WarSclerotic

The US-Israel Dispute Over Iran – Op-Eds – Israel National News.

It is imperative that the public sparring come to an end and the lines of communication between the two leaders be clearer. The US ought to consider equipping Israel with enhanced military resources that would allow Israel to confront Iran at a later date, giving Western allies more time to pressure the Iranian regime.

While Netanyahu may have been too aggressive in his talks about the situation in Iran and the potential for a military strike, Obama felt the need to respond to every statement, ratcheting up the tension between the two.

Obama acts as though the most important war he is waging is against Netanyahu, not the one he should be conducting against Iran. His rage over what he sees as Netanyahu’s support for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is apparently driving him up the wall. Meanwhile, the Iranians are mocking the ability of these leaders to present a unified message.

Mixed Messages

The US has been frequently sending mixed and contradicting messages on Iran. While all of Obama’s spokespersons explain how supportive the president is of Israel and its security needs,and how determined he is to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program, his chief advisers have made different statements.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, says he does not want US forces to be complicit in any Israeli strike in Iran, exposing Obama’s reluctance to use force against the Islamic Republic even after the US elections in November. Vice President Joseph Biden also raised questions about Obama’s determination to stop Iran after the elections. In an election speech, he accused Romney of being ready to go to war in Iran, implying that Obama is not.

On the same day that the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot reported that the US indirectly conveyed a message to Iran – according to which it would not be dragged into hostilities if Iran refrains from retaliating against American targets in the event of an Israeli strike – the New York Times published an article based on a leak from the White House, stating that the US plans to take military measures in the Gulf to threaten and deter Iran.

On the same day,White House spokesman James Carney denied that US-Israelrelations were in a crisis and told Iran that while there is still time for diplomacy, “this window will not remain open forever.” These statements leave the observer confused about Obama’s intentions.

Disagreement Over the Effectiveness of Sanctions

The question at the heart of the matter is how much more time Obama is prepared to give to allow sanctions and diplomacy to work. The president says the sanctions are working, an assertion that Netanyahu flatly rejects. The problem is that when the two leaders discuss the sanctions process, they refer to two different phases.

The first phase consists of the sanctions that are designed to exert tremendous economic pressure on Iran’s leaders, while the second phase is the aftermath in which the hardships are expected to change Iran’s nuclear policy. When Obama claims that the sanctions are working he is referring to the first phase; he believes that Iranian leaders are feeling lots of economic pressure and that continued pressure will help alleviate the situation. When Netanyahu mentions failing sanctions, however, he is referring to the second phase, and believes that the hurting sanctions are not going to cause a change in Iranian nuclear policy.

The situation appears a lot more optimistic to Obama than it does to Netanyahu. Israel, however, is concerned with the Iranian procrastination in the negotiations, claiming that Iran talks merely to buy more time to develop the bomb.

Iran and the West have been locked in an impasse, as Iran wants the West to remove the sanctions, while the West wants Iran to stop enrichment. Neither side has been willing to budge thus far.

The mistrust between Obama and Netanyahu does not help.Obama does not like Netanyahu and is fearful of an Israeli attack before the elections. Netanyahu is skeptical about Obama’s policy and is not sure that the president will use force against Iran if sanctions and diplomacy fail.

Creating a Better Strategy to Stop Iran

This diplomatic row can be solved, but only when the war of words in the press ceases. The contradictory statements serve Iranian interests alone. Obama’s people are also displeased by these damaging verbal jabs and are discussing ways to calm Netanyahu down and prevent what they consider a premature Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear installations. Therefore, Netanyahu must  travel to Washington and meet privately with Obama. He should ask the president what he intends to do if and when diplomacy and sanctions fail and Iran continues towards the bomb.

Obama and Netanyahu must reach an agreement on the conditions that would give Israel, the US, and the international community a final opportunity to stop Iran without the use of force. It would be difficult for Israel to attack alone without firstr eaching understandings with Washington. Due to its superior military capabilities, America’s window of opportunity for striking Iran is much wider than Israel’s.Therefore, one of the solutions is to provide Israel with capabilities it does not currently possess, broadening Israel’s window of opportunity. The US may respond positively to such a request.

