DEBKAfile Exclusive Report March 4, 2012, 12:11 PM (
Binaymin Netanyahu’s dilemma
Expectations that the meeting between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Monday, March 5, will produce accord on how and when to stop Iran going nuclear are likely to prove unfounded, say debkafile’s military and Washington sources.
Obama has made it clear that a military strike would be “premature” and economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure and negotiations must be allowed to run their course before a military option is considered as a last resort.
When Netanyahu flies home, therefore, he will come away from the White House facing exactly the same dilemma as before: It is up to him to determine Israel’s window of opportunity for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and decide if and when to go through with it.
After he met Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Ottawa Friday, March 2, Netanyahu tried to temper his disagreement with Obama by offering to go along with the Six Power negotiations with Iran starting in Istanbul next month, which are a cornerstone of the US president’s Iran policy, although Israel firmly believes Iran is just playing for time.
Nonetheless, for the talks to have any point, he proposed that they should aim for three results:
1. The dismantling of the uranium enrichment facilities buried underground at Fordo;
2. The transfer of highly-enriched uranium outside the country to international control, effectively removing the material for assembling a bomb out of Tehran’s hands;
3. A ban on uranium enrichment to a grade higher than 5 percent instead of the 20 percent concentrated fissile fuel stocked at present.
The Israeli prime minister’s proposal was rejected by the White House after Moscow too it unacceptable.
A number of confidential Russian messages advised Israel to forget any reversals of Iran’s nuclear progress. The coming international negotiations, they said, must start with accepting the current status of Iran’s nuclear program, “There’s no turning back.”
The White House message to Netanyahu on the eve of his meeting with Obama was that Tehran would simply not come to the negotiating table if faced with those three demands.
This message was reinforced by a leak to the New York Times Sunday, March 4, asserting that “American intelligence agencies continue to say that there is no evidence that Iran has made a final decision to pursue a nuclear weapon. Recent assessments by American spy agencies have reaffirmed intelligence findings in 2007 and 2010 that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program.”
By reverting to its long-abandoned attitude of denial on the Iranian nuclear threat, Washington flies in the face of the last two International Atomic Energy Agency quarterly reports. The last one published ten days ago stated: “The agency continues to have serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program,” and “Iran has produced nearly 110kg of uranium enriched to 20 percent since early 2010. Western experts say about 250 kg is needed for a nuclear weapon.” The report also pointed out that “Iran is shifting the most sensitive aspect of its nuclear work, refining uranium to a level that takes it significantly closer to potential bomb material, to the site.”
Nuclear watchdog concerns were further exacerbated by Tehran’s refusal to allow inspectors to visit the Parchin site suspected of nuclear explosion tests in two recent visits.
The Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak has warned that Iran was in the process of moving clandestine nuclear projects to a “zone of immunity” safe from outside attack.
Notwithstanding all the evidence to the contrary, the Obama administration has resorted to turning the Iran’s nuclear clock back to 2007. Then too, in an effort to hold Israel back from a preemptive attack on Iran, the National Intelligence Agency informed President George W. Bush that Iran had abandoned its military program in 2003.
A year ago, all the evidence accumulating of Iran’s rapid nuclear advances appeared to put the US-Israeli dispute to rest.
But now, the White House may be reacting to the explicit statement of Israel’s case by former Military Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin in the same paper on March 2. He wrote: “What is needed is an ironclad American assurance that if Israel refrains from acting in its own window of opportunity – and all other options have failed to halt Tehran’s nuclear quest – Washington will act to prevent a nuclear Iran while it is still within its power to do so.”
debkafile’s Washington sources report that no American president can be expected to tolerate Israel dictating terms, however just and pressing its case may be. Even before hearing what Israel had to say, Obama was determined to oppose military action on Iran and not be moved on this. Now he is additionally determined to put his Israeli visitor in his place and draw a line on Jerusalem’s influence in Washington – both as a lesson to Jerusalem and an incentive for Tehran.
Israel’s 500-lb Super-smart Bomb
http://www.imi-israel.com/vault/documents/in%20the%20spotlight%2027.2.pdf
The New Israeli Bunker Buster
Watch: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nCUMf_JUxiQ“>Israeli bomb that penetrates meters of reinforced concrete
Obama doesn’t want to give us that massive ordnance penetrator to beat Iran? No problem. We Jews will just develop our own. It’s called an MPR-500 guided missile. So we made our own!!!
