2007 – A Year of Decision in the Middle East that will affect the World – PART 4
GETTING RID OF NUKE SITES – Diplomacy or Military?
January 9, 2007
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
This is the fourth in a series of BLOGS on the ye
ar 2007
as a Year of Decision for Israel on the Iranian Nuclear Threat. The major question of the series is simply “What is Israel going to do about it?” How Israel handles this problem, has, is, and will continue to, cause the world to hold its breath. As you know by now, my guesstimate for the time of an attack against Israel will occur on some day during the time period 2008 to 2012. I suspect the events of 2007 may well determine how early or late it will occur in this time frame.
How will Israel finally decide to let the string play out
? Will it continue to let the diplomacy of the other nations of the world hopefully dissuade Iran from building a nuclear warhead, or will it use direct military force to blast Iran’s nuclear site
s? – Number 4 in this series deals with some of the ramifications of that question.
Yaakov Katz, an excellent journalist, has an outstanding analysis of the pros and cons Israel faces in “to launch or not to launch,” from which I will draw in this and future BLOGS. It appears in the Jerusalem Post, and is titled “Decision Time.”
Decision Time
BY YAAKOV KATZ, THE JERUSALEM POST
Begin Excerpt 4 from Jerusalem Post
DIPLOMACY VS. MILITARY
In 1992, Israeli Military Intelligence put Iranian nuclear efforts on the nation’s agenda as a potential existential threat. A few years later, reports began to surface regarding a covert Iranian missile project aimed at developing a rocket capable of reaching Israel called the Shihab. Israel’s course of action at the time was mostly waiting and watching.
By 1996, Amos Gilad, then head of the MI Research Division, began pointing to Iran as a growing threat. At the time, he recalls, the Americans were obsessed with Iraq and Israel was following suit. Saddam Hussein was perceived as the region’s most immediate threat. As a result, the shift in focus took time, possibly precious time.
By the end of the decade, however, MI and the Mossad began to see eye-to-eye, viewing their main task as tracking weapons of mass destruction in Iran.
Israel began investing in spy satellites – like the Eros B launched in April 2006 – in addition to making improvements to the Arrow 2 anti-missile system. The IAF purchased sophisticated long-range fighters – the US-made F-15I and F-16I – which IAF officers say can easily reach Iran.
Aware that a military strike on Iran would be far more difficult than the 1981 bombing of the Iraqi reactor in Osirak – its nuclear sites are scattered across the country and some are underground – Israel had to create an image that if necessary it has the will and the firepower.
At the same time, Israel has been warning from every available podium of the looming threat emanating from Iran. Ahmadinejad’s accession to power in August
2005 assisted Israel in grabbing the world’s attention. A denier of the Holocaust who calls persistently for Israel’s destruction, Ahmadinejad himself made Jerusalem’s case.
From the beginning, it has been a race against time, and the strategy chosen is to enlist the world against Iran. If not to stop Iran, then to at least slow it down enough so that if and when Teheran does go nuclear, the radical ayatollahs would have been toppled and
would not be the ones with their finger on the trigger.
The diplomatic work has partially paid off. The UN Security Council decision two weeks ago to impose sanctions was considered a major achievement. Russia had initially objected to sanctions but in the vote aligned itself with the US, possibly the result of a series of high-level recent visits to Moscow by National Security Council head Ilan Mizrahi, Gilad, now head of the Defense Ministry’s Diplomatic-Security Bureau, and Foreign Ministry Director-General Aharon Abramovich.
But while the decision was greeted as a “positive step,” the defense establishment does not believe that sanctions will be effective in stopping Iran from continuing with its nuclear program.
“There is no way to stop Iran anymore except with military action,” says one high-ranking officer.
“At this point, sanctions will only leave a dent, but they will not stop the program.”
Not everyone agrees with that assessment. Foreign Ministry officials voice cautious predictions that the sanctions could eventually lead Iran to drop its nuclear ambitions.
One proponent of sanctions is Uri Lubrani, an adviser to the defense minister.
Lubrani, 80, has been in the Defense Ministry for decades and served as ambassador to the Shah’s Iran.
He follows events in Iran closely and while he ultimately believes the most effective way to stop the Islamic regime would be by overthrowing the mullahs, he also believes tough sanctions – not like the ones approved by the UN – can be effective.
In contrast to the regime led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Lubrani claims the people of Iran are interested in “staying a part of the world” and not being cut off as a result of the regime’s nuclear program.
“It is very late but we still need to try to impose sanctions, since they can be effective,” he says in an interview.
“There is no reason not to try. Iran is dependent on importing refined fuel. Why don’t we cut the amount they get by 90 percent?”
A close adviser to Olmert on security and diplomatic issues says that he too believes sanctions could be effective if not in stopping Iran’s nuclear program, then at least in delaying it. The official agrees with Lubrani that the Iranian people do not want to turn into a “leper state” like North Korea, which has also come under sanctions since announcing it tested a nuclear device in October.
Even if sanctions are escalated and begin to affect Iran’s oil production – the country’s main source of income – some Israeli experts are doubtful Teheran will completely abandon its nuclear program.
Ephraim Asculi, a 40-year veteran of the Atomic Energy Commission and currently an analyst with the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, wrote recently that Iran would be prepared to follow in North Korea’s footsteps. In face of major sanctions and international isolation, he predicted that Teheran would continue with its nuclear program clandestinely.
“It will be very difficult for Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions,” Asculi wrote in the center’s Tel Aviv Notes in August. “The first [reason] is the need to deter several perceived threats: US armed forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Gulf pose a danger from almost every direction; Iraq, though currently incapable of threatening any of its neighbors, could eventually reemerge as a regional force; and Israel is seen as a hostile nuclear-weapons state.”
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the same argument during his Senate confirmation hearing last month. Asked why he thought Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons, Gates responded: “They are surrounded by powers with nuclear weapons – Pakistan to their east, the Russians to the north, the Israelis to the west and us in the Persian Gulf.”
Asculi also noted internal processes that play a role in Iran’s decision to press forward with its plan despite sanctions. “The current Iranian regime has been successful in rallying the nation around its nuclear program, which is perhaps the only policy uniting the population, and undoing this could help hasten its downfall,” he wrote.
But if the diplomatic track reaches a dead end, it will still be necessary to stop Iran’s atomic plan, even at a heavy price. Olmert has said numerous times in public that Iran cannot be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons.
He has also said that “Iran has what to be afraid of.”
End Excerpt 4 from Jerusalem Post
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