Posted on 02/20/2012 4:07:13 PM PST by SJackson
The March 5 meeting in Washington between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be the final attempt on the part of the US to bring Israel around to its position on the global efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
President Obama’s National Security Adviser Tom Donilon concluded three days of talks with the Prime Minister and other Israeli leaders in Jerusalem Monday, in the midst of a brewing Israeli push for a military end to Iran’s nuclear plans. Donilon conducted a caustic, 2 hour conversation with Netanyahu Sunday, in which the two disagreed radically on the ways to deal with Iran’s progress in enriching uranium and the relocation of its nuclear production to underground sites.
Monday’s statement from the White House said that Donilon and the U.S. delegation discussed “the full range” of mutual security concerns, and that the visit was “part of the continuous and intensive dialogue between the United States and Israel and reflects our unshakable commitment to Israel’s security.”
Donilon was only the latest American official to meet with Netanyahu and with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, after the chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff Gen. Martin Dempsey January visit to Israel. Dempsey said on CNN Sunday that an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities would be “destabilizing,” and that such a move wouldn’t be “prudent at this point.”
According to sources in Israel, Netanyahu bitterly reproached the Obama administration for essentially assuring Iran that it could continue to enrich uranium, as long as it promised not to build a nuclear weapon. In Netanyahu’s view, this was a substantial deviation from the US administration’s previous assurances to Israel, as Tehran is now free to upgrade its uranium enrichment level to weapons grade. Israel will not tolerate this change, stated the enraged Netanyahu, suggesting he will seriously consider the military option.
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius wrote this month that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta “believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June before Iran enters what Israelis described as a ‘zone of immunity’ to commence building a nuclear bomb.”
But the US is apparently convinced that this option will simply not work. In his interview on CNN, Gen. Dempsey said Israel only has the capability to strike Iran and delay the Iranians “probably for a couple of years. But some of the targets are probably beyond their reach.”
(According to the Iranian Mehr news agency, air defense maneuvers began in southern Iran on Monday. The maneuvers are meant to “enhance the country’s integrated network of air defense with a focus on modern defensive tactics,” and “to increase the country’s preparedness in the face of military threats, particularly possible attacks on densely populated areas, sensitive and vulnerable centers, and nuclear facilities.”)
A high-ranking delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived in Tehran early Monday morning. The delegation, headed by Herman Nackaerts, the IAEA deputy director general and the head of the IAEA Department of Safeguards, has come to Tehran to “help resolve disputes over Iran’s nuclear activities.”
The talks in Tehran follow an announcement Sunday by Iran’s oil ministry that it was halting crude exports to French and British companies, an order following a threat that Iran would cut oil exports to some European Union countries in retaliation for sanctions put in place last month by the EU and the United States.
“Iran has no difficulty in selling and exporting its crude oil. … We have our own customers and have designated alternatives for our oil sales. We shall sell to new customers, who will replace French and UK companies,” ministry spokesman Ali Reza Nikzad-Rahbar said in a statement.
But Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said Monday he expected relations with Europe to improve. The two sides need each other, he said, adding, “I believe that relations will return to their earlier state.”
General Nikolai Makarov, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia and First Deputy Minister of Defense, said last week that “Iran is a sore spot, I think a decision will be made by the summer.”
Russia is adamantly opposed to any military action against Iran, although it supported UN Security Council sanctions against Tehran.
According to Gideon Rachman at the Financial Times, Israel is not the only factor. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are also “obsessed with the need to prevent Iran getting nuclear weapons.” Also, Barack Obama may still be very keen to avoid conflict, but in a presidential election year, it is harder for him to rein in Israel. Rachman suggests Britain and France – the two most important European military powers – are also seriously contemplating the prospect of conflict with Iran. Indeed, in marked contrast to the run-up to the Iraq war, the British and the French seem to be more bellicose than the Americans.
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Someone has to stick up for Iran, other than China or Russia. Why not Obama.
Obama pledging support IF Israel waits until Aug/Sept/Oct .
My prayers and my resolve belong to Israel.
I hope Bibi stands him up.
re: “My prayers and my resolve belong to Israel.”