The Israel Military Industries has been able to greatly improve the efficiency of its MPR-500 guided missiles, Ynet learned Monday.
According to the IMI, the projectile is now a “bunker buster” capable of penetrating double-reinforced concrete walls and floors 200mm thick.
The shell’s accuracy minimized its damage to a radius of two-three meters – unlike other bombs, which leave more extensive damage in their wake.
The MPR-500 missile weighs 250Kg and can be carried by IAF jets. Unlike other projectile, it does not break apart upon impact.
We’re back to 2007 as Bush was undercut by the faulty NIE-same as it is today. Bibi has the responsibility to protects his people; Obama does not care about Israel.
All he cares about is his re-election, again knowing that after that he will throw Israel under the bus.
Obama is good with ‘flowery’ words, sweet speeches, thinking Israelis or americans are stupid.
I surely hope, and pray, that Bibi does not fall for nor give into his appeasement policy, because that’s all it is.
Bibi- do what you have to, but don’t fall for this snakesoil salesman’s misdirection!
Exactly right!
Bibi your job is to protect your people, God help those who help themselves. I pray for your wisdom. Fire Peres.
Hava
Doesn’t look like there is a solution.
None, no solution.
…
Black Swan Event coming and then cascades of Black Swan Events
Everything is gonna turn
– Dark Age ahead.
…
If there is a G_D , why doesn’t he ban all religions?
Neither Obama or probably any other US president will ever authorize an armed attack against Iran unless and until Iran were to attack the USA, possibly through armed Iranian-backed terrorists. And the likelihood even then is that they would not attack Iran itself but go after the proxies.
If Israel lacks the deployable military power to destroy Iran’s existing stockpile of nuclear materials, then their best approach would be to make a serious effort to engineer a regime change in that country by means of a civil war. How could that be started? By neutralization, preferably within the same 24 hour period, of the whole Iranian leadership, especially the nastiest of the leading mullahs and some carefully-chosen functionaries with command powers within the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The whole idea is to leave enough of them around to fight with each other, while at the same time, giving the political resistance movement in Teheran and possibly other key cities an opportunity to take control of the streets, broadcast facilities, power stations, airports, and as many military depots as possible.
The best choice — if the situation could be thus maneuvered — would be to steer such a civil war so that the Russians could control at least northern Iran, leaving the USA and some of its surrogates an opportunity to take over southern Iran, which, I think, is where the big oil fields are located near the Persian Gulf. Why? Because an Iran militarily occupied and dominated by European powers would in essence be a disarmed Iran, and therefore no threat to Israel, existential or otherwise.
In the general chaos that would ensure anything approaching the scenario that I have described above would also give Israel an opportunity to help Kurdistan win independence, and in the process, break up Iraq, tearing off a small piece of northeastern Syria, a larger piece of northwestrn Iran, and an even larger piece of Turkey. The Jews always have had ‘mazal tov’ with the Kurds. The only thing the Kurds lack is a state, and both peoples, Israelis and Kurds, could benefit from that.
The general principle of what I have suggested here was first talked about by none other than Ariel Sharon, obviously before his coma, that:
“The Arabs may have the oil. But we have the matches.”
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Israel must stop wasting precious time trying to convince the White House to act against Iran and just act on its own.
By the same token, Israel cannot allow the president to dictate to Israel whether or not to take preemptive action.
Peres did it again (AIPAC Address)! He removed Israel as a weapon to be used against Obama. It appears he sold Israel out for a Medal of Freedom from Obama.
Peres: There is no U.S.-Israel divide on Iran nuclear issue
Two undeserving recipients of a NOBEL, Peres the mass murderer, Israeli traitor and Obama a devoted Peres student and wannabee.
Israel cannot allow the US or any other country to tell it not to defend itself. Israelis cannot be expected to die to ensure Obama has a trouble-free presidency.
Obama does not get it and this will strengthen Israel’s determination to go it alone. Never again must be the fate of the Jewish people be left up to the goodwill of others.
Just heard President Obama’s speech at AIPAC.
President Obama again said that the danger of Iran getting nuclear weapons is in proliferation. He does not understand that the danger is from IRAN ITSELF.
We are in the danger of getting nuked while he still continues to believe in diplomacy! How can the leader of the most powerful country in the world be so out of step with reality?