Israel Matzav

Netanyahu and Barak stonewalled Panetta

A week ago, I reported based on 'US sources' that in October, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta sought a commitment from Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak, that they would not act on Iran without coordination with the United States. That commitment was not given.

This past week, Panetta was in Israel again seeking the same commitment. In fact, he was even willing to take a commitment that said that Israel and would give the US advance warning before attacking Iran. It was a commitment that Netanyahu and Barak refused to give (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).

Officially, his brief was restricted to the Middle East peace process, but the most important part of his mission was a private meeting with Mr Netanyahu and the defence minister, Ehud Barak. Once all but a handful of trusted staff had left the room, Mr Panetta conveyed an urgent message from Barack Obama. The president, Mr Panetta said, wanted an unshakable guarantee that Israel would not carry out a unilateral military strike against Iran's nuclear installations without first seeking Washington's clearance.

The two Israelis were notably evasive in their response, according to sources both in Israel and the United States.

"They did not suggest that military action was being planned or was imminent, but neither did they give any assurances that Israel would first seek Washington's permission, or even inform the White House in advance that a mission was underway," one said.

Alarmed by Mr Netanyahu's noncommittal response, Mr Obama reportedly ordered the US intelligence services to step up monitoring of Israel to glean clues of its intentions.

What those intentions might be remains distinctly murky. Over the past fortnight, Israel's press has given every impression that the country is on a war footing, with numerous claims that Mr Netanyahu and Mr Barak are lobbying the cabinet to support the military option.

Two weeks ago Israel tested a long-range ballistic missile capable of reaching Iran, its first since 2008. Shortly before, the Israeli airforce took part in Nato exercises in Sardinia that involved air-to-air refuelling, a key component of an aerial strike on Iran. A separate exercise in and around Tel Aviv tested civilian readiness in the event of a missile strike against the city. In a sign of the febrility of the public mood, many beach-goers apparently mistook the air raid sirens for a genuine Iranian attack and fled in panic for their cars. There were similar jitters in Iran yesterday, when a huge but apparently accidental explosion at arms dump outside Tehran killed at least 27 soldiers and shook the city.

Speculation about an imminent Israeli military action has been a regular occurrence over the years, but rarely as fevered as now. Last week, a British official even suggested that an attack could come before Christmas.

Few in Israel believe that is likely and the difficulty of mounting an operation over winter, when cloud cover hampers aircraft targeting systems, means that if military action is being considered it will not come before the spring or summer of next year.

This is something that Obama has brought on himself.

Many observers also believe that the bellicose rhetoric voiced by a number of senior Israeli figures in recent days is largely bluff, designed to goad the international community into imposing sanctions of such severity that Iran would be forced into economic ruin if it persisted with its nuclear ambitions. Israel says that if Iran's central bank were sanctioned and a ban on Iranian oil exports enforced by an international naval blockade, military action would not be necessary.

Mr Barak has already publicly stated that he does not believe the West can overcome Russian and Chinese opposition to the sanctions Israel wants, leaving military action increasingly as the only alternative.

Ehud Barak is right about this. The only way to have a chance to stop Iran short of war is to sanction its oil supplies and its central bank. Thus far, the 'international community' is unwilling to take that action. Israel cannot afford to wait forever. As the article goes on to state, once Iran has its nuclear development deep underground in Qom, a strike becomes impossible.

Read the whole thing. But there's more.

YNet reported on Sunday that blogger Richard Silverstein is accusing the Mossad of being behind Saturday's explosion in Iran in coordination with an Iranian opposition group. That may well be correct. But if it is, the West should not cry about it: The death of the head of Iran's missile operations, Hassan Moghadam will delay Iran's ability to move its operations underground and will therefore delay the necessity for an Israeli attack.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, Hassan Moghadam, Iranian nuclear threat, Leon Panetta

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:29 PM