Israel Matzav: US 'disappointed' by failure of IAEA - Iran talks but wide gaps remain between US and Israel

Sunday, June 10, 2012

US 'disappointed' by failure of IAEA - Iran talks but wide gaps remain between US and Israel

The United States is said to be 'disappointed' at the failure of talks between Iran and the IAEA on Friday. The talks were meant to 'unblock' a longstanding investigation into Iran's nuclear weapons program.

"We're disappointed," Robert Wood, the acting US envoy to the IAEA, told Reuters in an emailed comment.

"Yesterday's outcome highlights Iran's continued failure to abide by its commitment to the IAEA, and further underscores the need for it to work with the IAEA to address international community's real concerns," he said.

The IAEA had been pressing Tehran for an accord that would give its inspectors immediate access to the Parchin military complex, where it believes explosives tests relevant for the development of nuclear arms have taken place, and suspects Iran may now be cleaning the site of any incriminating evidence.

The United States, European powers and Israel want to curb Iranian atomic activities they fear are intended to produce nuclear bombs. The Islamic Republic says its nuclear program is meant purely to produce energy for civilian uses.

Both the IAEA and Iran - which insists it will work with the UN agency to prove allegations of a nuclear weapons agenda are "forged and fabricated" - said before Friday's meeting that significant headway had been made on the procedural document.

But differences persisted over how the IAEA should conduct its inquiry, in which UN inspectors want access to sites, documents and officials.

"The IAEA and Iran have on some points significantly diverging ideas of how a new agreement would look," said Mark Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

In Israel's view, the US is acting as if they have all the time in the world to reach an agreement with Iran. What the US - and specifically the Obama administration - seems to want to do most is to stall for time until after the US elections. That doesn't appear to be likely to succeed.

Against the backdrop of the dialogue between the P-5+1 and Iran in recent weeks, two major issues have emerged that display clear differences between Israel and the United States. First, Israel’s timetable vis-à-vis Iran differs vastly from America's. While Israel operates out of a sense that it has very little time left, the United States seems to be in no hurry because it has a much longer timeframe. Second, Israel is making very specific and concrete demands of Iran, much more far-reaching than those being made by the United States, at least for now.

It seems that in the current circumstances, the bottom line is that Israel will find it hard to respond favorably to the suggestion/demand by President Obama’s administration to place its trust in America’s resolve to prevent a nuclear Iran and not act on its own. It seems that only a presentation of a tough American stance in the talks with Iran, accompanied by concrete steps against it, may perhaps persuade the Netanyahu government to respond positively to the administration’s demands on the Iranian issue.

On the other hand, we have all seen Netanyahu talk big and back down.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Campaign 2012, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran