Israel Matzav

Barak on Israel's differences with the US on Iran

Laura Rozen has an interesting account of Defense Minister Ehud Barak's appearance at the Washington Institute on Near East Policy on Friday.

Noting the slew of recent high level U.S. officials visiting Israel – CIA director Leon Panetta, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, National Security Advisor Jim Jones and NSC Iran strategic Dennis Ross, Deputy Secretaries of State Jim Steinberg and Jack Lew just in the past month, as well as the upcoming visit of Vice President Joseph Biden – Satloff asked Barak about how well he thought the U.S. and Israel were coordinating on the Iran issue.

Barak listened to Satloff’s question and then said, "Let’s take a few more questions and I will answer them" in a bunch. And Satloff, the event host and moderator, laughed and said, "Well, answer that opening question and then I can call on members of the audience and take several questions" in a bunch. And Barak smiled, acknowledging the laughter, and then said, again, "Let’s take a few more questions." Until it became quite clear that Barak did not want to answer Satloff’s question about the state of U.S.-Israel relations on Iran, and this was not based on a cultural misunderstanding of the format procedure. Barak would not budge, and stood at the podium waiting for Satloff to take more questions.

So, checked, Satloff took questions from a few more members of the audience, including from the Institute’s David Makovsky, a co-author with the NSC’s Ross on a recent book on Mideast peace making, before Barak began to answer several questions.

Asked by a Middle Eastern correspondent, why Israel couldn’t live with a nuclear Iran, Barak said Israel welcomed U.S. leadership in seeking international sanctions on Iran. But he added, that with all the instability the U.S. is currently managing including a nuclear Pakistan and North Korea, Afghanistan, draw down in Iraq, etc., as well as an overloaded domestic agenda, it was his impression that Washington believes that while it’s highly undesirable, at the end of the day the U.S. could live with a nuclear Iran. While for Israel, Barak said, it would be a “tipping point” in the strategic equation in the region. It would lead to Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other countries seeking nuclear weapons, Barak said, the effective end of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty, and the threat that a nuclear terrorist attack from an unclear address would be more likely.

Read the whole thing. I believe that Barack Obama will eventually receive a 2:00 am phone call telling him that Israel has just attacked Iran.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:51 PM