Ma’ariv, Amnon Lord Israel’s task now is to ensure that the interim agreement develops down the line into a comprehensive agreement that will stop Iran from becoming a regional, and perhaps global power with nuclear ability. There is an Iran with nuclear ability, including the ability to rush to acquire an enriched uranium bomb—along the lines of the Hiroshima bomb. And then there is an Iran that is a true nuclear power, one that has nuclear warheads with plutonium bombs that can be fitted on missiles. The difference between the two Irans is also the gap between Israel and the US. The Americans can live in peace and sleep soundly with an Iran that has the ability to break out to some sort of large, heavy primitive nuclear facility. They worry—if President Obama worries about anything in this world—about an Iran that is a military nuclear power, and that is what they want to prevent by means of the comprehensive agreement. Israel also considers an Iran that is a nuclear threshold state to be an existential threat. The way to fight to turn the current agreement that freezes the situation into a comprehensive agreement that prevents further deterioration in the region, is to act on three fronts. The first, is to restore the military option. Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin said in an interview to the New Republic a month ago that Israel has the independent ability to destroy the Iranian nuclear project. He said that the next few months were critical. It could be that the current agreement puts off the need to plan for a strike in early 2014. In any case, Israel’s military credibility will increase if it cooperates on the matter with Saudi Arabia, and if the US maintains its heightened military presence in the Persian Gulf. The second front is to employ our forces in Congress and in Europe to impose more sanctions, tougher than in the past. The Iranians have to know there is both a large sanctions stick—military and financial—as well as a sweet carrot that will open the door to a life of peace and economic development. The third front is domestic: in Israel there is a kind of second government that is much more than a shadow government. It has influential newspapers that serve Obama’s propaganda and discredit and delegitimize the Israeli government. There is a business-security lobby that is looking out for its business deals, which is why it prefers American interests over our national interests. We have to try and dismantle this American lobby by revealing it and denouncing it.
Posted on: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 09:49:02 +0000