Comments by U.S. General David Petraeus and senior government officials underscored the Obama administration's message to Israel and Gulf allies -- that there is time to pressure Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program by imposing more economic sanctions without resorting to force.
Obama's top military advisers -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- have made public their growing doubts about military action, warning Israel that an attack could have unintended consequences and merely set back Iran's program temporarily.
During a visit to Israel last week, Vice President Joe Biden received assurances from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his country would give a new round of sanctions against Iran a chance.
But the two governments appeared at odds over how forcefully and how soon to act if that round, now under consideration, does not succeed in persuading Iran to back down, U.S. and Israeli officials said.
"We have a common assessment: the regime is vulnerable at the moment and sanctions have a chance of having an impact. But this can't be strung out for too long," an Israeli official said on condition of anonymity.
While stressing its sense of urgency about the threat, the Obama administration has made clear it will need to assess the impact of whatever new sanctions are put in place before moving to additional measures.
"There is far more that unites Washington and Jerusalem than divides Washington and Jerusalem on Iran," said Middle East expert David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "Both countries believe U.N.-backed sanctions need to be tried, hoping that tougher measures can be averted."
"Yet there are differences" over tactics and the right mix of sanctions to use, Makovsky said. In addition, "it seems the U.S. and Israel could have different clocks about how long sanctions are given a chance to work before more coercive measures are considered."
SHIFTING ESTIMATES
U.S. officials cite estimates that Iran, which denies it is seeking to build nuclear weapons, could have a nuclear weapon by the middle of this decade.
"Iran has to go through a lot of steps before it produces a 'no-kidding' nuclear weapon," said a U.S. official familiar with the intelligence.
Israel, which is believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, sees an Iranian warhead by 2014 and believes a prototype may only be "months away."
Asked at a Senate hearing when Iran would have a nuclear bomb, Petraeus said: "It has, thankfully, slid to the right a bit and it is not this calendar year, I don't think."
He did not elaborate.
Last month, the U.S. director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, said Iranian advancements in enriching uranium and other areas showed the government was "technically capable" of producing enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon in the "next few years, if it chooses to do so."
Blair cited information published by the International Atomic Energy Agency showing that the number of centrifuges installed at Iran's enrichment plant at Natanz had grown to more than 8,000 from about 3,000 in late 2007.
But he said Iran appeared to be "experiencing some problems" at Natanz and was operating only about half of the installed centrifuges, constraining its overall ability to produce larger quantities of low-enriched uranium.
Petraeus made clear on Tuesday that contingency planning was under way at the Pentagon should Obama decide on military action, noting that Obama had "explicitly stated that he has not taken the military option off the table."
But he and other officials said the administration's focus was on using sanctions to get Tehran to change its behavior.
Biden, in an interview with Reuters at the end of his Middle East tour, said the Obama administration's outreach to Iran, dismissed by some as naive, helped galvanize the international community to address the Iranian issue.
While nuclear development may have slowed by some estimates, Washington believes Iran continues to expand the scale, reach and sophistication of its ballistic missiles.
In response, Washington has expanded what Petraeus called a "regional security architecture" that includes a network of shared early-warning systems and ballistic missile defenses.
Some lawmakers point to signs that the Obama administration is moving to a containment strategy, rather than one aimed at denying Iran a nuclear weapon. Petraeus called that a "big policy hypothetical," describing U.S. policy as clear: "The president has said that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons."
No comments:
Post a Comment