Israel Matzav

Ehud Barak on whether Israel will attack Iran and whether Obama supports Israel

Sorry about the break - my Sabbath sleep schedule was disrupted this week, and I went to sleep for an hour and a half before Mrs. Carl and I went out to a friend's son's Bar Mitzva.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak is one of the guests on Sunday on Fareed Zakaria's Global Public Square. I don't have the whole thing yet, but I do have a couple of previews for you.

Let's go to the videotape.



Well, what did you expect him to say? (But note how he said "supporter of Israel's security" and not "supporter of Israel." Is he alluding to the oft stated mantra that security cooperation with the US has never been better than under Obama? Hmmm).

Here's the transcript of another question that Zakaria asked Barak:

Ehud Barak on whether Israel will attack Iran

Fareed Zakaria: I have to ask you the question on everyone’s mind: is Israel going to attack Iran?

Ehud Barak: I don’t think that that is a subject for public discussion. But I can tell you that the IAEA report has a sobering impact on many in the world, leaders as well as the publics, and people understand that the time has come. Amano told straightly what he found, unlike Baradei, and it became a major issue that I think duly so, becomes a major issue for sanctions, for intensive diplomacy, with urgency. People understand now that Iran is determined to reach nuclear weapons. No other possible or conceivable explanation for what they have been actually doing. And that should be stopped.

Actually, in Israel they're reporting that he said even more than that.

Iran is less than a year away from being unstoppable in its goal of producing a nuclear weapon, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in an interview with CNN released on Saturday.

In an advance transcript of an interview to air on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" program on Sunday, Barak said Israel was focused on the prospect of a nuclear Iran and what "should and could be done about it on time."

"It's true that it won't take three years, probably three quarters [of a year] before no one can do anything practically about it because the Iranians are gradually, deliberately entering into what I call a zone of immunity, by widening the redundancy of their plan, making it spread over many more sites with many more hidden elements," he said.

Barak also declined comment on last Saturday's explosion at an Iranian missile base.

Sounds like an interesting program.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Ehud Barak, Fareed Zakaria, Iranian nuclear threat

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:10 PM