Martin Indyk also slams PM for plans to speak to Congress: US won’t suddenly say ‘Oh, we’re negotiating a bad deal, silly us’
The United States should offer Israel a “nuclear guarantee” before signing an agreement with Iran about its rogue nuclear program, a former top American foreign policy official suggested Tuesday.
Martin Indyk, a former American envoy to Israel and mediator in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, said such a deal would serve to assuage Jerusalem’s fear about Tehran violating the deal and subsequently dashing toward a bomb.
“The United States can afford to have Iran as a near-threshold nuclear power. And Israel is saying it can’t. And that’s related to the very different security circumstances of the US and Israel,” Indyk said during a panel discussion at the Institute for National Security Studies’ annual conference in Tel Aviv. “Instead of having an argument about that, the United States should enter immediately into discussions with Israel about a nuclear guarantee for Israel.”
Such an arrangement would take the form of a bilateral treaty, Indyk explained.
“It would require legislation and I believe it would pass pretty much unanimously,” he said.
The guarantee would commit the US to take some sort of action should Iran cross a certain threshold, though Indyk did not say exactly what the specific contours of such a deal would take.
Also known as nuclear umbrellas, guarantees are often used by nuclear-states as a promise to protect smaller allies.
Israel first demanded a nuclear guarantee during the Camp David peace talks 15 years ago, said Indyk, who at the time served as Washington’s ambassador to Israel.
Then-prime minister Ehud Barak asked US president Bill Clinton to provide such a guarantee in the framework of a potential peace agreement with the Palestinians.
Clinton agreed, according to Indyk, who served as the president’s special assistant and as senior director for Near East affairs at the National Security Council.
The treaty he is proposing now would be “a different kind of deal, but it might go a considerable distance toward calming Israeli concerns about the consequences of an Iranian reneging on the commitments,” Indyk said.
Itamar Rabinovich, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington, who also participated in the panel, said Jerusalem should view such a guarantee carefully, since any agreement with the US would surely preclude any Israeli military action against Iran’s nuclear program.
“Israel’s freedom of action would be limited. You cannot ask for an automatic American guarantee and then go act on your own,” he said.
Indyk in his remarks also criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial insistence to address US Congress later this month on the Iranian issue, indicating that it turned support for Israel’s position into a partisan issue.
“One has to think about what exactly is going to be achieved by this speech,” said Indyk, who served as the US administration’s special envoy for the last round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. “Is it really going to turn around the minds of the president of the United States and his negotiators? Will they suddenly wake up and say, ‘Oh we’re negotiating a bad deal here, silly us, we’ll change our minds’? Will it convince a veto-proof majority in the Senate that they should act in a way to sink the deal?”
US President Barack Obama has vowed to veto any bill that would call for additional sanctions on Iran as long as the nuclear negotiations are ongoing.
Netanyahu’s speech might have been able to influence American lawmakers if it had been arranged in a way that would create bipartisan support for Israel’s understandable concern about a potential nuclear deal with Iran, Indyk posited.
“But the Republicans don’t have 60 votes in the Senate. They don’t have the votes without the Democrats to do anything. Without those votes, the speech is not going to be able to achieve anything,” he said.
But the way in which speech was handled — with Speaker of the House John Boehner inviting Netanyahu behind the administration’s back — “put the Democrats, who might otherwise cheer the prime minister on the substance of the matter, in an impossible situation, where they have to choose between the prime minister of Israel and the president of the United States,” Indyk said. “And that’s an untenable position.”
Israel’s enemies are currently “celebrating,” according to Indyk, “because they love to see a split between the United States and Israel. It’s a real problem.”
The current tensions between Washington and Jerusalem are dangerous for Israel but also for the US and its influence in the region, said Indyk, who currently serves as vice president and director of the Brooking Institute’s Foreign Policy Program.
The current US ambassador to Israel, who also addressed the conference, downplayed the tension between the two governments.
“Our cooperation and consultation with Israel on this shared goal [of preventing a nuclear-armed Iran] will continue, even at moments when we may disagree on one or another aspect of the approach,” Dan Shapiro said.
Rebutting reports that the US has ceased to update Jerusalem on the current negotiations with Iran, Shapiro said senior US officials dealing with the issue have met and continue to meet with their Israeli counterparts.
Eisenhower guaranteed Israel military cover in the Sinai to induce to withdraw from the Sinai in 1956. In 1967 when Egypt surrounded Israel with troops in the Sinai and expelled the UN peace keeepers, the USA forgot about Eisenhower’s guarantee. A guarantee against a nuclear armed Iran is basically not reliable to put it mildly.