Absolutely with you on this. Iran should have been taken out years ago. We should be helping Israel in every way possible to stop the nuclear threat from Iran.
Hang tough, Bibi! Don’t listen to this liar-in-chief.
I wouldn’t listen to anything Obama has to say on the matter.
Aside from the strong possibility that he is really Muslim, he’s just simply unreliable.
If I was to counsel The Israel Prime Minister, it would be to scratch my face at Obama with the 3rd finger most prominently in view for the world to see!
This is no time for amteurs or politicians mouthing platitudes. A serious, knowledgeable and very smart leader is crucial, which is why Colonel Oliver North has endorsed him, along with Dr. Thomas Sowell.
For Iran it is a matter of kill and destroy.
For Israel it is a matter of self-preservation
Obama, as usual, is focusing on the wrong faction.
I assume Obama will make a grand show of treating Netanyahu with respect in order to firm up the Jewish vote for November. Like everything else, Iran is secondary to that.
He is no friend of Israel. Bibi knows this more than anyone. He will proceed with their plan no matter what the fraud in the WH says.
Bibi was already scheduled to be in DC for the AIPAC policy Conference. Almost all the Congressman and Women and Senators are set to speak to AIPAC. I don’t see Obama scheduled yet. I thought that was good he might get Boo-ed by the 12,000 attendees.
The German Jewish leaders in the early 1930’s failed to understand that Hitler’s rants were not just rhetoric. Bibi will not make the same mistake with the Iranians. Nor will he leave this burden to his successor. His term may end in early 2013. Whether Obama likes it or not, the Israelis will soon take definitive action.
As for “targets beyond reach”, Israel should deploy conventional bombs with spent plutonium casings. Even if the rats have gone underground they will have to stay there for the next several hundred years, due to poisonous plutonium dust in the environment.
You can bet it all that if Israel strikes, it will be a clean, surgical, effective operation that has few civilian deaths involved.
FU Obama.
Ever heard of neutrons?
I've never seen anything to support that. Probably because they weren't rhetoric, they were policy. Loss of citizenship, employment, pension, assets, all that. That's why about 70% of German Jews fled. But most couldn't get much further than other European nations soon to be overrun. And I think you're correct, Bibi will act if he thinks it's feasable. You don't leave life or death problems for your successors. Frankly, shame on Obama for leaving financial life or death to his successor, but that's another issue. I doubt Obama will be a major factor in Israel's decision. We've already bought Iran time, and I doubt Israel trusts us on this issue.
Notice the placement of Barry’s foot in relation to Bibi.
Showing the bottom of your shoe is an act of disrespect in the Arab culture.
Barry is telegraphing this message to his Muslim friends.
Arab culture: the insult of the shoe
Showing the sole of your shoe has long been an insult in Arab culture.
By Caroline Gammell
4:23PM GMT 15 Dec 2008
Showing the sole of your shoe has long been an insult in Arab culture To hit someone with that shoe – as Muntadar al-Zeidi (pictured) tried with President George W Bush – is seen as even worse.
The shoe is considered dirty because it is on the ground and associated with the foot, the lowest part of the body. Hitting someone with a shoe shows that the victim is regarded as even lower. When Saddam Hussein’s statue was toppled in Baghdad in April 2003, Iraqis swarmed around it, striking it with their shoes.
Shoes are often used to attack the American flag and to lash out at photographs of Mr Bush by those protesting against American foreign policy.
As an insult to President George Bush Snr after the first Gulf war, a mosaic of his face was laid on the floor of the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad. Anyone who entered the lobby would have to walk over his face to get into the hotel.
The mosaic was subsequently destroyed by American soldiers in 2003 and replaced with an image of Saddam Hussein.
The shoe is such an offensive symbol that it is seen as culturally rude to cross an ankle over a knee and display the sole of the shoe while talking to another person.
The shoe is also considered unclean in the Muslim faith and believers must remove them before prayers.
Wearing shoes in mosques is forbidden.
Compounding the shoe insult was Mr Zeidi’s likening of the US president to a dog. While the comparison is perhaps not polite in any culture, among Arabs, who traditionally consider dogs unclean, the words were an even even more stinging.
