscow informed Tehran and Damascus that there would be no more Russian arms supplies after the delivery of the last items in the pipeline. Putin therefore left both Iran and Syria high and dry amid war dangers in return for Obama cutting Israel off from advance military hardware at a time of peril.
The Russian and American leaders thus put in place the first bricks of an accord for resolving their disputes over a nuclear Iran and the Syrian crisis by the device of slashing the military capacity of Iran, Israel and Syria.
The Russian president took another step as a gesture to Obama: He pulled Russian warships out of the Syrian base of Tartus and the eastern Mediterranean, leaving only a floating dry dock.
In return, he counted on Washington forcing Israel to abandon any plans to strike Iran.
2.  But this exercise in symmetrical reciprocity ran into a major snag: Obama found a tough nut in Jerusalem: Binyamin Netanyahu held out for a pledge of US military action against Iran as his price for holding back. Despite the massive pressure Obama threw at the Israeli government, both through the highest ranking US political and military channels and by mobilizing the government’s most vocal opponents and anti-war circles at home, Netanyahu and Barak did not budge.
They understood, despite Obama’s concealment, that the secret US-Russian deal would in fact preserve Iran’s nuclear program at a point at which Iran’s leaders could have a weapon assembled and unsheathed at any moment.
The also realized that as long as Israel’s military option against Iran was alive, the Obama-Putin deal was stuck, because both Iran’s Ali Khamenei and Syria’s Bashar Assad would likewise refuse to fall into line.

When Romney said he would give America’s friends “more loyalty” and Putin “a little less flexibility and more backbone,” he was referring to President Obama’s request from Putin on June 18, at the G20 conference in Mexico, for more time against his promise to the Russian leader of “more flexibility” later.
To keep his deal with Putin in motion, the US president will have to tighten his squeeze on Israel’s leaders to forego an attack on Iran.
3. The Netanyahu government, for its part, committed three tactical errors:

One: They dragged out the dialogue on Iran with the US administration for far too long – three years or more – and come away for it empty-handed. If their purpose was to persuade the United States to carry the can against Iran, as many Israelis believed, they failed.  No Israeli leader has the right to procrastinate to this extent on action affecting its fundamental security, if not existence. Netanyahu fell into the trap of crying wolf by shouting year after year that Iran must be stopped – and doing nothing.
Two:  Israel’s deterrent capacity, already sapped by inaction, was further eroded by US General Martin Dempsey’s assertions that Israel lacks the capacity to destroy the Iranian nuclear program.
Three:  They failed to act expeditiously to prevent the political opposition using a campaign against an attack on Iran as a stratagem for bringing the government down.
It has been four weeks since the former Mossad director Ephraim Halevi said that if he was an Iranian, he would be worried in the next twelve weeks.
That was on Aug. 2.
Thursday, Aug. 30, Halevi said: “It is important for Israel’s military threat to be credible.”

He was throwing down the gauntlet for Netanyahu and Barak to show they were serious about striking Iran – or else back down completely.
His timeline gives them another eight weeks to show their mettle. During that time, they will be under heavy bombardment from Washington.