Israel Matzav

Israel giving Iran sanctions until summer of 2011

While Israel believes that the sanctions against Iran are crippling the Iranian economy, but not stopping its nuclear plan, in light of the revelations of the Stuxnet worm's effectiveness in shutting down Iran's nuclear facilities, Israel has reportedly decided to give the sanctions until the summer of 2011.

“The Iranians are moving more slowly than they want to – but they are still moving,” said Yossi Kuperwasser, deputy director general of Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry. “Everybody understands that you have to give some time for the sanctions to bear their full fruit.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak – the two key decision makers in the possibility that Israel would strike Iran – have both stressed the seriousness of the threat in recent weeks, and the importance of a credible American military threat.

“We have yet to see any signs that the tyrants of Tehran are reconsidering their pursuit of nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said during a speech in New Orleans earlier this month, offering tepid praise for sanctions and calling for “a credible threat of military action.”

“If the international community, led by the United States, hopes to stop Iran’s nuclear program without resorting to military action, it will have to convince Iran that it is prepared to take such action,” he said.

...

But while Israeli leaders continue to publicly stress the immediacy, and urgency, of the Iranian threat, other Israeli officials said more specifically that they are waiting, if without a great deal of optimism, until the summer to see whether sanctions and diplomacy move the Iranian program.

“We think that people are underestimating the effect of the sanctions,” said an aide to a hawkish Israeli minister. “There are indications that the regime is quite beside itself about them and on the defensive more and more.”

“In mid-2011, you will see a debate about whether the sanctions are working,” said one former senior Israeli military official, who noted with some satisfaction that the Iranians had suffered “technical disappointments.”

Hmmm.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: Barack Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear program, Yossi Kuperwasser

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:53 AM