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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Israel Seeking New Deadline on Iran Bomb |
| 2007-06-09 |
| Wants Tehran To Change Behavior by Year's End or Risk 'Next Level' A senior Israeli delegation, here for strategic talks with top American government officials, is calling for an expiration date on the diplomatic approach to Iran of the end of the year. Speaking to the Israeli press on Wednesday evening after meeting Secretary of State Rice, Israel's deputy prime minister, Shaul Mofaz, said, "Sanctions must be strong enough to bring about change in the Iranians by the end of 2007." According to a source familiar with discussions yesterday with the undersecretary of state, Nicholas Burns, Mr. Mofaz said, "Technical developments for the Iranian nuclear program will not follow a linear progression," a clear warning that America's official estimate that Iran will not attain an atomic bomb for at least five years could be dangerously optimistic. The delegation headed by Mr. Mofaz also pressed in side talks for America to halt a proposed sale to Saudi Arabia of precision Joint Direct Attack Munitions. Already the proposed sale, which was announced in April by Secretary of Defense Gates, has caught the attention of a handful of lawmakers in the House, who on May 24 threatened to block any such sale once Congress was formally notified. The combination of Israeli jitters on Iran's continued effort to pack its Natanz facility with more centrifuge reactors with its jitters about providing precision munitions to the Saudis presents America with a dilemma. Since last fall, Ms. Rice has tried to forge a new alliance among Israel, Turkey, and Sunni monarchies in the Gulf to oppose what she sees as rising Iranian influence throughout the Middle East. The prospect, however, of all these parties cooperating diplomatically was tested in March, when the Saudis brokered a unity government deal between the Palestinian Arab president, Mahmoud Abbas, and the Iranian-backed Hamas Party in the Palestinian territories, which controls the legislature and Palestinian Authority. Channel 2 News in Israel reported that Mr. Mofaz said Israel would take military action if Iran did not cease its uranium enrichment by year's end. However, a source familiar with yesterday's discussions disputed the Channel 2 report. Mr. Mofaz only alluded to such action in the meeting, the source said, saying, "All options are on the table" if the diplomacy with Iran does not work. "The Israelis are talking about taking it to the next level with a targeted and focused security coalition," he said. "The other measures include working with Europeans and getting more action on the European side with specific sanctions. There has been some of this, but there has not been enough." The issue of Iranian nuclear enrichment was also broached yesterday in icy talks between President Bush and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. The Russians have supported the two U.N. Security Council resolutions sanctioning Iranian banks and entities, but also have helped rebuild an Iranian nuclear facility in Bushehr. The source familiar with the American-Israeli talks also said the Israelis raised the prospect of focusing sanctions on Iran's energy sector, noting that the Iranians import more than half of their refined gasoline despite having the world's third largest known reserves of oil and natural gas. Publicly at least, Prime Minister Olmert has not said he would unilaterally bomb Iran. Last year he appointed one of Israel's most hawkish politicians, Avigdor Lieberman, as a deputy prime minister and announced that Mr. Lieberman would oversee Iran policy. Other Israeli politicians such as a former premier, Benjamin Netanyahu, have openly called for Israel to take out the known Iranian nuclear facilities. Within the American intelligence community, there is some debate about Israel's capabilities in this regard. Some argue that the Israelis still lack the midair refueling capacity they would need to conduct a bombing mission over Iran as a unilateral move. Other analysts, however, point out that Israel's fleet of American made F-15s has such refueling capacity, not to mention the capability of Israeli nuclear submarines. On background, Israeli former military officials have told The New York Sun that the option of a unilateral strike is there for Israel should Israel choose to take it. In addition to discussing Iran, Mr. Mofaz shared new intelligence he said proved that missiles being shipped by land and air through Syria to Hezbollah positions in Lebanon could strike even at Tel Aviv and points south. One transshipment point for Syria, Mr. Mofaz said, was Turkey — an American ally and ally of Israel. In last summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the terror group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, threatened to send rockets to Tel Aviv but never fulfilled his promise. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #13 Not only that, but they fund terror with that money, so we have additional reason to liberate their reserves. |
| Posted by: Mike N. 2007-06-09 23:35 |
| #12 Taking their gold smells of too much accounts receiveable to me. I would prefer we take it as a matter of policy. Anyone we invade is flat broke when we leave. |
| Posted by: Mike N. 2007-06-09 23:33 |
