Israel seems to be losing patience with global delay of an operation against Iran • In three weeks, PM Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres will visit Washington • The goal: massive pressure to sanction Iran, even in this election year in the U.S.
Shlomo Cesana
This week, US President Barack Obama announced an additional sanction on Iran: the freezing of the Iranian government’s assets in the US. The sanction was on the list of punitive actions that Israel asked for. Nevertheless, the response from Jerusalem was chilly, and even contemptuous. The official spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s Office said of the sanctions that, “This is not enough” and “We will judge its success by the results.” From the spokesperson’s explanation, one could deduce that officials in Jerusalem were angry. According to the officials, at this stage, Obama refuses to accept the Senate’s decision, passed by a majority of 100-0, to impose paralyzing sanctions against Iran’s central bank and its oil industry. When the dimension of time is the most critical dimension of all, Obama is delaying, and even more than that, he is creating a mistaken appearance of doing the right thing even as he knows what he must do in order stop Iran, and is refraining from doing so, the officials in Jerusalem say.
When Obama was interviewed this week (without a necktie), he said that he did not believe that Israel had yet made a decision to attack Iran, and that he did not believe that it would attack without coordinating with the U.S. He said Israel and America were "in lockstep" on the Iranian issue.
These statements were not made unintentionally. They contain a clear and public message to the upper echelons of Israel’s decision-makers. The American president did not wait for his scheduled meeting with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Washington three weeks from now. The prime minister will be traveling to Washington soon to speak at AIPAC. The relationship between Netanyahu and Obama is not one of open hostility. While it is not warm, the common interests of both countries are greater than the lack of chemistry between their leaders.
Also attending the AIPAC conference will be President Shimon Peres, who announced his meeting with Obama a month ago. While it is not customary for two Israeli leaders to travel to the American capital at the same time, Obama will meet with both of them. This is an election year, and every measure taken toward Israel is calculated.
However, the American election season requires Netanyahu to be extremely careful so as not to be accused of attempting to influence the internal affairs of Israel’s best friend. If he should try to balance the visit by meeting with a leading Republican candidate or candidates, precisely just after a series of party primaries has taken place in several states simultaneously, the White House will follow those meetings with interest.
Also, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who has not visited the State Department building in two and a half years, met this week with his counterpart, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, after a break of a year and a half. This was a 45-minute-long “good meeting,” according to the Israelis, which also concentrated on the Iranian problem.
Closer to home, this week, Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel was appointed as the new commander of the Israel Air Force. In a public conference a month ago, Maj. Gen. Eshel said that the job of the army was to give the government the toolbox it needed to carry out any decisions it needed to make. Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Ganz made similar statements several months ago. Former chief of staff and Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon said at the Herzliya Conference, approximately a week ago, that any structure built by human beings could also be infiltrated by human beings.
In general, the graph of statements about Iran is rising significantly, from the director of the IDF Intelligence Branch to Intelligence Minister Dan Meridor to Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Last week, the statements took on an additional dimension when a high-ranking Iranian official threatened “a preemptive strike against Israel.” It looks like the Iranians think that the gun pointed at them is loaded. Last week, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah joined in the festivities when, for reasons of his own, he said that if Iran should be attacked, he will decide on his own what his response to Israel will be, and that it will not be dictated from Tehran.
Israel’s security establishment has a world of concepts of its own when it comes to Iran, as well. They talk about “windows for action" and criteria that establish the "point of no return" in their military nuclear program. The "red lines" have to do with Iran's moving its nuclear installations underground. “Things are urgent, and time is running out,” the defense minister said, referring to Iran’s nuclear program.
Barak met recently in Davos with the director of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano. “Much tougher diplomacy and sanctions” on Iran were necessary, Barak told Amano. “We are determined to prevent Iran from becoming nuclear. Even the American president and opinion leaders have said that no option should be removed from the table and Iran should be blocked from becoming nuclear.”
A few of the statements made behind closed doors can be identified in leaks to the foreign media. The author of a column in the Washington Post revealed that US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta believed that there was a good chance that Israel would attack Iran between April and June, before Tehran moved its nuclear installations to what Barak calls an “immunity zone” - where they would be impervious to Israeli aerial attack. The matter is discussed on a daily basis in newspapers the world over. Just this past week, Newsweek ran an essay by Professor Niall Ferguson of Harvard University, in which Ferguson states that it is possible to attack Iran and succeed in paralyzing its nuclear installations.
As time passes, it appears that Israel is losing its patience with the world’s delaying of an active operation against Iran. Last week, Barak made an unusual statement on the Iranian problem instead of contenting himself with the usual "All options are on the table” phrase. According to Barak, “If the sanctions do not get the desired results of stopping Iran’s military nuclear program, the need to consider an operation will arise.”
2012 will be a fateful year, Barak said, since it presents a complex situation. “During the year, both internal and external decisions will be needed. A year like this requires courageous, out-of-the-box thinking about the country’s future. This is the time for leadership that can look at the immediate situation with eyes wide open and make decisions without losing touch of the challenges. Leadership that can see and act even in the current mists of the region.”
Unlike in the past, today there is a broad, worldwide understanding that it is vital to prevent Iran from going nuclear, and no option can be taken off the table, the prime minister says. This is how Netanyahu succeeded in setting a policy years ago whose central message was that Iran is dangerous not only to Israel, but to the entire world. It appears that Netanyahu has also succeeded in promoting sanctions on Iran even though we are still in the period of diplomacy, and the sanctions are not yet paralyzing. It appears that Israel’s problem is the dimension of time and the urgency of acting against the clock. The more difficultit becomes for Israel to persuade the world that it needs to act, the nearer an independent decision by Israel could be.
No comments:
Post a Comment