DEBKAfile & Haaretz – 2009-05-01 01:05:25
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=6019
Peres Threatens Military Strike
DEBKAfile Special Report
TEL AVIV (April 13, 2009) — Israeli President Shimon Peres told an Israeli radio interviewer that if President Barack Obama’s diplomatic efforts to prevent Iran from going nuclear failed, “We’ll strike him,” referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Later senior Iranian negotiator, Said Jalili phoned EU official Javier Solana to correct the impression by saying Tehran “welcomed talks,” but he did not contradict the conditions laid down by his superior.
Ali Larijani, speaker of the Iranian parliament (Majlis) who said: “The Iranian government will only conduct international negotiations on the nuclear issue that are approved by the parliament and the legislature will closely monitor all such talks.” He then added: “The proposal by some members of the 5+1 group calling for more intrusive inspections of Iran’s nuclear activities is not legal.”
In 2007, the Majlis banned the cessation of uranium enrichment and prohibited concessions on Iran’s nuclear program.
Peres: Bombing Iran May Not Be the ‘Best Solution’
Haaretz
TEL AVIV (April 30, 2009) — President Shimon Peres said Wednesday that attacking Iran would only postpone its ability to build an atom bomb. “I’m not sure that bombing the nuclear facilities is the best solution. You know, the moment there are centrifuges, you can destroy the centrifuges. You cannot destroy the know-how to create centrifuges. You can postpone,” he told Channel 10.
Asked whether Israel could accept a nuclear Iran, the president said: “Attacking the nuclear sites is not the only option. The West has other options. First of all we can tell the Iranians ‘If you launch a nuclear attack, it doesn’t matter against whom, it will elicit a nuclear response.’ Secondly, we can monitor their missiles. It is easier to monitor launching devices. If, like they say, they are not interested in developing nuclear weapons, why do they need launchers?”
Peres also said the new Israeli government of hard-line Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should work for a peace agreement with the Palestinians. “We’ve finished agreement with the Egyptians, with the Jordanians. Now we need to finish with the Palestinians. The differences [that require settling] aren’t big.”
Until next month’s meeting between Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama in Washington, all reports about the new government’s intentions and policies were just “talk.”
“The opening line will be in that conversation and each side will hear what it is really about.” Peres gave interviews to Israel’s television stations on the occasion of Israel’s 61st Independence Day.
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Jerusalem Stammers, Washington Deaf
To Iran’s Race for Nuke
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis
JERUSALEM (April 20, 2009) — For most of the past decade, Washington and successive Israeli governments have shunted aside to “the international community” and “diplomatic engagement” Iran’s hell-bent race for nuclear armament and the missiles for its delivery. New administrations have just taken over in the United States and Israel — but nothing has changed.
Thursday, April 9, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Iran had completed the nuclear fuel cycle and produced two new high-capacity enrichment centrifuges. He had no fear of retribution. Astonishingly, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said his claims were not a rebuff to the offer of five Security Council permanent members and Germany of talks in which the US would be fully engaged.
Her consignment of Iran to insuring that the UN International Atomic Energy Agency was “a source of credible information…” must have amused veteran Iranian hands even in Washington. For nine years or more, the IAEA has missed every twist and turn on the roads to a bomb followed by Iran and North Korea, starting from the nuclear black market run by Pakistan’s Dr. A.Q. Khan for the benefit of Iran, North Korea and Libya, then North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and ballistic development, followed by Syria’s plutonium reactor. Now come Iran’s nuclear advances in barefaced defiance of the “international community,” a week after North Korea test fired a long-range missile which the US and its allies failed to deter or intercept.
As for Jerusalem, a “top source” said “Israel does not object to talks between the West and Iran as long as Iran does not take advantage of these talks” – which is exactly what Tehran has been doing for years. Israel expects the international community [again] to act firmly to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons,” and will discuss he issue in Netanyahu’s talks with Obama next month, the source said. Oh yes? Isn’t that where we came in three governments ago?
Saudis also Dismayed by Obama’s Seeming Tolerance of Iran’s Nuclear Drive
(April 7, 2009) — On the sidelines of the G20 summit in London, Saudi King Abdullah took the US president sternly to task over his emerging policy on Iran, Syria and Iraq, accusing him to giving the Islamic Republic free rein for its nuclear, expansionist and terrorism-sponsoring Middle East policies.
As for Israel’s concerns, President Shimon Peres pointed out to visiting US congressmen in Jerusalem Monday that Iran had hoodwinked the entire world in its drive for a nuclear bomb whose main target would be the Jewish state; Israel’s population is short of adequate means of self-defense.
Deputy Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. Dan Harel warned that a nuclear-armed Iran would shield Middle East terror groups, so magnifying the threat to Israel manifold. But, he added, the IDF was fully capable of backing up any government decision to tackle this existential threat.
Israel Has Military Resources
To Destroy Iran’s Nuclear Sites
WASHINGTON (April 15, 2009) — A prestigious Washington think tank — the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) — has concluded by means of detailed research and analysis that Israel is militarily capable of destroying Iran’s nuclear program. This view is shared by the Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff, who asked recently if Israel could carry off an attack on Iran, replied tersely: “Yes.”
Gates Totally Opposes Israeli Strike on Iran
WASHINGTON (April 16, 2009) — The US defense secretary Robert Gates Said again Wednesday: “A strike probably would delay Tehran’s nuclear program one to three years, it would unify Iranians, cement their determination to have a nuclear program and also build into the whole country an undying hatred of whoever hits them.”….
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
