Jerusalem – U.S.-led efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear program have resumed since President Barack Obama’s re-election and include preparation for possible military action, a senior Israeli official said on Tuesday.
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The remarks by Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon suggested cautious optimism at prospects for an international resolution to the decade-old standoff with Tehran, though Israel says it remains ready to attack its arch-foe alone as a last resort.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has set out a mid-2013 “red line” for tackling Iran’s uranium enrichment project. The West says this program is aimed at developing the means to build atomic bombs. Tehran denies this, saying it is enriching uranium solely for civilian energy.
Yaalon told Army Radio on Tuesday that Israel knew there would be no movement on the issue before the U.S. election in November, but had expected renewed effort after the vote.
“And indeed it has been renewed,” he said.
He cited contacts among the United States, Russia, France, China, Britain and Germany and Iran about holding new nuclear negotiations, ongoing sanctions against Iran, “and preparations, mainly American for now, for the possibility that military force will have to be used”. He did not elaborate.
The P5+1 powers said last week they hoped soon to agree with Iran on when and where to meet. There have been suggestions it could happen this month, though January now seems more likely, Western officials say.
ZONE OF IMMUNITY
A former armed forces chief who belongs to Netanyahu’s rightist Likud party, Yaalon questioned Obama’s resolve on Iran during the Democratic president’s first term. By contrast, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the lone centrist in Netanyahu’s coalition government, argued in Obama’s favor.
Yaalon is a frontrunner to succeed Barak, who has announced he will retire from politics after Israel’s January 22 election.
On Monday, Barak reiterated Israel’s determination to deny Iran the capability to make a nuclear weapon. Israel, widely assumed to have the Middle East’s only atomic arsenal, sees a nuclear-armed Iran as a mortal threat.
The prospect of unilateral Israeli air strikes, and ensuing retaliation by Iran, a big oil exporter, and its Islamist guerrilla allies in Lebanon and Gaza, worries world powers.
Speaking to Jewish leaders in New York, Barak acknowledged the limitations of Israel’s military against Iran’s distant, dispersed and well-defended nuclear facilities.
“The Iranians are deliberately trying to create a level of redundancy and protection for their program, what we call the ‘zone of immunity’. Once they enter the zone of immunity, fate will be out of our hands,” Barak said.
“The state of Israel was founded precisely so that our fate would remain in our own hands.”
Barak’s term “redundancy” refers to Israel’s belief that Iran seeks to stockpile raw uranium and enrichment centrifuges on a scale that would allow it to restore independent nuclear capacity should its known facilities be attacked.
The Iranian projects have been dogged by sabotage. While Israel has not publicly claimed responsibility, Yaalon said there could be more in store, in parallel to global economic pressure.
“Sometimes malfunctions happen there – worms, viruses, explosions. Therefore this schedule is not necessarily chronological. It is more technological,” he told Army Radio.
“We are, without a doubt, closely tracking developments in the program there, lest they attempt to pass the red line.”
Will believe it when I see it.
The only thing obama might do is not send iran any toys and candy.
Look I’m not an “arm chair” general and don’t claim to be expert but the way I see it iran will only stop if hit with military action.
US-Iranian nuclear talks fail. Iran has plutonium for 24 Nagasaki-type bombs
DEBKAfile Special Report December 15, 2012
The secret, one-on-one nuclear negotiations President Barack Obama launched with Iran have run into a blank wall… msg authorized by the office of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei… If the enrichment suspension demand stands, the game’s over…
on Dec. 5 by The Wall Street Journal “From Bushehr to the Bomb.” This revelation was not picked up by any other Western – or even Israeli – withdrawal of 136 fuel rods from Iran’s nuclear reactor at Bushehr in mid-October – on the pretext of wandering metal bolts – and the rods’ return in the last week of November “could have been a test run for the Iranians should they decide to reprocess those rods into weapons-grade ppublication despite its sensational nature.
Drawing on US intelligence sources, the paper suggested that the withdrawal of 136 fuel rods from Iran’s nuclear reactor at Bushehr in mid-October – on the pretext of wandering metal bolts – and the rods’ return in the last week of November “could have been a test run for the Iranians should they decide to reprocess those rods into weapons-grade plutonium.”
what a sick joke this is,Bibi is all talk and bluster but no action,heck” when Israel was attacked with hundreds of rockets,and millions of it’s citizens had to hide in underground bunkers,what did this leftist coward do? answer” he bombed empty buildings and empty fields,
as for Hussein Obama,Iran has nothing to fear from this man,he is one of them,he is on their side