U.S. official: Israeli leaks are damaging efforts to halt Iran's nuclear program

[azurnoir]

U.S. officials say Israeli leaders are sincere about the need to act quickly on Iran, but they do not think Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made the decision to strike. Rather, the Israeli leader is trying to pressure the United States. “They are deadly serious, as is the president, about the need to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon,” a senior U.S. official told the Washington Post. “But there has been far too much talking — background leaks and fabrications — that hurt the cause.”

On Saturday, Amos Yadlin, a former chief of Israeli military intelligence, called in a Washington Post article for President Barack Obama to visit Jerusalem in order to convey to the Israeli public that he is committed to halting Iran's nuclear program, including with military means.

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Yadlin, who today heads Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, still maintains ties with Netanyahu and his advisers, as well as with top security officials. His Saturday article echoes the words of newly-appointed Home Front Defense Minister Uzi Dayan in the New York Times on Thursday. Dayan, who spoke to the Times after meeting with Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, claimed that if Obama will publically expresses a commitment to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, Israel may shelf its attack plans for a few more months.

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According to Yadlin, Obama must visit Israel and tell its leadership and public that preventing an Iranian nuclear bomb is a U.S. interest, and that if military action is necessary – it will be taken. "This message," he writes, "delivered by the president of the United States to the Israeli Knesset, would be far more effective than U.S. officials’ attempts to convey the same sentiment behind closed doors."

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/diplomania/u-s-official-israeli-leaks-are-damaging-efforts-to-halt-iran-s-nuclear-program.premium-1.459052?localLinksEnabled=false

link to WaPo article

For peace with Iran, prepare for war

This fall, all the boxes will be checked for an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Consider this Aug. 1 statement of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “Time to resolve this issue peacefully is running out.” Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Thursday that “there are risks in the situation today . . . [but] it’s infinitely more dangerous . . . to deal with a nuclear Iran in the future.” When President Shimon Peres added his voice to the public opposition to a unilateral Israeli strike this fall, an associate of Netanyahu accused Peres of having “forgotten” the role of Israel’s president. Israeli logic holds that it must choose between, as the media reports put it, the bomb and the bombing.

The Iranian regime will soon possess enough low-enriched uranium to build an arsenal of nuclear bombs. Moreover, Iran’s deputy navy commander, Abbas Zamini, said in June that “preliminary steps in making an atomic submarine have started.” This provides Iran an excuse to continue enriching its uranium stockpiles to weapons-grade levels. Meanwhile, “P5+1” negotiations have ended without an agreement. Western-imposed sanctions have damaged Iran’s economy but have not produced a shift in the regime’s political thinking or nuclear drive. Covert operations against Iran’s nuclear facilities and scientists — for which no one has claimed responsibility — have similarly failed to stop the program. Despite some political difficulties, the regime in Tehran continues to reign.

Add to all this the issue of the “zone of immunity” — the point at which Iran’s nuclear facilities would become immune to an Israeli military strike. For Israel, the conclusion is clear.

As Netanyahu and Barak rule out arguments against an attack, they are watching developments in the Sunni world. Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Libya have increased oil production, reducing fears that an attack would send prices skyrocketing at a time of international economic angst. The bleeding Assad regime in Syria is in no position to support Tehran. Rising Sunni-Shiite tensions in the region could potentially ease collective Islamic outrage over an Israeli attack on Iran.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/get-ready-to-fight-iran/2012/08/17/1abe88c6-e7f8-11e1-8487-64e4b2a79ba8_story.html

[oberliner]

1. I don't see Silverstein's name mentioned here

Don't leaked documents go to him first?

[King_David]

2. Ha Ha nt

[azurnoir]

3. well of course not as the OP has nothing to do with Silverstein

do you actually have anything relevant to say about the OP , what about the expectation that the POTUS take time off at this juncture to visit Israel in order to prove himself to Israeli's?

[shira]

5. The US didn't act to stop Iraq, N.Korea, or Syria's nuclear programs...

Last edited Sun Aug 19, 2012, 01:00 PM - Edit history (1)

...so what makes you think it would act to stop Iran?

In retrospect, do you think Israel was right to bomb nuclear reactors in Iraq and Syria? And if Israel was right to do that, why in your opinion did the USA not do the right thing before Israel acted?

[shaayecanaan]

7. If anything, the strike on the Osirak reactor probably sped Iraq's nuclear program up...

when the inspectors turned up after the First Iraq War they found that the nuclear weapons program was about six months from becoming viable. Had the US not intervened, Iraq would have acquired a weapon notwithstanding anything that the Israelis did.

[oberliner]

6. It was a joke

Note the "ha ha" from other respondent.

[shira]

4. + 1,000,000 n/t

[shaayecanaan]

8. To be honest, I don't know why the Israelis don't realise this...

There is a still some enthusiasm in Saudi Arabia and to some extent the other gulf states for a US attack on Iran. Every time the Israelis flap their mouths in this fashion that enthusiasm takes another hit. I'd say those remaining stocks are getting pretty low by now.

No one in the region is going to support a war in which Washington is seen as carrying water for Israel, no matter how keen the other Arab nations might be on attacking Iran otherwise. That includes Turkey, Iraq, and pretty much anyone else whose co-operation would be necessary in order for there to be a sustained US campaign in Iran.

The Iranians are actually playing a pretty smart hand by constantly ginning up Israel and getting them to vent their hysterical reactions, which simply puts the US in an increasingly difficult position of having to maintain some consensus against Iran as well as not look like Israel's gopher.

An Israeli attack, of course, would put the result beyond doubt. I don't think even popular opinion in the United States would withstand the notion of American troops going in to mop up a war that Israel started, particularly when the American public are as war-fatigued as they are now.