From The International Herald Tribune: Netanyahu talks tough, but has little room to act BY JODI RUDOREN AND DAVID E. SANGER JERUSALEM — Alarmed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on the verge of ordering an airstrike on Iran’s nuclear plants last year, President Obama sent two emissaries to head him off, arguing that strict sanctions needed time to take hold and that the White House could not abide an attack before the November elections, according to Israelis and Americans familiar with the tense exchanges. During Mr. Obama’s own visit here in March, he made clear, again, that if Iran truly got close to building a bomb, the United States would act, quashing talk of an Israeli strike since. Now Mr. Netanyahu sounds like a man who regrets not acting when he had the chance. In his speech this week at the United Nations, followed by a media blitz and a series of private briefings, he has only grudgingly endorsed the negotiations between the West and Iran expected to start Oct. 15 in Geneva. While leaders in Washington and Europe increasingly seem to accept the idea of Iran maintaining some civilian nuclear activity, Mr. Netanyahu set out what most experts see as unrealistic conditions — a complete halt to uranium enrichment — and has repeatedly warned against relaxing sanctions until a deal is done. But while his United Nations address included the most explicit warning to date of a unilateral strike — ‘‘If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone’’ — Israeli and other analysts say Mr. Netanyahu’s hands are now all but tied. Israel could hardly exercise its military option while the United States is negotiating, they say, and would be hard-pressed to strike if Washington and its other allies manage to reach a deal with Iran. ‘‘He’s cornered — is he going to spoil the international celebration and say I think it’s not a good enough deal so I’m going to use the military option?’’ asked Michael Herzog, a retired Israeli general who now is a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies. ‘‘If there is a good deal, it’s a good deal for him as well. If there is no deal, he can go it alone, but if there is a bad deal, what can he do? He’s trapped. That’s his nightmare.’’ While Washington and Jerusalem have the same stated goal of stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, there is a growing chasm over what might be the acceptable terms for an agreement. Mr. Netanyahu’s new mantra is ‘‘distrust, dismantle and verify,’’ and in an interview with NBC News he insisted on ‘‘a full dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program,’’ something Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, has made clear is unacceptable. Officially, the U.S. position is also that Iran must dismantle critical elements of its existing programs, including its 18,000 centrifuges, which enrich uranium, and a new heavy-water reactor that is poised to open in the next year or two, and would give Iran another pathway to a bomb. But in his own public comments, Mr. Obama has not used the word ‘‘dismantle,’’ simply saying Iran has to prove its program is peaceful in nature, as Mr. Rouhani insists. That reluctance to declare publicly that Iran must destroy much of what it has built ‘‘really riled the Israelis on their trip,’’ according to one former senior American official who met with some of them. An official involved in designing the West’s negotiating strategy said: ‘‘The Israelis want to go back to where the Iranians were a decade ago. No one in the U.S. disagrees with that as a goal. The question is whether it’s achievable, and whether it’s better to have a small Iranian capacity that is closely watched, or to insist on eliminating their capacity altogether.’’ There is also a divergence on how far Iran is from developing a bomb. While American and Israeli intelligence agencies largely agree on their assessments, Mr. Netanyahu has chosen an aggressive interpretation of the evidence, that Iran is a few weeks or months from producing a weapon, while the White House maintains it remains a year or two away. Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence who now leads the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said those timetables would also be the main barometer for assessing any future agreement, because of the suspicion that Iran might later abandon it. If the agreement leaves enough of the nuclear facilities in place that ‘‘it’s a matter of a few months, then it’s a bad agreement,’’ Mr. Yadlin said. ‘‘If whatever they’re left with they need a few years for the bomb, this is a good agreement. ‘‘I would discuss it privately with the president of the United States, what is the acceptable deal and what is the unacceptable deal,’’ he added. ‘‘I think it’s more effective than an appearance on the U.N. stage that I don’t think is helping the negotiators or the policymakers to make their positions stronger.’’ The substance of Mr. Netanyahu’s presentation in New York, debunking Mr. Rouhani’s moderate rhetoric with quotations from his past, was widely praised in Israel. But many politicians and commentators here took issue with the prime minister’s tone, saying he made it seem as if Israel was standing alone, outside a growing international consensus that negotiations hold promise. ‘‘This speech should have been one of mobilization and not a speech of isolation,’’ said Shelly Yacimovich, the Labor Party leader who heads the opposition in Parliament. ‘‘This scare campaign does not benefit us.’’ Amram Mitzna, a lawmaker from the Hatnua Party, a centrist part of Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition, said the prime minister ‘‘missed the point by describing Israel as a country which sees the use of military power as most important,’’ adding: ‘‘We must not in any way place ourselves as the spearhead of the fight against Iran.’’ But a senior Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said European diplomats had privately encouraged Israeli leaders ‘‘to keep on speaking loudly about the possibility of the military option’’ even as they embark on negotiations. ‘‘Europeans are clearly understanding that we need to restate the military option in order for things to move,’’ the official said. ‘‘When Netanyahu says we will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, that’s exactly what he means. He does not say we will not allow Iran to have such and such a reactor and such and such enriched uranium.’’ Indeed, Mr. Netanyahu refrained from setting a clear red line, as he did last year at the United Nations. Iran has essentially rendered that line obsolete, converting some of its enriched uranium to a form its leaders say would be used to make medical isotopes, while installing thousands of faster centrifuges that sharply cut the time it would take to weaponize. This has clearly frustrated the Israelis, though Mr. Netanyahu is seeking to exploit it to underline the danger in Iran maintaining any nuclear facilities: he has included in his four conditions dismantling these advanced centrifuges at Natanz. Israeli officials and analysts said it is clear that these are ‘‘maximalist’’ conditions, part of what they described as a Middle East negotiating tactic of setting impossible parameters so concessions seem more significant later. But the conditions, and the extent of Mr. Netanyahu’s berating of Mr. Rouhani, buttressed the impression that he has dismissed the diplomatic track, and revived questions about his trust in Mr. Obama’s resolve. ‘‘One of the principles in diplomacy,’’ said Giora Eiland, a former Israeli national security adviser, is ‘‘never say no, always say, ‘Yes, but.’ ‘‘The way that he expressed himself was that he was against a dialogue, which means that he is against a political solution, which means that he believes only in a military solution,’’ said Mr. Eiland, now a fellow at Mr. Yadlin’s institute. ‘‘This is a mistake. It doesn’t serve any of the Israeli interest.’’ David E. Sanger reported from Washington. ◼ Get the best global news and analysis direct to your device – download the IHT apps for free today! For iPad: itunes.apple/us/app/international-herald-tribune/id404757420?mt=8 For iPhone: itunes.apple/us/app/international-herald-tribune/id404764212?mt=8
Posted on: Fri, 04 Oct 2013 00:09:58 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015