Israel Matzav: Ayalon: 'Iran atom compromise worse than no deal'

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

Ayalon: 'Iran atom compromise worse than no deal'

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon has told Reuters that a compromise that allows Iran to enrich uranium would be worse than no deal.

"The fact we hear some rumours about compromise, about meeting them halfway here and there, I think is very, very dangerous," Ayalon told Reuters in a small conference room in Israel's parliament that, to double as a wartime shelter, had been fitted with an industrial air filter and blast-proof walls.

Allowing Iran to keep enriching and stockpiling uranium could enable Tehran to opt for a bomb "in very short order", he said, adding that those projects were already "accelerating".

Israel's Iran timelines have often been more urgent than those of its Western allies. But with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now saying the Iranians are just months away from fortifying their nuclear sites against air strikes, fears of an imminent new Middle East conflict have surged abroad.

Netanyahu's alliance with centrist opposition leader Shaul Mofaz on Tuesday appeared to buttress Israel further for war. Yet Iran strategy did not feature in the two leaders' coalition negotiations, a senior official told Reuters, adding that Israel potentially had until 2013 to decide how to tackle its arch-foe.

In Israel a day after Netanyahu dropped his political bombshell, Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign affairs chief and senior liaison for the six world powers in talks with Tehran, briefed the prime minister about the nuclear negotiations.

...

Ayalon, a former ambassador to Washington who belongs to Lieberman's ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party in Netanyahu's government, declined to be drawn on whether Israel might defy the misgivings of the United States and other powers by attacking Iran unilaterally.

"I don't want to lock ourselves to anything," he said, adding: "Certainly we are not a part to any of these agreements (between world powers and Iran) and I think we have all the rights to be concerned based on the threats coming from Tehran."

Iran "can be stopped" if subjected to more aggressive diplomacy, including sanctions on its oil and banks, Ayalon said.

"Of course there is a bad taste in that they dictate(d) the venue," he said, referring to discussion over Baghdad hosting this month's talks after the first, April 14 round in Istanbul. "That's not something we should all be proud of. We don't think Iran is in a position to negotiate at all."

He cited U.S. findings that the Iranians lost $60 billion since July due to tightening sanctions, and noted their decision to back down after a bout of naval brinkmanship with the U.S. Navy in the strategic Strait of Hormuz in December and January.

"If its oil exports are reduced by only 40 percent ... then their economy is ground to a halt and things will evolve very radically from there," Ayalon said.

"There is a lot of spin and a lot of psychological warfare, but Iran is a very vulnerable country ... We do know that the ayatollahs, as fanatic and dangerous as they are, are not irrational when it comes to their own political survival."

Netanyahu did not need a 94-seat government to attack Iran - he could have done it with his existing government. On the other hand, before the 1967 War, there was a national unity government, and in 1973, Menachem Begin agreed not to criticize Golda Meir's handling of the Yom Kippur War while it was going on.

Hmmm.

Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Danny Ayalon, Iranian nuclear threat