An Iranian Nuclear Crisis,
Iran – A clear nuclear Path,
Push is getting close to Shove,
Shove is getting close to STRIKE,
AIR STRIKE MAY CAUSE Hezbollah
To launch rockets on Israel – And
Th at
might trigger a Final Conflict!
December 10, 2009
http://www.tribulationperiod,com/
Begin Excerpt 1 from Haaretz
Experts say Iran has clear path to nuclear weapons
By Yossi Melman
December 10, 2009
Last week the Harvard Kennedy School held a simulation game of the Iranian nuclear crisis, and Israel should be very concerned about its course and its outcome.
The game made it clear: Iran will not stop on its path to producing nuclear weapons. The United States will not embark on a military action and will find it difficult to enlist support at the United Nations for imposing more severe sanctions, while relations between Israel and the United States will deteriorate.
Prof. Graham Allison, a leading analyst of American security policy for decades, conducted the game, whose participants were representatives from countries and organizations likely to be affected by the real outcome.
Israel was represented by Dore Gold, former ambassador to the United Nations, and Dr. Shai Feldman, currently at Brandeis University, and by a former brigadier general and a nuclear physicist.
Their decisions were made by consensus. The U.S. team, headed by Nicholas Burns, who was an assistant to former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice during the administration of George W. Bush and was responsible for the “Iranian portfolio,” included Admiral William Fallon, head of U.S. Central Command from 2007- 2008.
Iran was represented by Prof. Gary Sick of Columbia University, who was a member of the U.S. National Security Council under Jimmy Carter.
Also participating were American and European academics (some of them former government officials), representing Russia, China, U.K., France and Germany and the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar). Also present as observers – the game lasted an entire day – were journalists David Ignatius of the Washington Post and David Singer of The New York Times, who “played” the media. All the participants promised to maintain secrecy about the game and not to reveal the identity of the participants, but details have leaked in the United States and now here as well.
Dynamic revealed
The rules of the game permitted the participants to conduct bilateral or multilateral discussions and contacts, to leak information to the media, to make public declarations and to provide one another with intelligence information. True, it was only an exercise, but it tried to simulate reality. It’s possible the decision-making process of the participants was biased because of their worldview, because of partial information or the absence of genuine responsibility for the outcome.
But the game revealed a dynamic that is reminiscent of the reality familiar to anyone who keeps tabs on the nuclear crisis with Iran and reflects that reality. Burns in the role of President Barack Obama tried everything possible to prevent a military confrontation fearing this would lead to a serious retaliation from Iran and effect the hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers deployed in Iraq, in the Gulf and in Afghanistan.
Gold, in the role of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, tried to enlist all the participants in imposing serious economic sanctions on Iran, designed to hit its “soft underbelly” – its oil and gas industries.
Saudi Arabia and the other members of the GCC, which worry about the possibility of Iran having nuclear weapons, joined in the effort. But when Israel tried to reach clandestine understandings with them, they refused (in reality, there is a secret cooperation). The United States operated exclusively through the UN Security Council in reaching a decision on sanctions, but encountered evasion by China and Russia. In the final analysis the U.S. failed to impose the sanctions on Iran, and it turned out that Russia and China even maneuvered behind its back.
Their companies made deals with Iran to provide what it requires instead of Western companies.
New tactic
At this point the U.S. administration switched to a new tactic, one designed to extort a promise from Israel that under no condition would it attack Iran without U.S. permission. Gold-Netanyahu refused, and a very unpleasant exchange of words developed between him and Burns-Obama. “Our most serious problem is how to restrain Israel,” Burns told Ignatius after the game. In a desperate attempt the Americans tried to tempt Israel and offered it a defensive treaty and a nuclear umbrella if it gave up the military option. Israel rejected the offer, with Gold insisting on the principle that Israel has a right to self-defense and refusing to subordinate the little freedom of action Israel still has to American interests.
“The game,” summed up Gold, who conveyed its findings to the relevant authorities in Israel (as the leaders of the game presumably did to their colleagues in the Obama administration) “made it clear to me that the U.S. is going from a policy designed to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons to an approach that accepts the possibility that it will have nuclear weapons and to deter it from using them by means of containment. Israel continues to believe that Iran must be prevented from arming itself with nuclear weapons.”
Conclusions: The U.S. will not attack Iran. Russia and China will not agree to imposing serious sanctions. The U.S. will pressure Israel to prevent it from attacking Iran, and so a serious crisis is liable
to develop between the two countries. Under these circumstances and in view of operational capability, Israel does not in effect have a real option of attacking Iran. If it so desires, Iran can produce nuclear weapons.
Bar Gil will stay
The degree to which the Defense Ministry continues to show contempt for public opinion and to make decisions based on individuals rather than on practical considerations is evident in the latest episode concerning Victor Bar Gil, its deputy director general. His boss, Pinhas Buchris, wanted to transfer him and, as published in Haaretz, cushioned his exit with a tailored-made post – head of the ministry delegation in Thailand. Bar Gil prepared and even made three preliminary tours to Bangkok and neighboring Cambodia and Vietnam. But, it turns out, Buchris is retiring.
Bar Gil says he is not interested in going to Thailand and wants to remain deputy director general. He now has the hutzpah to advise his ministry to close the Bangkok office, arguing that it is unneeded.
Begin Excerpt 2 from THE JERUSALEM POST
‘Iran can now produce nuclear bomb’
December 7, 2009
JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST
Iran now has the technical capability to build a nuclear bomb and the only thing separating it from the bomb is the decision to go ahead and build one, said Brig.-Gen. Yossi Baidatz, head of Military Intelligence’s research division, on Monday.