Iranian leaders feel that nuclear weapons would ensure the survival of their extreme Islamic regime. They may consider a change in their nuclear policy if they reach the conclusion that the continuing race to the bomb would endanger their regime. Only the combination of harsher sanctions, tough Western positions in future negotiations, and the threat of a credible military strike may bring about a change in the current Iranian nuclear strategy.

Secret negotiations between Obama and Netanyahu and creative solutions to the Iranian problem can put an end to the foolish dispute between the leaders.

When the president and prime minister come to an agreement on a red line that Iran will not be allowed to cross, they will be able to more effectively place pressure on Iranian leaders and work towards a solution to the crisis.

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 181, September 10, 2012

Why Is Bibi Going Ballistic? – Jeffrey Goldberg – The Atlantic.

Sep 11 2012, 9:33 AM ET 8

Benjamin Netanyahu is taking off his gloves. He’s been taking them off for a while, but if press reports out of Israel are accurate, he’s boiling over with frustration at President Obama:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ramped up on Tuesday threats to attack Iran, saying if world powers refused to set a red line for Tehran’s nuclear program, they could not demand that Israel hold its fire.

“The world tells Israel ‘wait, there’s still time’. And I say, ‘Wait for what? Wait until when?’ Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel,” Netanyahu, speaking in English, told reporters in a press conference with Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov.

By “the world,” please read, “Obama (and Cameron, and also the Germans). We know from Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, that Netanyahu is “at wits’ end” over Obama’s decision not to provide the Iranians with clear red lines. Now we see the prime minister taking it to 11, stating in public what he previously stated only in private.

Why is he doing this?

My guess is that he’s saying what he’s saying because he knows he can’t attack, especially before the U.S. election, barring a yellow light from Obama, which he’s not getting. Sheer frustration at what he sees as Obama’s obtuseness is causing these undiplomatic outbursts.

Ehud Barak, the defense minister, who is his partner in confronting Iran, has apparently decided that attacking Iran now would risk Israel’s relationship with the U.S., and Bibi, who is a student of U.S.-Israel relations, understands why Barak thinks this way. It is almost impossible to believe that Netanyahu would risk alienating Congress, and the American people (he’s already alienated the President, or, to be fair, they’ve alienated each other) by attacking Iran against the stated wishes of the U.S. (It is not the attack itself that could risk alienating the affections of Congress and American citizens — it is the chance that Iran would retaliate by targeting U.S. interests, soldiers and civilians.)

Bibi is in a box, and he’s trying to bust it open, but he can’t. Given the direct warnings communicated to him from the Obama Administration and a number of European countries, it is very hard to see him doing anything except vent over the next two months. It’s not impossible that he would make the Holocaust calculus, which is to say, he believes that stopping a second Holocaust is worth the risk of alienating the U.S., but I think he also knows that we’re far from the moment when a second Holocaust might be possible to contemplate.

The alternative interpretation for all this: He’s planning on attacking very shortly and is laying the rhetorical groundwork, preemptively justifying his decision to the Israeli people. But again, this doesn’t seem likely to me.

Iran Continues Its Peaceful Work on Atomic Warheads – Jeffrey Goldberg – The Atlantic.

Sep 11 2012, 7:18 AM ET 19

From the Associated Press:

VIENNA–The U.N. atomic agency has received new intelligence that Iran has moved further toward the ability to build a nuclear weapon by advancing its work on calculating the destructive power of an atomic warhead, diplomats tell The Associated Press.
The diplomats say the information comes from Israel, the United States and at least two other Western countries and concludes that the work was done sometime within the past three years. The time-frame is significant because if the International Atomic Energy Agency decides that the intelligence is credible, it would strengthen its concerns that Iran has continued weapons work into the recent past–and may be continuing to do so.

Iranian leaders deny having anything other than the most peaceful of intentions for its nuclear program. People around the world believe them because the Iranian regime has shown itself to be very peaceful.

In other news, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu is about to blow a gasket, one he didn’t already blow at the American ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday launched an unprecedented verbal attack on the U.S. government over its stance on the Iranian nuclear program.

“The world tells Israel ‘wait, there’s still time’. And I say, ‘Wait for what? Wait until when?’ Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel,” Netanyahu told reporters on Tuesday.

And finally, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Holocaust-denying president of Iran, will be addressing the United Nations General Assembly on Yom Kippur.

