The U.S. and Israel are publicly disagreeing over timing for a potential attack on Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons.
“There’s a growing concern -- more than a concern -- that the Israelis, in order to protect themselves, might launch a strike without approval, warning or even foreknowledge,” Aaron David Miller, a former Mideast peace negotiator in the Clinton administration, said today.
The U.S. and Israel have a “significant analytic difference” over estimates of how close Iran is to shielding its nuclear program from attack, Miller said today. The differing views were underscored by public comments yesterday by senior Israeli and U.S. defense officials.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Israel must consider “an operation” before Iran reaches an “immunity zone,” referring to Iran’s goal of protecting its uranium enrichment and other nuclear operations by moving them to deep underground facilities such as one at Fordo, near the holy city of Qom.
“Today, unlike the past, the world has no doubt that Iran’s nuclear program is steadily nearing readiness and is about to enter an immunity zone,” Barak said in an address to the annual Herzliya Conference at the Interdisciplinary Center academic campus north of Tel Aviv.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declined to comment directly on a report by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius that Panetta believes there is a strong likelihood Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June. Panetta and other U.S. officials have repeatedly warned Israel not to act alone against Iran.
Not a Rift
“Israel has indicated that they’re considering this” through public statements, Panetta told reporters traveling with him in Brussels yesterday. “And we have indicated our concerns.”
Israelis think Iran will reach the immunity zone in “half the time the Americans think it will,” Miller said. Even so, Miller said, “to take that difference and talk about a growing rift” between Israel and the U.S. “is by and large an overstatement.”
Panetta stressed today that the U.S. and Israel are in agreement on the need to do what is necessary to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
“We’ve made very clear that they cannot, they cannot develop a nuclear weapon,” Panetta told troops at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
Strike ‘Premature’
The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, has said it is “premature” to resort to military force because sanctions are starting to have an impact on Iran. In a Jan. 26 interview with National Journal, Dempsey said he delivered a similar message of caution to Israel’s top leadership during a visit to the Jewish state in early January.
U.S. intelligence agencies think Iran is developing capabilities to produce nuclear weapons “should it choose to do so,” James Clapper, the U.S. director of national intelligence, told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Jan. 31.
“We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons,” he said.
While leaders of both countries agree that time must be given to gauge the impact of the latest set of economic sanctions on Iran, Israel’s patience is shorter than that of the U.S., Ephraim Kam, deputy director of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, said.
‘May Be Too Late’
“It will take at least six months to see whether sanctions are effective and by then it may be too late,” said Kam, author of the 2007 book, “A Nuclear Iran: What Does it Mean, and What Can be Done.”
Israeli leaders have said their country is able to withstand Iranian retaliation, according to Kam, pointing to a Nov. 8 statement by Barak that “in any scenario there won’t be 50 thousand or 5,000 or even 500 dead.”
U.S. concern that an Israeli strike may also expose American personnel and its allies to Iranian retaliation makes the Obama administration more cautious, Kam said.
“We’re definitely using different clocks,” he said.
Barak said again this week that military action must be considered if sanctions fail.
“Today, unlike in the past, there is widespread global understanding that if the sanctions don’t achieve their goal of halting Iran’s nuclear weapons program, there will arise the need of weighing an operation,” Barak said.
Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s vice prime minister and its former top military commander, said Iran still doubts international resolve to take military action against it.
Iranians Doubt Resolve
“The Iranians believe that the determination still isn’t there, both in regards to military action and in regards to sanctions,” Yaalon told the Herzliya conference a few hours before Barak spoke.
“It’s possible to strike all Iran’s facilities, and I say that out of my experience as IDF chief of staff,” he said referring to the Israeli Defense Forces.
Israeli Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz told the conference on Feb. 1 that his nation must be “willing to deploy” its military assets because Iran may be within a year of gaining nuclear weapons capability.
Gantz said international sanctions are starting to show some results. The European Union agreed last month to ban Iranian oil imports as of July 1 and freeze assets of its central bank and eight other entities. The U.S. has also imposed restrictions on financial transactions with Iran.
IAEA Plans Talks
The U.S., its European allies and the International Atomic Energy Agency have said that while Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, there are indications it may still be trying to move toward a nuclear weapon. They have challenged the government in Tehran to prove that its nuclear work is intended only for energy and medical research, as Iranian officials maintain.
Nuclear talks this week between senior IAEA officials and members of Iran’s government progressed enough for both sides to commit to more negotiations, Chief Inspector Herman Nackaerts told reporters on Feb. 1 at Vienna International Airport after returning from Iran.
To contact the reporters on this story: Nicole Gaouette in Washington at ngaouette@bloomberg.net; Jonathan Ferziger in Tel Aviv at jferziger@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net
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