But I soooo dream of sand to glass...
It will not work.
Israel cannot afford to let Iran go nuclear. However, Iran IS going nuclear.
Once Iran has a nuclear bomb, it will use it against Israel. Israel cannot absorb a nuclear first strike, so it must stop Iran by force.
When Israel strikes Iran, all of the countries that surround Israel will strike Israel.
Israel cannot afford to fight any kind of protracted war. Israel will have to put a stop to the war against it immediately. It will strike its neighboring countries with a devastating blow. It will use a limited version of its Samson option. It will use nuclear weapons.
The war will probably take place this year. The war will surely take place within the next 18 months.
I believe it is what is known as the Psalm 83 War.
I fear you're right. People forget that despite relative military and economic might, Israel is the size of metropolitan Atlanta. A sustained war is no more practical now than 67 or 73
I don’t even know why Bibi wastes his time meeting with that Muzzie POS.
While I was driving today, I was listening to the news talking to this guy from a website called gasbuddy.com. They supposedly monitor gas prices to tell people where the cheapest ones are.
They guy was saying it was possible that gas prices may go up to possibly $6.50 by summer. However he also said “but that’s NOTHING compared what will happen if Israel attacks Iran.” He gave no estimates, but the way he said it indicated it would be beyond anything we’ve ever feared.
Most of Iran’s neighbors are terrified of Iran getting a nuke. They know Iran will terrorize them. They are praying Israel or the US takes care of the problem. The worst kept secret in the Mideast is that the Saudi’s have given Israel approval to fly through their airspace to bomb Iran.
Don’t forget Turkey, Syria and Lebanon. Poor widduw Iran.
We should be planning the attack together
and hopefully we are .
We should expend our entire current inventory of serious bunker busters , including a few nukes , on Iran’s deeply buried facilities . No mercy , preemptive first strike
from which there will be no recovery . Eliminate the Iranian Navy in the same swoop . Sink the Iranian warships in the Med and promote a multi front land invasion of Syria at the same time . Mossad , please take out Mullah Hassan Nassrullah
in the first hours of this conflict , You know where he is . No mercy .
Let him fall in a ditch and stay there. Try being a reliable ally instead of a serial buttinsky, and maybe you have more leverage. Try not dictating to us where Jews can and can’t live in our own capital city, and maybe we’ll listen more. Try not sending over your senile Vice President to insult us, and maybe you’ll have a bit more good will.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGkjK21ItW0
Also, keep in mind that Iranian military units are in Syria now, helping Assad gas the protestors to death, so they could also be preparing for a direct attack through that route. Isaiah 17 might be the result of something of that nature.
I wonder what they are actually talking about.
Needs a barf alert!
I just explained this to a co-worker this morning. Israel will have to go nuclear to keep Iran from getting the bomb and to keep from being invaded by every other arab country.
Especially since it can count on NO HELP from the US at this time. The US is practically forcing Israel to go nuclear!
Yeah, kinda had a feeling... Sorry for offending anyone.
Back in the good days, professionals like James Baker, or Henry Kissinger, would probe/or soften, foreign leaders before they assented to a visit between world leaders.
Now these a-holes announce a meeting, before anything has been presented, much less solved. Thus, setting up Zer0, or his adversary, for an ok-corral type showdown, which will not produce anything other than machismo beating of the chests.
Halfbright, (??the suit guy??), Powell, Condi, Clinton were/are all lightweights in this chess game with murdering terrorists. Time to get tough!
I agree. I think Newt would be a good president and a good leader.
Nope, as much as I want to say America should work hand in hand with Israel, it's sad to have to pray against our own administration that continues to fail to follow what we the people desire Obama to do. I pray to God he doesn't destroy our whole country but Obama is doing that pretty much on his own very well. I pray for Israel, for the safety of my daughter and friends, my son in law. God watch over them.
I wish only sometimes I was younger and understood Hebrew beter than I do. Would that I was younger to help the eretz Israel and her loving people/nation. I really really would.
Pray that The LORD gives Israel clarity and resolve to do the right thing before Him and not be persuaded by an anti Christ.
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