Israel Hayom | Israel chides Clinton for ‘speeding up Iran’s centrifuges’.

Israel Hayom | Iran’s useful idiots in Washington.

Israeli leader escalates feud with US over Iranian nuclear program – The Washington Post.

By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, September 11, 2:39 PM

JERUSALEM — Israel’s prime minister has expressed his dissatisfaction with Washington’s refusal to spell out what would provoke a U.S.-led military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.

Washington wants to give diplomacy and sanctions more time to try to pressure Iran to abandon its suspect nuclear work. In a message aimed at Israel, it said several times this week that deadlines or “red lines” are counterproductive.

But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says peaceful methods are not working, and Iran is getting closer to acquiring a nuclear bomb. His remarks have generated speculation Israel is readying to strike on its own.

Netanyahu said on Tuesday that “those in the international community who refuse to draw a red line on Iran have no moral right to draw a red line for Israel.”

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

© The Washington Post Company

New intelligence reveals details on Iranian nuclear program | The Times of Israel.

UN atomic agency receives intelligence of weapons advances from US, Israel and undisclosed third nation

Iran’s heavy water nuclear facilities near the central city of Arak (photo credit: AP Photo/ISNA,Hamid Foroutan

VIENNA (AP) — The UN atomic agency has received new intelligence that Iran has moved further toward the ability to build a nuclear weapon by advancing its work on calculating the destructive power of an atomic warhead, diplomats tell The Associated Press.

The diplomats say the information comes from Israel, the United States and at least two other Western countries and concludes that the work was done sometime within the past three years. The time-frame is significant because if the International Atomic Energy Agency decides that the intelligence is credible, it would strengthen its concerns that Iran has continued weapons work into the recent past — and may be continuing to do so.

Because such work is done through computer modeling and must be accompanied by physical tests of the components that go into a nuclear weapon, it would also support IAEA fears outlined in detail in November that Tehran is carrying out weapons research on multiple fronts.

“You want to have a theoretical understanding of the working of a nuclear weapon that is then related to the experiments you do on the various components,” said David Albright, whose Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security is a frequent go-to source on Iran for Congress and other US government branches. “The two go hand-in-hand.”

Such computer mock-ups typically assess how high explosives compress fissile warhead material, setting off the chain reaction that results in a nuclear explosion. The yield is normally calculated in kilotons.

Any new evidence of Iranian research into nuclear weapons is likely to strengthen the hand of hawks in Israel who advocate a military strike on Iran. They argue that Tehran is deliberately stalemating international efforts at engagement while continuing its clandestine weapons work.

Iran denies any interest in nuclear weapons and says suspicions that it ever tried to develop them are based on fabricated US, Israeli and other intelligence. At the same time, it has blunted IAEA efforts to investigate such claims for more than five years.

It also has scoffed at Western allegations that it is enriching uranium to make the core of nuclear warheads, saying it seeks only to create reactor fuel. But it refuses to accept offers of such fuel from abroad and is now producing material that is easier to turn into weapons-grade uranium than its main, lower-enriched stockpile.

Although some of the new information was said to have been supplied by the United States, it appears to run counter to the stated US position that Iran shut down wide-ranging secret research and development of the components of a nuclear weapons program in 2003. At the same time the US fears that Iran continues to move toward the threshold of making such arms by enriching uranium.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s chief IAEA delegate, cut short a telephone request for comment, saying he could not talk because he was in a meeting. In Tehran, meanwhile, Foreign Ministry spokesman Rahmin Mehmanparast told reporters that Iran will start answering the agency’s “questions and concerns” only when “our rights and security issues” are recognized.

IAEA spokeswoman Gill Tudor said the agency would not comment. But four of six diplomats who spoke to the AP on the issue said an oblique passage in the IAEA’s August Iran report saying “the agency has obtained more information which further corroborates” its suspicions alludes to the new intelligence.

All six demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss classified information member countries make available to the IAEA.

Two of them said the new information builds on what the agency previously knew, not only because the research was apparently performed past 2009 but also because it reflects that Iran has allegedly moved closer to the overall ability to develop a nuclear weapon.

The IAEA first outlined suspicions in November that Iran was working on calculating the yield of a nuclear weapon, as part of a 13-page summary of Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons work that it said was based on more than 1,000 pages of research and intelligence from more than 10 member nations.