| #11 ... and take any gold reserves they have. I'm really glad to see someone else subscribe to this notion. We need to begin backbilling rogue regimes for the damage they do and expenses we incur in being forced combat their nefarious enterprises. Israel should excise a vast sum out of all the Palestinian taxes they are holding to compensate families of bomb vest victims and those killed or injured in rocket attacks. Property damages and any other medical costs should all be chargeable as well. Saudi Arabia is running up the biggest tab of all. I no longer have the least compunctions about America simply appropriating their Eastern oil fields as compensation for 9-11 and the bulk of costs related to fighting the GWoT. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-06-09 22:16 |
| #10 In order to get to the nuke program, the Joos are gonna have to take out Irans AA and airforce (if you can call it that). As long as their air defenses are smoldering anyway, we should destroy every military installation we can find and take any gold reserves they have. |
| Posted by: Mike N. 2007-06-09 21:12 |
| #9 A winter attack would be much better. I oppose direct attacks on Teheran, because I think the regime is so vulnerable that loss of nuclear war preparations would result in its collapse. Attack nuke sites, then pick up the pieces. Iranians are mindful of the billions of private wealth that the Ayatollahs have acquired. The Shah of Iran removed only a few million dollars out of the country, after Jimmy Carter stabbed him in the back. |
| Posted by: McZoid 2007-06-09 20:24 |
| #8 Somehow, I think the Jews might be averse to any operation called "the final solution". But I may be wrong. If the Jews do indeed have such a plan (and they do, it's call the Samson Option), one thing is certain, Muslims are not at all fond of it's goals. As I have predicted before, it is Muslim obsession with genocide against Israel that will get them their own holocaust. Islam's intractable hatred and total recalitrance regarding any sort of reformation literally guarantees this. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-06-09 16:23 |
| #7 Somehow, I think the Jews might be averse to any operation called "the final solution". But I may be wrong. If the Jews do indeed have such a plan (and they do, it's call the Samson Option), one thing is certain, Muslims are not at all fond of it's goals. As I have predicted before, it is Muslim obsession with genocide against Israel that will get them their own holocaust. Islam's intractable hatred and total recalitrance regarding any sort of reformation literally guarantees this. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-06-09 16:22 |
| #6 They never take into account the obvious, that nothing the Iranians are doing is unknown technology. This means that at no time can they say, "it takes this long", or "they can't do that yet." It is the same mistake the French made at Dien Bien Phu, when they *knew* that the Viet Minh *couldn't* get artillery they *didn't have* into the mountains surrounding the French. In the case of Iran, for example, anything they "have" to make they could have instead bought on the black market. So their breakthrough in nuclear weapons may not be the ability to make a bomb, but the ability to mass produce bombs, a very different kettle of fish. What if long ago they purchased a working bomb and have been reverse engineering it? That could take years off their program. Of if their entire enrichment program is a ruse, if they bought enriched uranium or plutonium elsewhere? Just as important as their bomb is their delivery system. Their missile technology must be good enough to carry the bomb to its destination. So their missile program might be a good indicator of their nuclear program's progress. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-06-09 16:22 |
| #5 They never take into account the obvious, that nothing the Iranians are doing is unknown technology. This means that at no time can they say, "it takes this long", or "they can't do that yet." It is the same mistake the French made at Dien Bien Phu, when they *knew* that the Viet Minh *couldn't* get artillery they *didn't have* into the mountains surrounding the French. In the case of Iran, for example, anything they "have" to make they could have instead bought on the black market. So their breakthrough in nuclear weapons may not be the ability to make a bomb, but the ability to mass produce bombs, a very different kettle of fish. What if long ago they purchased a working bomb and have been reverse engineering it? That could take years off their program. Of if their entire enrichment program is a ruse, if they bought enriched uranium or plutonium elsewhere? Just as important as their bomb is their delivery system. Their missile technology must be good enough to carry the bomb to its destination. So their missile program might be a good indicator of their nuclear program's progress. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-06-09 16:22 |
| #4 "Technical developments for the Iranian nuclear program will not follow a linear progression," a clear warning that America's official estimate that Iran will not attain an atomic bomb for at least five years could be There, fixed that. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-06-09 16:00 |
| #3 The Israelis should know by know that if they seek to have the UN impose a new deadline and Iran doesn't meet it, the UN will spring into action and propose a new deadline. |
| Posted by: badanov 2007-06-09 15:13 |
| #2 Somehow, I think the Jews might be averse to any operation called "the final solution". But I may be wrong. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2007-06-09 09:12 |
| #1 AAhhh, Bring it On!! Skip the "next level" Israel, go straight to "The Final Solution"! Take no prisoners, have no mercy...do what MUST be done. |
| Posted by: smn 2007-06-09 09:04 |