Category: Israel

Iran, Economic Pressure, Nuclear Program

New Team, Little Time On Iran, (Wall Street Journal)…Gerald F. Seib, Dec 2, 2008.

The foreign-policy team President-elect Barack Obama announced Monday is said to be experienced enough to “hit the ground running.” Good thing when it comes to Iran, as time is running short for the new crew to figure out what to do about a nuclear program that seems to have been slowed very little by international efforts to make Tehran play nice.

In private, Israeli officials are ever more blunt in saying they see time running out before Iran’s nuclear potential becomes a nuclear reality that threatens the Jewish state, among others. Once the Obama administration is in place next year, and a new Israeli government takes shape after February elections there, the questions about whether Israel is contemplating military action against Iran will only grow.

With the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad already using price controls on food and energy to stabilize the domestic economy, falling oil prices figure to create lots of new pressures. By one estimate, the Iranian government needs $90-a-barrel oil for its government accounts to break even. The question, then, is when economic pressure might become so great that a nuclear program becomes counterproductive.

Team of Rivals" Trouble Spots: Israel, Iran

Obama’s ‘Team Of Rivals’ Share Big-Picture Views, USA Today, Pg. 10, Dec 2, 2008.

As for specific trouble spots:

*Come Jan. 20, Obama will own the Iraq war just as surely as Richard Nixon owned the Vietnam War in 1969. If progress turns into defeat, his presidency will surely be undermined. The entire team will recognize the political and international implications of this, but Obama has given Gates, who oversaw the successful strategy of surging more troops into Iraq, the new mission of bringing them home.

Obama campaigned on a pledge to remove U.S. troops within 16 months, but at his news conference Monday, he repeated a Bush line that he would listen to commanders on the ground, a wise step. The Bush administration has already signed an agreement for U.S. troops to be out of cities by June 30 and out of Iraq by the end of 2011, but the uneven progress in training Iraqis to take over will make the first deadline particularly difficult to attain, with huge implications.

*Afghanistan will continue on the present military path, with several thousand extra U.S. troops already scheduled to deploy there. The Bush administration attempted to win Afghan hearts and minds but was not very deft. Gates and Jones have advocated different kinds of outreach and more effective reconstruction.

*Candidate Obama pushed vigorous, high-level diplomacy to halt Iran’s nuclear program even as Clinton suggested that it would be naive. As his top diplomat, Clinton’s past dismissiveness could give any talks more credibility, while the more hawkish Clinton, Gates and Jones would keep the military option credible. None of this answers the hard question of what happens if diplomacy reaches a dead end.

Whether to attack Iran — or give Israel the green light to do so — would undoubtedly generate the sort of “vigorous debate” and “strong opinions” within the White House that Obama says he welcomes.

Policy: Iran., nK, Mideast

Obama To Face Big Policy Decisions On Iran, N. Korea And Mideast, (Washington Post)…Glenn Kessler, Nov 8, 2008.

 

…Diplomatic issues rarely begin or end cleanly with a change of administrations, but Bush will be leaving his successor an extensive list of foreign policy processes. The new administration will have to quickly evaluate them and decide whether to continue along Bush’s path, make minor modifications or forge ahead in a different direction.

“Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon, I believe, is unacceptable,” Obama said yesterday. “And we have to mount an international effort to prevent that from happening.”

Obama has not indicated that he will offer any fresh thinking on how to deal with Hamas; at one point during the campaign, he accepted the resignation of an outside adviser who met with Hamas officials as part of his job for an international mediation group. But, during a visit to Israel in July, Obama said he would not wait “until a few years into my term or my second term” to seek a peace deal. This suggests that he may appoint a high-level Middle East peace envoy, freeing his secretary of state to concentrate on other issues.

On North Korea, Obama will inherit a process that is probably in worse shape than what Clinton left for Bush. In a dramatic change in approach during his second term, Bush avidly pursued a deal to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs. But the effort nearly collapsed this fall before Bush agreed to remove North Korea from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Obama supported the decision to delist North Korea. During the campaign, he criticized Bush for taking so long to engage with North Korea, suggesting he would be eager to find ways to keep the disarmament process alive. Li Gun, a senior North Korean official, told reporters in New York on Thursday that “we are ready to deal” with the incoming Obama administration.

Israel: Missile Defense

Who Is For Missile Defense?, (Washington Times)…James T. Hackett, Nov 2, 2008

The effort to defend against Iran’s missiles took a new turn in late September when Washington delivered an X-band radar manned by 120 U.S. personnel to the first permanent U.S. military base in Israel.

The radar sent to Israel is the same as the high-powered transportable model now operating in northern Japan. It is ideal for detecting short- and medium-range missiles such as Iran’s Scuds that can reach U.S. bases in Iraq and its Shahab-3 that threatens Israel. The advantage over Israel’s Green Pine radar is that the X-band radar can track missiles from launch, providing extra minutes to intercept. A Shahab-3 flies about 9 minutes from Iran to Israel, so a gain of several minutes is invaluable.

Iran Nuclear Capability: Israeli Options

Some Israelis Feel An Urgency To Attack Iran, (Los Angeles Times)…Ashraf Khalil and Paul Richter, Nov 2, 2008

With international efforts to increase sanctions against Iran at a standstill, many Israelis believe their nation alone stands in the way of Tehran eventually building nuclear weapons.

Officials say other nations quietly want Israel to act unilaterally against Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. But an effective strike would be difficult and could stir up a wider conflict.

Iran Nukes: Israel policy against shooting first with nuclear weapons

Newsweek, Periscope, Nukes: Too Deep To Hit, By Mark Hosenball, November 3, 2008

Western intelligence experts believe that Iran’s nuclear facilities are so deep underground that it would be difficult for Israel to wipe them out, or even significantly damage them, with a quick airstrike. In order to deal a serious setback to Iran’s nuclear program, at least four key sites inside Iran would have to be hit, said one Western official, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information. The facilities, however, are located in tunnels fortified by barriers more than 60 feet thick. According to this official and other U.S. experts, Israel does not possess conventional weapons capable of knocking out the facilities. Breaking through the thick shell would require, at minimum, several bunker-buster bombs striking precisely the same spot. “These targets would be very hard to destroy,” said former U.N. nuclear expert David Albright.

Theoretically, Israel could do a lot more damage with a nuclear strike. But U.S. and other Western experts say there is no reason to believe the Israelis will abandon their policy against shooting first with nukes.

Israel Strike on Iran – No Green Light

Israel Asked US For Green Light To Bomb Nuclear Sites In Iran
(The Guardian (UK))…Jonathan Steele, Sept 25, 2008.

Israel gave serious thought this spring to launching a military strike on Iran’s nuclear sites but was told by President George W Bush that he would not support it and did not expect to revise that view for the rest of his presidency, senior European diplomatic sources have told the Guardian.