Speaking at the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Baidatz said Iran had successfully enriched 1,800 kilograms of uranium, enough to build over one bomb.
Baidatz also said that Iran had been upgrading its missile arsenal, and that it had developed missiles with the capability of carrying nuclear weapons that could reach Israel.
Prime Minister Binaymin Netanyahu also addressed the Iranian nuclear threat at the committee meeting. The prime minister said that preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear capabilities was Israel’s “central problem.”
“In the last year, two things have happened,” he told the FADC. “Iran has advanced its military nuclear program, and the international community has lost its legitimacy.”
Begin Excerpt 3 from THE JERUSALEM POST
Obama: Turkey key to keeping Iran’s nuclear program peaceful
Dec. 7, 2009
HILARY LEILA KRIEGER, JPost correspondent in WASHINGTON,
THE JERUSALEM POST
In a meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Monday, US President Barack Obama called Turkey an “important player” in keeping Iran’s nuclear energy program peaceful despite his recent criticism of the Western approach towards Teheran.
Speaking beside Obama at a White House press conference, Erdogan said that the two leaders discussed what could be done “jointly in the region with regard to nuclear programs.”
He also stressed that “we stand ready as Turkey to do whatever we can do with respect to relations between Israel and the Palestinians, and Israel and Syria.”
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was quoted as telling the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Monday he had been told by French President Nicolas Sarkozy that Syria was ready to open direct talks if Israel was prepared to commit itself to a withdrawal from the Golan Heights.
According to media reports from the closed-door meeting, Netanyahu told Sarkozy that if indirect negotiations were to continue, he would prefer France to Turkey as a mediator.
Turkey helped hold indirect negotiations between the latter two countries before the Gaza war last winter, during which Syria called off talks and Turkey harshly criticized Israel.
US officials said they would like to see Turkey return to such a mediation role, though none is currently on the table, but indicated they understood Israeli discomfort with the idea given Turkey’s rhetoric on Gaza.
Obama also praised Turkey for helping stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan, and concluded his remarks, which followed a lengthy Oval Office meeting ahead of a working lunch, by calling Turkey “a great country” and Erdogan a personal friend.
It was the prime minister’s first trip to the Obama White House, and the two leaders extended their tete-a-tete to review an “enormous agenda” of issues, as one US official put it.
The meeting came amid growing disagreements between Washington and Ankara over a slew of policies, notably Iran and Israel.
The Obama administration has largely chosen publicly to emphasize places of agreement and stress Turkey’s important regional role, but US officials have also subtly acknowledged differences and areas where they would like to see more being done.
A senior administration official briefing reporters ahead of Monday’s meeting noted that America was “disappointed” with Turkey’s decision to abstain on an International Atomic Energy Agency rebuke of Iran last month, and indicated that Turkey faced an important choice over whether to be helpful on sanctions.
“The President will make clear our views on Iran, and will strongly encourage Turkey to join us,” he said. “We want the widest possible support for any potential sanctions, as it’s necessary to go in that direction, so Turkey would be an important player on this issue.”
Despite Turkey’s dim view of sanctions on Israel, the official still stressed that “they also make it very clear that they don’t want to see Iran develop nuclear weapons capability, and they want to be helpful in avoiding that scenario,” including by holding some of Iran’s enriched uranium.
The official also warned that Turkey would need to work at its relations with Israel in order to be seen as an “honest broker” which could return it to the helpful role in brokering Israeli-Syrian talks it played in 2008.
“To the extent that they return to the kind of relationship that they have previously had, which has been a very strong and cooperative relationship, they will be able to serve in the role that they seek to play in the region,” he said. “If they don’t retain those ties, it’s going to be harder for them to lead in the way they would like to lead.”
Another administration official described the ruling Turkish government as having “a policy of zero problems with neighbors,” which they argue enables them to play that honest broker role, potentially even when it comes to Iran.
“We have no problem with Turkey reaching out to Iran, talking to Iran,” he said. “But it is important to us that the message be the same.”
But Soner Cagtaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said ahead of the meeting that the US and Iran were far from aligned on their attitude toward Iran. He also cited Israel and attitudes toward Islamic radicalism as places where wide gaps have emerged between Washington and a once reliable secular ally in the Muslim world.
“Some of these differences are getting too huge to bear,” said Cagtaptay of Turkey’s reorientation. He argued that its efforts to ease tensions with neighbors such as Russia, Syria and Islamic groups had actually revealed an ideology that goes far beyond a desire to balance its relations with East and West but actively shifts towards Islamic and anti-Western elements.
He expected the administration to deliver some reproach on these points but also words of gratitude and entreaty that could muddy the message.
“The administration will say that [there are problems], but also ‘Thank you for Iraq and could you please help us with Afghanistan?'”
He said that since Washington is desperate for further foreign contributions to the country, in which Turkey already has non-combat troops, Erdogan would likely see this as an easy way to please Washington at relatively little cost to his policies.
“It would be a golden opportunity misses if Erdogan leaves Washington with a sense that this new stance on Iran and Israel is something that Washington will swallow” in return for more troops in Afghanistan.
In that case, he predicated further divergence between the US and Turkey, and Israel and Turkey to the detriment of Western interests in the Middle East.
On Iran sanctions particularly, Cagtaptay assessed that the effort would be fruitless without the participation of Iran’s neighbor and strong trading partner – adding that there was little reason to think Ankara would be joining in.
“If Turkey’s not on board with a sanctions regime, there is no sanctions regime,” he said.
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