US, Israel at Wit’s End on Bombing Iran

US, Israel at Wit’s End on Bombing Iran


20/08/2010 It seems that the US and Israel are distracted sending different signals concerning an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in response to its nuclear program.


At the time US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen said earlier this month that the United States has a plan in place to attack Iran if necessary, now US and Israeli officials believe breakout is unlikely anytime soon.


US officials have convinced Israel that Iran needs at least a year to complete what one senior official called a “dash” for a nuclear weapon, The New York Times reported. Gary Samore, President Barack Obama's top adviser on nuclear issues, told the Times said the US believe the assessment has dimmed the prospect that Israel would pre-emptively strike against the country’s nuclear facilities within the next year, as Israeli officials have suggested in some veiled threats.


Many experts in Washington as well as overseas indicate that Israel should attack Iran before Saturday when Russia loads fuel into the Bushehr reactor. They argue that “if Israel bombs the Bushehr nuclear facility after the fuel rods have been loaded, without any doubt, radiation would spew out all over the area, putting thousands of lives at risk, and being a public relations nightmare for the small Jewish Country.”


Earlier this week, former U.S. envoy to the United Nations John Bolton told the Fox Business Network that if Bushehr plant isn't destroyed soon it should never be attacked. "Israel's got a problem, because once the fuel rods are inserted into the reactor, an attack ... would almost certainly release the radiation into the atmosphere," Bolton said. "If they were going to do anything militarily about Bushehr, they've only got a few days," he said.


In an Atlantic report, published last week, sources in Tel Aviv and other nations indicated that Israel by July 2011 could conduct attacks on Iranian nuclear installations.


"…one day next spring, the Israeli national-security adviser, Uzi Arad, and the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, will simultaneously telephone their counterparts at the White House and the Pentagon, to inform them that their prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has just ordered roughly one hundred F-15Es, F-16Is, F-16Cs, and other aircraft of the Israeli air force to fly east toward Iran - possibly by crossing Saudi Arabia, possibly by threading the border between Syria and Turkey, and possibly by traveling directly through Iraq's airspace, though it is crowded with American aircraft…," so argues Jeffrey Goldberg in Atlantic magazine's September cover story, obtained by Haaretz ahead of publication.


But reports on the Fox News and the Washington Post had refuted claims of Iran attack listing reasons why US and Israel won’t do that. The Washington Post analyzed that western powers should now focus not only on their power to deter but on their power to attract. “We should push for new collective-security agreements that would benefit everyone in the region. Israeli threats to attack Iran produce only paranoia and solidarity inside Iran,” it said.


The Fox News cited more than 5 reasons why Israel won't strike Iran anytime soon. It concludes that conservatives and liberals alike tend to agree, Israeli military action against Iran before Washington concludes that its sanctions policy is not working is likely to poison already tense US-Israel relations, which as John Bolton acknowledges, “are more strained now than at any time since the 1956.”


“History may not repeat itself in the Middle East. Israel may not strike Iran as it did in Iraq and Syria,” the report indicated.


But Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as well as officials hadn’t been so silent, however, increasing their tone in response to attack threats.


“Any act of aggression by Israel against Iran will have detrimental consequences for Tel Aviv,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of Iran's Armed Forces warned. Major General Hassan Firouzabadi dismissed Israel's threats of an attack on Iran as a "joke", and said, "The officials of this regime make these statements to keep the spirit of their forces up and save their dwindling government."


"Our armed forces are fully prepared to operate anywhere the Leader of the Islamic Revolution [Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei] commands," Firouzabadi said, adding that the US and Israel do not have the conditions to take military measures against Iran.


Sayyed Khamenei also said Wednesday that if the military threats of the enemies come true, Iranians will extend the battlefield to beyond the region.


The same day, Iran's deputy ambassador to the United Nations Eshaq Alehabib complained to in a letter addressed to the UN Security Council (UNSC)about US military threats against the country.

US 'persuades' Israel that Iran is far from weaponization ...

NYTimes/ here

Posted by G, Z, or B at 7:59 AM

"......the assessment has dimmed the prospect that Israel would pre-emptively strike against the country’s nuclear facilities... American and Israeli officials believe breakout is unlikely anytime soon. For one thing, Iran, which claims it is interested in enriching uranium only for peaceful purposes, would be forced to build nuclear bombs from a limited supply of nuclear material, currently enough for two weapons. Second, such a decision would require kicking out international weapons inspectors, eliminating any ambiguity about Iran’s nuclear plans.

Even if Iran were to choose this path, American officials said it would probably take Iran some time to reconfigure its nuclear facilities to produce weapons-grade uranium and ramp up work on designing a nuclear warhead.

Israeli officials have indicated that if they saw a race for the bomb under way, they would probably take military action and encourage the United States to join the effort....(yawn, yawn)"

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