nuclear-news

How America Can Slow Israel’s March to War,

NYT, 17 Aug 12 By DENNIS B. ROSS Washington OBAMA administration officials have made it clear that they believe
there is still time and space for diplomatic efforts to succeed in stopping Iran  from achieving a nuclear weapons  capability. But Israel ’s deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon , has said it is time to declare that “diplomacy has failed.”……
Although the United States and Israel share the same objective of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capability, the two differ on the point at which it may become necessary to act militarily
to forestall the Iranian nuclear advance. I say “forestall” because
neither America nor Israel can fully destroy the Iranian capability to
build a nuclear weapon. Each country could set Iran back militarily,
but neither could destroy Iran’s skill or technical and engineering
capacity to develop nuclear weapons. Since 2007, when Iran mastered
the full nuclear fuel cycle and the means to enrich uranium on its
own, it has been too late for that.

Their differences on the possible timing of military action are a
function of both capabilities and perspective. The United States has
significantly greater military might than Israel and therefore feels
that it can wait substantially longer than Israel before resorting to
force……..
The key questions for policy makers in Washington today are whether
there is a way to extend the clock from an Israeli standpoint and
whether it is possible to synchronize the American and Israeli clocks
so that we really can exhaust diplomacy and sanctions before resorting
to force. Four actions by the United States could make this
possible……..http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/opinion/

August 18, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general