@ yamit82:
If there is any truth to it, it would be a very interesting development and one would have to wonder how alliances in the area could develop with that one in existence. If it were true it could herald new axes of alliance: right now cyprus works with Israel, so would Israel be included in some way, but then what about syria, etc? It would be very interesting if Israel was part of that picture. the russians are actually in a position to broker peace between israel syria Iran and hezbullah and if they were to move into cyprus and have understandings with Israel, it could be possible. Their interests would be served by such a situation. Israel has been in negotiation with russia regarding energy in the med.
if you think about it there is no real self interest in Iran, Syria and Hezbullah being at war with Israel, no real gain. Only the syrian golan but the Assads dont appear to have wanted it enough to risk another war. If russia had real strong interest in creating a russian stabilized mideast under their influence it might be a possible scenario, although way out.
I would not put it beyond Putin to have grand dreams. Right now he is talking with all the ME sides to the conflict.
yamit82 Said:
the machines are rebelling against our rational humanism 🙂
@ yamit82:
or it could just be disinformation 😛
Now why would my comment be put in moderation to Bernard Ross?? Can’t be anything I said in the text or it’s length.
@ bernard ross:
The Current version of the KGB owns Cyprus or at least most of the banks. When Cyprus defaulted a few years ago the Russians took the biggest hit. Looks like payback for those losses along with fear of Turkey and huge amts of gas recently discovered by Israel consortium in Cyprus waters needs protection against Turkey.
that’s probably they are upset at Israel, its the pecking order. Iran treats kerry oboma as their biotch and then kerry obama want to to the same with israel.
It looks like obama and company have trouble with everything they engage. Perhaps they should share notes with Erdogan who has the same disorder.
🙂
SHmuel HaLevi 2 Said:
that is the hope I cling to 🙂
@ yamit82:
its the peter principle in reverse
yamit82: It’s called “government work”, and in the U.S., mediocrity is the key to advancement. Admitting failure, or claiming great success, will get you booted from the buracracy.
@ bernard ross:
At face value one can point to the consistent policy failures of the likes of Indyk Ross Wolfowitz Pearl Gates and Baker to name a few yet each in-turn have never admitted to being wrong and each have gone on to more high level positions and are reaping mega rewards for advocating, supporting and active participation in effecting wrong policies whose failures are more than obvious.
Now something seems askew where failure is never admitted , rewarded and those who advanced failure are held in continued respect as experts long after their direct input and consequences are clear to anyone with a brain and eyes to connect the dots.
Then I ask the question whether what is seen as failures was somehow their original intent based on interests not seen or apparent to those not in a select inner group?
SHmuel – I pray that you are correct.
@ bernard ross:
I must say that I like your sense of humor.
Yet, I would not worry. Those with the task of finding out for the Israeli people, know all that is there to know and even more. 🙂
@ diana:
Who? Which man?
After Iran Nukes Israel America intends to do what? New Holocaust museums? Holocaust endowed chairs in all major universities…. Boy do they love dead Jews
Fact is Israel can incinerate all of Iran without Americas guarantees. Actually the guarantee is American guarantees to Iran that Israel won’t attack or nuke em.
Is this man crazy?
Actually the label “chickenshit” fits very well with Indyk and Kerry.
@ yamit82:
indyk is not the scorpion, he is the biotch of the scorpion
bernard ross Said:
Said the scorpion to the frog!!!!
bernard ross Said:
😛
😛 😛
😛 😛 😛
every minute the story changes from the mouths of the serial, chronic, congenital liars.
Perhaps Congress suspects they are not telling them the truth either.
🙂
they forgot to update their own ambassador that they today admitted what they lied about yesterday. Obama figures everyone has a memory of one day. They must have thought that shapiro was Israels ambassador to the US rather than vice versa.
the US probably gave a grant to INSS to put this comedy show on
the only reason to have him anywhere is if he is paying you to listen. So much for the credibility of those who invited him (INSS)
what a comedian 😛 😛 😛
This paid stooge of Doha advises the Jews to trust the US with its safety……
DUH this idiot apparently is not getting the gist of what is going on between obama and BB right now
Indyk sees obama throwing Israel under the bus and decides to advise the Jews to ask for more of the same
😛 😛 😛
Jews just paid Indyk to speak in Israel
😛 😛 😛
what a bunch of idiots
Just another antisemite. The path to catastrophe is full of people with good intentions.
Should be persona non-Grata in Israel, Kerry too.
Oops. I guess Iran didn’t pay Indyk enough money for him to throw Israel under the bus. Again. Yes, a written guarantee. Such written guarantees have been so helpful in the past, why not another one? That way, when God forbid, Iran drops a nuke on Tel Aviv, the U.S. Secretary of State can express his extreme displeasure with Iran’s violation of its guarantee. That’ll show ’em!
Wasn’t it Peres himself who said that “U.S. guarantees are like an umbrella that gets folded up every time it rains”. About as credible as In-dick!
Indyk has a long history of hostility and duplicity regarding Israel. Why is he even invited to participate in discussions? I also thought the he accepted money from an Arab country hostile to Israel.
The biggest renegade capo (unJew) of the age allied with our arch enemy in the WH “offers” a guarantee… Is not that peachy?
Why don’t we trust the sold out item? Imagine that… a “guarantee”. By none other than Indyk.
We got it made in the shade.