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Friday December 14, 2007

Israel quietly pushes case against Iran

by leslie susser
jta

After the shock of last week’s U.S. intelligence estimate that said Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, Israel is reshaping its Iran strategy.

Israel essentially is arguing that the U.S. assessment is dangerously misleading and Tehran is as determined as ever to acquire nuclear weapons.

The Israeli dilemma is how to prove Iran is cheating without being accused of trying to push the United States into war. That is why the official strategy is to work quietly.

Israel’s top intelligence agencies all believe Iran is still at full throttle to produce a nuclear bomb and will be capable of doing so by 2009 or 2010.

The new Israeli strategy is based on four main elements:

n Actively pushing for stiffer international sanctions on Iran, despite the U.S. report;

n Working quietly behind the scenes to convince others with its intelligence material that Iran is intent on producing nuclear weapons;

n Refraining from arguing with the U.S. assessment in public, lest Israel be seen to be trying to push the United States into military action against Iran;

n Keeping open its military options.

The National Intelligence Estimate’s report is likely to affect more than Israel’s strategy on Iran.

Although they won’t say so openly, Israeli officials feel abandoned by the United States in the face of this existential threat to the Jewish state. This sentiment could have implications for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and in the Israeli domestic political arena.

The sense of abandonment places a heavy burden on Israeli decision makers.

Now that Israel is on its own, the question of what to do about Iran could be one of the biggest decisions in the history of the state.

The emerging policy is the result of close consultations among Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

In a Cabinet meeting Dec. 9, Olmert stressed that Israel would work to “expose Iran’s clandestine operations.”

Barak earlier had advised the prime minister not to get into a public spat with the United States over its assessment of Iran’s nuclear program, but rather promoted the behind-the-scenes effort.

Livni is determined to ensure that the international alliance for sanctions against Iran does not crumble in the face of the report. Last week she briefed Israeli ambassadors worldwide, urging them to stress that even if taken at face value, the U.S. report shows that Iran can be pressured and that sanctions work.

Later, in a meeting with NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, Livni secured promises from several of her European counterparts that they would go ahead with sanctions of their own if Russia or China veto a new sanctions package in the U.N. Security Council.

Barak has hinted that Israel will keep all its options on the table.

“It is our responsibility to ensure that the right steps are taken against the Iranian regime,” he declared. “Words don’t stop missiles.”

Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman says it doesn’t even matter whether or not the Iranians have a secret military program. He argues that once the Iranians have sufficient quantities of enriched uranium — which they continue to produce openly, ostensibly for civilian purposes — they could manufacture a bomb in a matter of months.

Then, Lieberman said, “for them to go nuclear or not is simply a political decision.”

In questioning the American intelligence assessment, Israeli analysts point to three indisputable facts: In defiance of the international community, Iran continues to enrich uranium; Iran has an advanced missile program that it continues to develop; and Iran could quickly reactivate its military program — assuming it has been stopped — to produce a bomb within a relatively short time span.

“They can stop on the edge of the project to weaponize and decide to proceed at any time,” former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy said.

The bottom line in the U.S. assessment is that the Iranians, concerned by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, suspended their nuclear weapons program in 2003.

The Israeli counterassessment is that Tehran easily could have shifted its nuclear program underground without being detected, and even if they didn’t, it doesn’t matter much because the transition from an advanced civilian nuclear program to weaponization is relatively simple and brief.

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