It said then that “the modeling studies alleged to have been conducted in 2008 and 2009 by Iran … (are) of particular concern,” adding that the purpose of such studies for calculating anything other than nuclear explosion yields is “unclear to the agency.”

Albright, of the Institute for Science and International Security, said such computer-run modeling is “critical to the development of a nuclear weapon.”

Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi contributed from Tehran.

In harsh rebuttal to Clinton, PM says those who don’t set red lines for Iran have no right to keep Israel from attacking | The Times of Israel.

Two days after secretary rules out Iran deadline, Netanyahu says: ‘The world tells Israel to wait because there is still time. And I ask: Wait for what? Until when?’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, speaking to his Bulgarian counterpart Boyko Borisov Tuesday in Jerusalem (photo credit: GPO)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said that countries that refused to set deadlines for Iran to give up its nuclear program have no right to tell Israel to hold back on taking preemptive military action to thwart the regime’s nuclear ambitions.

His comments constituted an explicit and bitter rebuttal of comments made by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said on Sunday that the US will currently not set deadlines or give ultimatums regarding Tehran’s refusal to curb its nuclear program.

“The world tells Israel to wait because there is still time. And I ask: Wait for what? Until when? Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel,” Netanyahu said. “If Iran knows that there is no red line or deadline, what will it do? Exactly what it is doing today, i.e., continuing to work unhindered toward achieving a nuclear weapon.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem earlier this summer (photo credit: Ohad Zwigenberg/Flash90)

Reacting to Netanyahu’s demand for the US to set red lines — which, if crossed by Iran, would prompt US-led military action — Clinton said on Sunday that Washington still considers sanctions the best way to get Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions. “We’re not setting deadlines,” she said.

On Monday, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland reiterated Clinton’s statement, saying setting red lines was “not useful.” She added: “So, you know, we are absolutely firm about the president’s commitment here, but it is not useful to be parsing it, to be setting deadlines one way or the other, red lines.”

Netanyahu’s recent calls for the international community to set clear red lines regarding the Iranian threat was understood by many analysts as a way to signalize Israel’s willingness to hold back on a unilateral and uncoordinated strike on Iran after growing international opposition to such a move became apparent in recent weeks.

Speaking in Jerusalem at joint press conference with his Bulgarian counterpart, Boyko Borisov, Netanyahu differed with the US, too, over the impact of sanctions on Iran.

“As of now, we can clearly say that diplomacy and sanctions have not worked. They have hit the Iranian economy but they haven’t stopped the Iranian nuclear project,” Netanyahu said. “This is a fact. Another fact is that every day Iran gets closer to a nuclear bomb.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Deputy Knesset Speaker and Likud MK Danny Danon openly attacked Clinton for her refusal to set a deadline for military action to thwart Iran. Her statement “is a slap in the face [for Israel], the United States’ closest ally in the Middle East,” he said. “Instead of [the US] standing steadfastly at our side, the secretary’s comments only serve to embolden the Iranians and likely hasten their weapons program. We expect more from our American friends, who have pledged close cooperation in combating this radical threat to the free world.”

The Israeli and Bulgarian governments on Tuesday held their second intergovernmental consultation in Jerusalem. On the agenda was the signing of a security cooperation agreement, which includes assurances for the security of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, among other things. In July, five Israeli tourists and their local bus driver were killed in a terror attack in the Bulgarian vacation resort of Burgas.

PM: World has no ‘moral right’ to… JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

Could Syria and Lebanon be steppingstone to Iran?.

By Linda S. Heard

Tuesday, 11 September 2012

Few would dispute that Syria’s Al-Assad regime has to go; it’s crossed too many red lines soaked in innocent blood to be a credible leadership — and just about everyone from all sides of the political spectrum want the killing to stop. Likewise, the governments of almost all regional countries, unsure about Tehran’s avowal that it does not intend to develop nuclear weapons, would breathe easier if Iran relinquished its uranium enrichment program. In that case, on a superficial level at least, Western intervention in terms of sanctions as well as financial and military aid to rebels is the morally responsible way to go. Isn’t that right? Viscerally, most of us would answer ‘yes’ but, when the big picture is examined the situation isn’t quite as black-and-white.

