(NSI News Source Info) WASHINGTON - May 19, 2009: Now that President Obama has established what he called a “clear timetable” for Iran to halt its nuclear program — progress must be made by the end of the year, he declared on Monday — both American and Israeli officials are beginning to talk about how to accomplish that goal. 
US President Barack Obama (R) speaks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on May 18, 2009. Obama renewed his call for a Palestinian state and said Israeli settlement building in the West Bank must be "stopped."
The latest on President Obama, the new administration and other news from Washington and around the nation.
But even after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s first visit to the White House on Monday, where he and Mr. Obama stressed common goals and played down their differences on strategy, it seemed clear that they still do not agree even on the basic question of how much time remains to stop Iran from gaining a nuclear weapons capability.
So now begins Mr. Obama’s diplomatic sprint. His declaration Monday that “we’re not going to have talks forever” was a warning to the Iranians that his fundamentally different approach — serious American engagement with Tehran for the first time in three decades — must bear fruit before Iran clears the last technological hurdles to building a weapon. It is a strategy that some administration officials describe as “negotiations with pressure” — a combination of direct negotiations, reassurances that Washington is no longer seeking regime change in Iran, and an effort to persuade the ruling mullahs that the alternative to serious concessions will be painful: international sanctions that are far harsher and more tightly enforced than the weak mix of actions imposed so far by the United Nations Security Council.
“There’s a three-way race going on here,” one of Mr. Obama’s strategists said the other day. “We’re racing to make diplomatic progress. The Iranians are racing to make their nuclear capability a fait accompli. And the Israelis, of course, are racing to come up with a convincing military alternative that could plausibly set back the Iranian program.”
Neither Mr. Obama nor Mr. Netanyahu made any reference on Monday to Israel’s regular allusions to those alternatives. This was, after all, a first meeting.
Their most obvious public differences were not over Iran at all. Instead, they centered on Mr. Obama’s insistence that Mr. Netanyahu should order an halt to new Jewish settlements in the West Bank before there can be any hope of serious negotiations with the Palestinians. True to form, Mr. Netanyahu said he was ready to restart the peace process but refused to say whether he viewed the creation of a Palestinian state as the ultimate goal. Mr. Obama pushed back — gently — saying that “all the parties involved have to take seriously obligations they have previously agreed to.” That seemed like enough of a public split for a first meeting.
On Iran, the divisions are not as public. But they start with the fundamental issue of how much time remains to stop the Iranian program. “We’re looking at the same evidence,” Brigadier General Michael Herzog, the chief of staff to Israel’s minister of defense, said during a visit to Washington earlier this month. “We interpret it differently.”
The American interpretation is that Iran could reach the capability to build a bomb any time between 2010 and 2015 — a window that cracks open right after Mr. Obama’s rough deadline to show that negotiations are working. But in their public comments, senior American intelligence officials say they think Iran would not have a serious nuclear capability until the end of that range. “We have some time,” Secretary of Defense Robert Gates insisted earlier this year.
Mr. Herzog offered a grimmer assessment. “Under a certain scenario,” he said, if the Iranians decide to speed ahead, “they can have a first device by the end of 2010, perhaps the beginning of 2011, and that’s not very far away.”
Presumably, that was why Mr. Obama went out of his way, with Mr. Netanyahu sitting next to him, to warn the Iranians that “we’re not going to create a situation in which talks become an excuse for inaction while Iran proceeds with developing a nuclear — and deploying — a nuclear weapon.”
Mr. Obama’s strategy is based on a giant gamble: That after the Iranian elections on June 12, the way will be clear to convince the Iranians that it is in their long-term interest to strike a deal, trading their ability to produce their own nuclear fuel for a range of tempting rewards. For months, White House and State Department strategists have been debating just which incentives to offer the Iranians up front, and in what order. But they start with the prospect of opening the spigots of investment in Iran’s decrepit oil infrastructure, and even recognizing — and aiding — a civilian nuclear capability for Iran, as long as the country kept its hands off the nuclear fuel.
Behind the scenes, there has been work on the other side of the ledger: How to escalate pressure if the Iranians drag their feet. Some tactics involve corner shots, like persuading the Chinese to stop blocking the imposition of some sanctions against Iran. And if, by year’s end, the Iranians still refuse serious negotiations, Mr. Obama’s aides have debated more extreme sanctions. One involves cutting off credit guarantees to European companies that do business with Iran.
“That’s been impossible until now,” said one American official, “but it could become possible.”
Mr. Obama raised a far more extreme possible sanction during his presidential campaign, though he has not discussed it publicly since his inauguration: Threatening to cut off the supply of refined petroleum products like gasoline to Iran. Of course, that would inevitably lead to Iranian cutoffs of crude oil exports, the country’s most effective conventional weapon.
But Israeli officials express skepticism that any combination of new diplomatic openness and gradually escalating pressure will work. Their assessment is that Iran wants the bomb, full stop. Privately they raise doubts over whether Mr. Obama has really defined in his own mind what it is that constitutes, as he said on Monday, “moving in the right direction.”
