| Don't know if we talked about this article when it came out. EFL. |
JERUSALEM -- Israel has told the Bush administration that Iran is closer to having a nuclear weapon than was previously thought, but acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says he is confident that the West will not allow that to happen.
| By the West he means us; the Euros have already made clear that they'll do nothing (other than blabber, of course) to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. |
The head of the Mossad intelligence service, Meir Dagan, traveled to Washington last week to meet with counterparts in the CIA and pass on Israel's latest findings on Iran's nuclear progress.
| Interesting. When heads of intel services start hand-delivering data, things start to happen. And we haven't heard about what he said, so it's odds-on that it agrees with our own assessment -- otherwise a Clintonista within CIA would have leaked it already. But I think it's clear that the Israelis are running out of patience -- and perhaps time -- with the Y'urp-peon soft power approach. |
An Israeli satellite launched last week from a Russian cosmodrome in Siberia began sending high-resolution photographs over the weekend. Israeli specialists termed the results "amazing." However, Mr. Dagan's report was based on earlier information that Israeli sources say indicates that Iran is closer to nuclear capability than is generally realized.
Mr. Olmert did not say what Mr. Dagan told his American counterparts last week. But the London Sunday Times quoted an Israeli source yesterday as saying that the Mossad had evidence of hidden uranium enrichment sites in Iran "which can shortcut their timetable in the race for their first bomb." The source said Mr. Dagan presented American officials with that evidence and told them: "This is what we know and this is what we'll do if you continue to do nothing."
| I think we know what the Israelis will do; the issue is 1) the time-frame 2) whether they get active or only passive support from us 3) how much political fall-out they'll suffer from the Euros and 4) whether we can help mitigate that. |
Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Knesset's foreign affairs and defense committee, also described his concern about the Israeli intelligence findings. "When I read the recent reports regarding Iran, I saw a monster in the making," said Mr. Steinitz, whose committee oversees the Mossad.
| I think we're running out of non-violent options. |
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