nuclear-news

Talks between USA and Israel about bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities

U.S., Israel Discuss Triggers for Bombing Iran’s Nuclear Infrastructure, The Daily Beast, Eli Lake, Dec 28, 2011  The Obama administration is trying to assure Israel privately that it would strike Iran militarily if Tehran’s nuclear program crosses certain “red lines”—while attempting to dissuade the Israelis from acting unilaterally. Eli Lake reports

When Defense Secretary Leon Panetta opined earlier this month that an Israeli
attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities could “consume the Middle East in
a confrontation and a conflict that we would regret,” the Israelis
went ballistic behind the scenes. Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to
Washington, lodged a formal diplomatic protest known as a demarche.
And the White House was thrust into action, reassuring the Israelis
that the administration had its own “red lines” that would trigger
military action against Iran, and that there is no need for Jerusalem
to act unilaterally.
Panetta’s seemingly innocent remarks on Dec. 2 triggered the latest
drama in the tinder-box relationship that the Obama administration is
trying to navigate with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s
government. With Republicans lining up to court Jewish donors and
voters in America in 2012, Obama faces a tricky election-year task of
ensuring Iran doesn’t acquire a nuclear bomb on his watch while
keeping the Israelis from launching a preemptive strike that could
inflame an already teetering Middle East.

The stakes are immensely high, and the distrust that Israelis feel
toward the president remains a complicating factor. Those sentiments
were laid bare in a speech Netanyahu’s minister of strategic affairs,
Moshe Ya’alon, gave on Christmas Eve in Jerusalem, in which he used
Panetta’s remarks to cast doubt on the U.S.’s willingness to launch
its own military strike.

Ya’alon told the Anglo-Likud, an organization within Netanyahu’s Likud
party that caters to native English speakers, that the Western
strategy to stop Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons must include four
elements, with the last resort being a military strike……
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/28/u-s-israel-discuss-triggers-for-bombing-iran-s-nuclear-infrastructure.html

December 29, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, Israel, USA, weapons and war