13 September 2009 : Haaretz
By Amos Harel
Iran's dialogue with the international community on its nuclear program is expected to be renewed soon. But it will be too little, too late.
Eight months have passed since the Obama administration came to office. And a week ago the ayatollahs' regime released a document on its nuclear program that offered only general declarations and evaded direct reference to the main issues at hand.
Adding to the sense of a lack of sincerity was a declaration Saturday from Ahmad Vahidi, Iran's new defense minister, who is still wanted in Argentina for his role in two 1990s bombings that claimed dozens of lives. Vahidi said his country is not interested in a nuclear weapon because "weapons of mass destruction are contrary to our religious, human and national principles."
Iran continues to play its game of deception. The former chief of Military Intelligence, Major General (res.) Aharon Ze'evi-Farkash, told Haaretz the Iranians are behaving this way because "they're at such an advanced stage in their plans, all they need to do is to waste time while pushing hard for their immediate goal, which is to produce sufficient quantities of fissile material for two or three atomic bombs."
In Israel, there are suspicions that the pace of Iranian advance has accelerated, and that Tehran "will continue walking on the edge of the cliff" in its exchanges with the international community.
Apparently, this explains the declaration of Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki that dialogue with the international community might include discussion of the nuclear program "if the conditions are right."
This statement diverges slightly from the document Iran offered as its official response to the international community, and also from the comments of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who claimed last Monday that his country will not cease to enrich uranium and will not negotiate on its "nuclear rights."
The results of the dialogue are expected to become clear by December. The commonly accepted assessment here holds that little can be achieved and therefore sanctions against Iran will be forthcoming. But the likelihood of tough sanctions is doubtful, as backing from Russia and China will be limited. Even if the U.S. manages to harness broad support for sanctions, with the backing of the United Nations Security Council, these will almost certainly be insufficiently potent.
As as alternative, the U.S. Congress is planning to announce sanctions that will be adopted by France, Germany, Britain and Canada. But there is still a long way to go before that happens, and the Obama administration is terribly busy with the economy, health care reform and the North Korean provocations. It's hard to know where Iran's nuclear program stands in terms of urgency. Not the top priority - that's fairly clear and certainly not something the U.S. is planning to deal with through offensive action.
Meanwhile, Israel is being careful with its words. The minister charged with the intelligence portfolio, Dan Meridor, told Reuters late last week that "there is not much time to waste," while emphasizing the Iranian nuclear program is a global problem, and that he was not necessarily referring to a military option.
Not Hezbollah's rockets
On a different front, one indirectly linked to Iran's nuclear program, two Katyusha rockets struck the Western Galilee on Friday, causing damage but no casualties. This is the third strike of this sort and the fifth in the three years that have passed since the end of the Second Lebanon War. However, Israeli intelligence believes those responsible for the rockets are not Hezbollah but a Palestinian-Sunni group with links to global jihadists backed by Al-Qaida.
Hezbollah presumably will resume firing on the north in two cases, as part of an attempt to exact revenge, possibly for the assassination of its terror mastermind, Imad Mughniyeh, as it blames Israel for his death, or as part of the broader clash between Israel and Iran. The defense establishment is sticking to its assessment that Israel's deterrent against Hezbollah in the north still holds and therefore made do with a minimal response - artillery fire into southern Lebanon, as a pin-point response to the Katyusha attacks and, according to Lebanese news agencies, threatening telephone calls to residents in the area, warning that the Israel Defense Forces can do much worse.
