Perilous
Times
Israel delivers ultimatum to Obama on Iran's nuclear plans
At Monday's meeting between Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama
the Israeli prime minister will deliver a stark warning, reports
Adrian Blomfield in Jerusalem
Last year Iran test-fired surface-to-surface missiles capable of
reaching Israel
By Adrian Blomfield, in Jerusalem
8:31PM GMT 03 Mar 2012
The Telegraph UK
Their relationship, almost from the outset, has been frostier than
not, a mutual antipathy palpable in many of their previous
encounters.
Two years ago, Barack Obama reportedly left Benjamin Netanyahu to
kick his heels in a White House anteroom, a snub delivered to show
the president's irritation over Israel's settlement policy in the
West Bank. In May, the Israeli prime minister struck back,
publicly scolding his purse-lipped host for the borders he
proposed of a future Palestinian state.
When the two men meet in Washington on Monday, Mr Obama will find
his guest once more at his most combative. But this time, perhaps
as never before, it is the Israeli who has the upper hand.
Exuding confidence, Mr Netanyahu effectively brings with him an
ultimatum, demanding that unless the president makes a firm pledge
to use US military force to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb,
Israel may well take matters into its own hands within months.
The threat is not an idle one. According to sources close to the
Israeli security establishment, military planners have concluded
that never before has the timing for a unilateral military strike
against Iran's nuclear facilities been so auspicious.
It is an assessment based on the unforeseen consequences of the
Arab Spring, particularly in Syria, which has had the result of
significantly weakening Iran's clout in the region.
Israel has always known that there would be an enormous cost in
launching an attack on Iran, with the Islamist state able to
retaliate through its proxy militant groups Hamas and Hizbollah,
based in Gaza and Lebanon respectively, and its ally Syria.
Each is capable of launching massive rocket strikes at Israel's
cities, a price that some senior intelligence and military
officials said was too much to bear.
But with Syria preoccupied by a near civil war and Hamas in recent
weeks choosing to leave Iran's orbit and realign itself with
Egypt, Iran's options suddenly look considerably more limited,
boosting the case for war.
"Iran's deterrent has been significantly defanged," a source close
to Israel's defence chiefs said. "As a result some of those
opposed to military action have changed their minds. They sense a
golden opportunity to strike Iran at a significantly reduced
cost." Not that there would be no cost at all. With the rise of
the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas has chosen to throw its lot
in with its closest ideological ally and forsake Iran and its
funding, but it could still be forced to make a token show of
force if smaller groups in Gaza that are still backed by Tehran
unleash their own rockets.
Likewise, Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, could seek to
reunite his fractured country with military action against Israel.
Iran would almost certainly launch its long-range ballistic
missiles at Israel, while Hizbollah, with an estimated arsenal of
50,000 rockets, would see an opportunity to repair its image in
the Middle East, battered as a result of its decision to side with
Mr Assad.
Even so, it is not the "doomsday scenario" that some feared, and a
growing number in the security establishment are willing to take
on the risk if it means preventing the rise of a nuclear power
that has spoken repeatedly of Israel's destruction.
"It won't be easy," said a former senior official in Israel's
defence ministry. "Rockets will be fired at cities, including Tel
Aviv, but at the same time the doomsday scenario that some have
talked of is unlikely to happen. I don't think we will have all
out war." In itself, the loss of two of Iran's deterrent assets
would probably not be enough to prompt Israel to launch unilateral
military action.
The real urgency comes from the fact that Israeli intelligence has
concluded that it has only between six and nine months before
Iran's nuclear facilities are immune from a unilateral military
strike.
After that, Iran enters what officials here call a "zone of
immunity", the point at which Israel would no longer be able, by
itself, to prevent Tehran from becoming a nuclear power.
By then, Israel assesses, Iran will have acquired sufficient
technological expertise to build a nuclear weapon. More
importantly, it will be able to do so at its Fordow enrichment
plant, buried so deep within a mountain that it is almost
certainly beyond the range of Israel's US-provided GBU-28 and
GBU-27 "bunker busting" bombs.
It is with this deadline in mind that Mr Netanyahu comes to
Washington. Mr Obama's administration has little doubt that their
visitor's intent is serious. Leon Panetta, the US defence
secretary, stated last month that there was a "strong likelihood"
of Israel launching an attack between April and June this year.
Senior US officials have, unusually, warned in public that such a
step would be unwise and premature, a sentiment echoed by William
Hague, the Foreign Secretary.
Mr Obama is determined that beefed up US and EU sanctions
targeting Iran's central bank and energy sector be given the
chance to work and is desperate to dissuade Israel from upsetting
his strategy.
