Netanyahu’s Washington visit adds to confusion on Iran
Israel’s prime minister leaves Washington with President Obama’s promise that the US ‘has Israel’s back’, but two Middle East experts say Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit has created even more confusion.
The Israelis have shown growing signs of impatience that diplomatic pressure has so far failed to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear programme, prompting speculation that they could mount air strikes.
Israel, believed to be the only nuclear weapons power in the Middle East, insists that military action against Iran would be justified to prevent it from reaching nuclear weapons capability, rather than when it actually builds a device.
But Barack Obama has appealed for more time to allow international sanctions to work against Tehran, while Mr Netanyahu has insisted that Israel must be the “master of its fate”.
Israel fears that Iranian nuclear facilities may soon be buried so deep that they could not be breached by its bunker-busting bombs, which are less powerful than those in the US arsenal.
Mr Obama, facing election-year pressure from Israel’s US supporters and Republican presidential contenders, sought to reassure Netanyahu that the United States was keeping its own military option open as a last resort and “has Israel’s back”.
But Washington has not embraced the idea of a pre-emptive attack. US officials argue that while Iran may be manoeuvring to keep its options open, there is no clear intelligence that the country has made a final decision to pursue a nuclear weapon.
You can’t expect a state to outsource its own security to an ally. Barak Seener, RUSI
Shashank Joshi, of Harvard University’s Department of Government, said the two nuclear powers remain far apart on the conditions that would prompt an attack on Iran: “Netanyahu came to Washington and came away disappointed. He wanted the red line that Iran could not cross in terms of nuclear weapon capability.”
Mr Joshi said that while Obama did offer an assurance that he would not allow Iran to develop a nuclear warhead, this falls short of Israeli demands.
“Each side has substantially different tolerances,” he said. “The upshot of this weekend is even more confusion.”
‘Master of its own state’
Barak Seener, associate fellow at the think tank RUSI, said the problem boils down to the level of trust between Israel and the US: “You can’t expect a state to outsource its own security to an ally.
“It is a good thing that the US has recognised that Israel is the master of its own state. On the other hand it is not helpful that it has not defined when prevention would take place and how it would look like.”
Mr Seener said even if sanctions work, Iran could have increased its nuclear activity while Israel and its allies for waited them to have an impact. “Then Israel would not have much opportunity to strike, while the US has the luxury of waiting, simply because it has greater military capacity.”
Mr Joshi said there are reports that Israel could strike as early as May, but he argues that it would be more likely that they would wait until after the summer.
“It would put more pressure on Obama and allow time for diplomacy to work,” he said. “It is unlikely that anything would happen until closer to the US elections.”
Any strikes against Iran without US backing would only be supported by 19 per cent of the Israeli public according to an opinion poll conducted by the University of Maryland. Some 34 per cent of the Israeli public would oppose any strike.
Onus on Iran
Mr Netanyahu’s comments come as the European Union’s foreign policy representative, Baroness Ashton, confirmed that the US along with the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China have decided to resume talks with Iran on the nuclear issue.
Foreign secretary, William Hague, said the onus is on Iran to take concrete actions to convince the international community that its nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful.
“We all agree that the international community should demonstrate its commitment to a diplomatic solution by acknowledging Iran’s agreement to meet, by testing its desire to talk and by offering it the opportunity to respond to our legitimate concerns about its nuclear intentions,” said Mr Hague.
“It is time for Iran to choose a different path and to show the world that it wants a peaceful, negotiated solution to the nuclear issue. It is for Iran to seize this opportunity and we urge it to do so.”