Israel y la bomba iraní

Artículo cortesía de Robert Rosenberg, aparecido originalemente en la revista Ariga:

In what several commentators over the weekend worried publicly might have been an election campaign ploy, the Sharon administration suddenly resumed public warnings that, as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said, ‘it is clear to everyone that Israel cannot accept a nuclear Iran.’ For the last several months, as international pressure on Iran to cease its bid to acquire nuclear weapons capability, Israeli policy, as Sharon has said, has focused on letting the Americans and Europeans ‘do the work.’

But over during the past few days, there have been some unusual comments coming from Israeli officials. A question from a reporter at a press conference Sharon held with Shimon Peres, announcing their political alliance – based on more than 50 years of friendship, despite sharp political differences in the past – led to the Sharon comment. Then, only a few hours later, Chief of Staff Dan Halutz predicted publicly to a foreign audience in Israel, that the diplomatic efforts to halt the Iranian nuclear program would not succeed.

That opened a floodgate for comments from the usual suspects. The frontrunner in the Likud, Binyamin Netanyahu, was first quoted as saying that Israel should try ‘Menachem Begin’s approach,’ a very thinly veiled reference to the 1981 Israeli Air Force attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor outside Baghdad. Then he appeared to backpedal – issuing statements saying that he would support any effort made by the prime minister in the effort to halt the Iranian progress toward uranium enrichment, considered the Rubicon that Tehran must cross to be on its way to independent production of nuclear weapons. Netanyahu’s office said that his statement proved that Netanyahu was taking the high road of ‘national responsibility,’ in his support for the premier.

But while Sharon was clear about Israel not being able to accept a nuclear Iran, he was more than vague about what it can do to prevent that from happening. There are probably various Mossad efforts underway to sabotage the Iranian progress toward uranium enrichment. But those go unreported, of course. The Iranians have widely dispersed the various production facilities for their program, making an air strike of the sort that took out the Iraqi reactor impossible. Halutz did say that Israel has the military capability to fend off the Iranian threat – but he was probably referring to the Arrow anti-ballistic missile system, which coincidentally was tested the day after Sharon’s remarks last Thursday. The test was in planning for months, so any special message being sent by the successful test was not necessarily tied to the Sharon remarks.

But there lies a rub – for while the Labor challenge to Sharon’s new party is entirely focused on social and economic affairs, aiming to change the course of five years of neo-Thatcherite economic policies conducted by Likud finance ministers Silvan Shalom, Netanyahu and now, Ehud Olmert – the message delivered by Sharon, with Peres at his side, was that Labor leader Amir Peretz does not have the experience to deal with the life and death issues of Israeli security. Sharon and Peres, with more than a century of political and defense experience behind them, obviously do have the experience, was their message. And obviously, Sharon knew about the Arrow test, which successfully intercepted a missile meant to approximate the flight path of a Shihab III, the latest version of the Iranian ICBM based on a North Korean design.

Commentators such as Reven Pedhatsur of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies have been arguing for years that Israel will not be able to prevent Iran from acquiring a bomb, saying that Israel’s only recourse in that event will be to drop its longstanding policy of ambiguity about its own nuclear capability, which Peres enunciated to the Kennedy administration in the early 1960s: ‘Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East.’ Foreign reports, of course, cite various estimates of Israel’s nuclear arsenal, with the most commonly quoted number of bombs at its immediate disposal, 200. Pedhatsur, a former air force pilot and columnist for Haaretz argues that an Iranian bomb will indeed cast a shadow over the Middle East, but that the second strike capability presumed to exist in Israel’s submarine fleet, as well as deep bunkers, will create a standoff between Iran and Israel similar to the Mutually Assured Destruction deterrence that existed between the U.S. and USSR in the days of the cold war. He was among those who wondered out loud if the sudden flurry of comments was because of the elections – or the upcoming defense budget debate.

Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuval Steinitz, a Netanyahu political protégé, argues that unlike the ‘sane and rational dictators’ of the USSR, the ‘madness of the Iranian ayatollahs’ means that that the threat cannot be compared to the cold war. Both Steinitz and Pedhatsur agree that the Iranian threat is not only to Israel, but to Europe, and with a Shihab IV under development, to the Americans as well. Pedhatsur says that’s all the more reason to let the West at large try do deal with the problem. Steinitz says the West cannot be trusted on the issue, and that it will cave into the Iranians ‘like Chamberlain at Munich.’

The Israeli comments obviously sparked angry Iranian reactions, and stepping into the breach today was Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency, speaking to the British paper The Independent. He said that if Iran’s Natanz enrichment plant becomes fully operational, the Iranians could be few months away from a nuclear weapon. ‘If they start enriching this is a major issue and a serious concern for the international community,” he told the newspaper. ‘I know they are trying to acquire the full fuel cycle. I know that acquiring the full fuel cycle means that a country is months away from nuclear weapons, and that applies to Iran and everybody else,’ he added. He also warned against the West against escalating its pressures on Iran. ‘You would then open a Pandora’s box. There would be efforts to isolate Iran; Iran would retaliate; and at the end of the day you have to go back to the negotiating table to find the solution,’ he said.

The Iranian nuclear threat may be months – or years – away but the threat of Palestinian terror remains. Just before noon today, a suicide bomber struck at the entrance to the main Netanya mall, killing at least five Israelis and wounding dozens more. There was a Palestinian radio report citing Gazan sources as saying the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a Fateh-related group, was claiming responsibility, something Fateh immediately denied. Indeed, Israeli sources were saying that the Islamic Jihad was the likely culprit – and an hour after the bombing Israel Radio identified the bomber as coming from an Islamic Jihad stronghold in a village near Jenin.

The Israeli security services continue their ongoing crackdown in the West Bank with overnight arrests and occasional killings of wanted gunmen, mostly from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. And in Gaza, a flurry of Qassams and mortars fired into Israel over the last 24 hours has also prompted Israeli artillery and helicopter strikes against targets in the areas where the Qassams are launched. No casualties on either side were reported, but Israel Radio said that Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz had issued orders for Israel to resume its assassination program against those it considers responsible for the rocket attacks. Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom immediately condemned the Palestinian Authority and issued a statement Israel’s response would be ‘harsh and intense.’ But that was probably more internal Likud electioneering than a reflection of Sharon’s intentions.

On the political front, Likud rebel leader leader Uzi Landau is said to be throwing in the towel in the race for the party’s leadership. Ever since Sharon quit Likud, Landau’s standing in the internal Likud polls has been slipping, with many of his supporters moving to back Netanyahu, who is counting on Landau to throw his support to him. The weekend polls – if not some sooner – will no doubt show what effect the Landau resignation will have on the party leadership.

Landau is said to be planning to try to persuade Mofaz to drop out of the race as well, paving the way for Netanyahu to win the Likud vote. But Mofaz, less than 10 points behind Netanyahu in the race, might believe he has a chance to win, especially if he can force a second round of voting if Netanyahu doesn’t reach 40 percent of the party vote. As of this past weekend, the published polls show that Netanyahu is bumping up against that 40 percent ceiling but not crossing it. Landau’s move could give Netanyahu the edge – but he’ll have a long uphill climb against Sharon’s Kadima party (and Labor) in the national vote. Still, the Netanya bombing will play into the hands of the hawks, at a time when it appeared – in the polls at least – that a Centrist-Leftist mood was sweeping the country.