But to give sanctions a chance, Mr Netanyahu would effectively
have to give up Israel's ability to strike Iran and leave the
country's fate in the hands of the United States – which is why he
is demanding a clear sign of commitment from the American
president.
"This is the dilemma facing Israel," the former senior military
officer said. "If Iran enters a zone of immunity from Israeli
attack can Israel rely on the United States to prevent Iran going
nuclear?"
Mr Netanyahu's chief demand will be that Washington recognises
Israel's "red lines". This would involve the Barack administration
shifting from a position of threatening military action if Iran
acquired a nuclear weapon to one of warning of the use of force if
Tehran acquired the capability of being able to build one.
Mr Obama will be reluctant to make such a commitment in public,
though he might do so in private by pledging action if Iran were
to expel UN weapons inspectors or begin enriching uranium towards
the levels needed to build a bomb, according to Matthew Kroenig, a
special adviser to the Pentagon on Iran until last year.
"Israel is facing the situation of either taking military action
now or trusting the US to take action down the road," Mr Kroenig,
an advocate of US military strikes against Iran, said. "What
Netanyahu wants to get out of the meeting are clear assurances
that the US will take military action if necessary." The American
president may regard Mr Netanyahu as an ally who has done more to
undermine his Middle East policy of trying to project soft power
in the Arab world than may of his foes in the region.
But, on this occasion at least, he will have to suppress his
irritation.
Mr Netanyahu is well aware that his host is vulnerable to charges
from both Congress and his Republican challengers for the
presidency that he is weak on Iran, and will seek to exploit this
as much as possible.
Tellingly, Palestinian issues, the principal source of contention
between the two, will be sidelined and Mr Obama has already been
forced to step up his rhetoric on Iran beyond a degree with which
he is probably comfortable.
Last week, in a notable hardening of tone, he declared his
seriousness about using military force to prevent Iran acquiring a
nuclear weapon, saying: "I do not bluff." Yet whatever commitments
he might give to Mr Netanyahu it is far from clear that it will be
enough to dissuade Israel from taking unilateral action.
Among the Israeli public, there is a sense of growing sense that a
confrontation with Iran is inevitable. Overheard conversations in
bars and restaurants frequently turn to the subject, with a
growing popular paranoia fed by the escalation in bomb shelter
construction, air raid siren testing and exercises simulating
civilian preparedness for rocket strikes.
Last week, Israeli newspapers fretted that the government was
running short of gas masks, even though more than four million
have already been doled out.
But while the growing drumbeat of war is unmistakable, it is
unclear whether or not Mr Netanyahu, for all his bellicose
rhetoric, has yet fully committed himself to the cause.
Ostensibly, a decision for war has to be approved by Mr
Netanyahu's inner cabinet. But everyone in Israel agrees that the
decision ultimately rests with Ehud Barak, the defence minister
who is unabashedly in favour of military action, and, most
importantly, the prime minister.
"Netanyahu is a much more ambiguous and complex character," said
Jonathan Spyer, a prominent Israeli political analyst. "We know
where Barak stands but with Netanyahu it is less clear.
"Netanyahu is not a man who likes military adventures. His two
terms as prime minister have been among the quietest in recent
Israeli history. Behind the Churchillian character he likes to
project is a very much more cautious and vacillating figure."
Were Mr Netanyahu to overcome his indecisiveness, as many
observers suspect he will, real questions remain about how
effective an Israeli unilateral strike would be.
With its US-supplied bunker busters, Israel's fleet of F-15i and
F-16i fighter jets, and its recently improved in-air refuelling
capabilities, Israel could probably cause significant damage to
the bulk of Iran's nuclear facilities, including the Natanz
enrichment plant.
But the second enrichment plant at Fordow, buried beneath more
than 200 feet of reinforced concrete, could prove a challenge too
far.
"Natanz yes, but I don't think they could take out Fordow," said
Mark Fitzpatrick, an Iran expert at the International Institute of
Strategic Studies in London. "They could take out the entrance
ramps but not the facility itself."
With its Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker busters, each weighing
almost 14 tonnes, the United States stands a much better chance of
striking Fordow successfully, thus disrupting Iran's nuclear
programme for far longer than the one to three years delay an
Israeli attack is estimated to cause.
But whether Israeli is prepared to leave its fate in American
hands is another matter.
"Israelis are psychologically such that they prefer to rely on
themselves and not on others, given their history," the Israeli
former senior defence ministry official said. "We feel we have
relied on others in the past, and they have failed us."