Besides the fact that the U.S. and its Western allies tailor their respective foreign policies based on their own interests rather than morality, it’s worth considering whether they may harbor less than altruistic motives for their keenness to overthrow or destabilize Middle Eastern regimes. In the case of Syria, are they really concerned about Syrian civilians when the U.S. didn’t even bother to tally the deaths of Iraqis or Afghans killed at the hands of their ‘finest’ estimated at over one million? Let’s agree that there aren’t too many Mother Teresa-type decision-makers strolling along the corridors of power in Washington, London and Paris and examine the bottom line.

The first question worth asking ourselves is whether the G.W. Bush era’s neoconservative vision of a new American century has been binned as a failure or has it merely been left simmering quietly somewhere out of sight? The revelation of former 4-Star General Wesley Clark was echoing in my memory when I revisited one of his book launch speeches delivered some years ago.

“We had a policy coup; some hard-nosed people took over U.S. policy and didn’t bother to inform any of us. I went through the Pentagon ten days after 9/1…and an officer from the Joint Staff called me into his office and said, “I want you to know sir that we are going to attack Iraq.” I asked ‘why?’ He said, ‘We don’t know’…I came back to the Pentagon six months later. I saw the same officer. I said, ‘Why haven’t we attacked Iraq? Are we going to attack Iraq?’ He said, “Oh sir, it’s worse than that. He pulled up a piece of paper from his desk saying ‘I just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense’s office. We’re going to start with Iraq and move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran — Seven countries in five years.”

Gen. Clark said he “sat on this info for a long time” before linking it with a 1991 meeting with then US Undersecretary for Defense Paul Wolfowitz. “I said, ‘Mr. Secretary, you must be pretty happy with the performance of our troops in Desert Storm.’ ‘Well, yeh, but not really. The truth is that we should have got rid of Saddam Hussein and we didn’t. But one thing we did learn is that we can use our military in the region, in the Middle East, and the Soviets won’t stop us. And we’ve got about five or ten years to clean up those old Soviet client regimes — Syria, Iran, Iraq — before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.”

That conversation may have taken place decades ago, but keeping a resurgent Russia out of the loop is still pertinent from the American perspective no matter who has the top job. In the event the Syrian and Iranian regimes fell, the region would be almost completely within the West’s sphere of influence. Both Moscow and Beijing would lose out big-time strategically, economically and geo-politically.

Secondly, it won’t have escaped your notice that hobbling Syria and Iran would automatically quell Israel’s existential concerns and reduce incentives for Israel to swap land for a comprehensive peace treaty with the Palestinians and all 22 Arab League member countries. A US-dominated region would guarantee Israel’s security and impunity without Tel Aviv being obliged to make concessions.

The little-publicized H.R. 4133 Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012 passed by the House of Representatives earlier this year by a vote of 411-2 — and drafted with AIPAC’s in-put — reaffirms the “enduring commitment of the United States to the security of the State of Israel as a Jewish state” and the provision to Israel “of the military capabilities necessary to deter and defend itself by itself against any threats.” The act also urges the US vetoing of “any one-sided anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations Security Council and to ensure that Israel retains a “qualitative military edge.” For some unknown reason, the US mainstream media took the view that the act wasn’t newsworthy.

If the proof is in the pudding, then the neoconservative’s grand plan is still alive and well. Iraq and Libya have been defanged. The Syrian regime’s longevity is unlikely to be long and Israeli — and to a lesser extent, US — war drums are beating against Iran. A major obstacle on Israel’s doorstep Hezbollah must also be tackled before any Iran strike when Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has threatened missile attacks on Israeli cities should Iranian nuclear sites be targeted. It’s notable that the UK and the EU are currently considering designating Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and are pushing for anti-Hezbollah sanctions, ostensibly for its role in Syria.

For now, the U.S. appears to be on the same side as the majority of Syrians, those who dream of a free and democratic Iran, not to mention Gulf States for which a nuclear-armed Tehran as an anathema. But for every action there’s a reaction, and often unintended consequences. So before we loudly applaud countries that just a few years ago had an invasion of Arab countries to-do list (and may still), it’s worth pausing to reflect long and hard on the shape of the day after.

(Linda Heard is a columnist for the Saudi-based Arab News, where this article was first published Sept 11, 2012)