A senior Israeli who talked with journalists after the two leaders met said that to his mind, the only benchmark that really matters this year is a halt in Iran’s enrichment of uranium. Otherwise, he said, Iran just gets closer to a bomb capability every day that talks drag on.
US President Barack Obama (R) speaks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on May 18, 2009. Obama renewed his call for a Palestinian state and said Israeli settlement building in the West Bank must be "stopped."
The latest on President Obama, the new administration and other news from Washington and around the nation.
But even after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s first visit to the White House on Monday, where he and Mr. Obama stressed common goals and played down their differences on strategy, it seemed clear that they still do not agree even on the basic question of how much time remains to stop Iran from gaining a nuclear weapons capability.
So now begins Mr. Obama’s diplomatic sprint. His declaration Monday that “we’re not going to have talks forever” was a warning to the Iranians that his fundamentally different approach — serious American engagement with Tehran for the first time in three decades — must bear fruit before Iran clears the last technological hurdles to building a weapon. It is a strategy that some administration officials describe as “negotiations with pressure” — a combination of direct negotiations, reassurances that Washington is no longer seeking regime change in Iran, and an effort to persuade the ruling mullahs that the alternative to serious concessions will be painful: international sanctions that are far harsher and more tightly enforced than the weak mix of actions imposed so far by the United Nations Security Council.
“There’s a three-way race going on here,” one of Mr. Obama’s strategists said the other day. “We’re racing to make diplomatic progress. The Iranians are racing to make their nuclear capability a fait accompli. And the Israelis, of course, are racing to come up with a convincing military alternative that could plausibly set back the Iranian program.”
Neither Mr. Obama nor Mr. Netanyahu made any reference on Monday to Israel’s regular allusions to those alternatives. This was, after all, a first meeting.
Their most obvious public differences were not over Iran at all. Instead, they centered on Mr. Obama’s insistence that Mr. Netanyahu should order an halt to new Jewish settlements in the West Bank before there can be any hope of serious negotiations with the Palestinians. True to form, Mr. Netanyahu said he was ready to restart the peace process but refused to say whether he viewed the creation of a Palestinian state as the ultimate goal. Mr. Obama pushed back — gently — saying that “all the parties involved have to take seriously obligations they have previously agreed to.” That seemed like enough of a public split for a first meeting.
On Iran, the divisions are not as public. But they start with the fundamental issue of how much time remains to stop the Iranian program. “We’re looking at the same evidence,” Brigadier General Michael Herzog, the chief of staff to Israel’s minister of defense, said during a visit to Washington earlier this month. “We interpret it differently.”
The American interpretation is that Iran could reach the capability to build a bomb any time between 2010 and 2015 — a window that cracks open right after Mr. Obama’s rough deadline to show that negotiations are working. But in their public comments, senior American intelligence officials say they think Iran would not have a serious nuclear capability until the end of that range. “We have some time,” Secretary of Defense Robert Gates insisted earlier this year.
Mr. Herzog offered a grimmer assessment. “Under a certain scenario,” he said, if the Iranians decide to speed ahead, “they can have a first device by the end of 2010, perhaps the beginning of 2011, and that’s not very far away.”
Presumably, that was why Mr. Obama went out of his way, with Mr. Netanyahu sitting next to him, to warn the Iranians that “we’re not going to create a situation in which talks become an excuse for inaction while Iran proceeds with developing a nuclear — and deploying — a nuclear weapon.”
Mr. Obama’s strategy is based on a giant gamble: That after the Iranian elections on June 12, the way will be clear to convince the Iranians that it is in their long-term interest to strike a deal, trading their ability to produce their own nuclear fuel for a range of tempting rewards. For months, White House and State Department strategists have been debating just which incentives to offer the Iranians up front, and in what order. But they start with the prospect of opening the spigots of investment in Iran’s decrepit oil infrastructure, and even recognizing — and aiding — a civilian nuclear capability for Iran, as long as the country kept its hands off the nuclear fuel.
Behind the scenes, there has been work on the other side of the ledger: How to escalate pressure if the Iranians drag their feet. Some tactics involve corner shots, like persuading the Chinese to stop blocking the imposition of some sanctions against Iran. And if, by year’s end, the Iranians still refuse serious negotiations, Mr. Obama’s aides have debated more extreme sanctions. One involves cutting off credit guarantees to European companies that do business with Iran.
“That’s been impossible until now,” said one American official, “but it could become possible.”
Mr. Obama raised a far more extreme possible sanction during his presidential campaign, though he has not discussed it publicly since his inauguration: Threatening to cut off the supply of refined petroleum products like gasoline to Iran. Of course, that would inevitably lead to Iranian cutoffs of crude oil exports, the country’s most effective conventional weapon.
But Israeli officials express skepticism that any combination of new diplomatic openness and gradually escalating pressure will work. Their assessment is that Iran wants the bomb, full stop. Privately they raise doubts over whether Mr. Obama has really defined in his own mind what it is that constitutes, as he said on Monday, “moving in the right direction.”
A senior Israeli who talked with journalists after the two leaders met said that to his mind, the only benchmark that really matters this year is a halt in Iran’s enrichment of uranium. Otherwise, he said, Iran just gets closer to a bomb capability every day that talks drag on.
No comments:
Post a Comment