JERUSALEM, Feb 19, (Agencies): The US and Britain on Sunday urged Israel not to attack Iran’s nuclear program as the White House’s national security adviser arrived in the region, reflecting growing international jitters that the Israelis are poised to strike.
In their warnings, both the US joint chiefs of staff, Gen Martin Dempsey, and British Foreign Minister William Hague said an Israeli attack on Iran would have grave consequences for the entire region and urged Israel to give international sanctions against Iran more time to work. Dempsey said an Israeli attack is “not prudent,” and Hague said it would not be “a wise thing.”
Both Israel and the West believe Iran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb — a charge Tehran denies. But differences have emerged in how to respond to the perceived threat.
The US and the European Union have both imposed harsh new sanctions targeting Iran’s oil sector, the lifeline of the Iranian economy. With the sanctions just beginning to bite, they have expressed optimism that Iran can be persuaded to curb its nuclear ambitions.
On Sunday, Iran’s Oil Ministry said it has halted oil shipments to Britain and France in an apparent pre-emptive blow against the European Union. The semiofficial Mehr news agency said the National Iranian Oil Company has sent letters to some European refineries with an ultimatum to either sign long-term contracts of two to five years or be cut off. The 27-nation EU accounts for about 18 percent of Iran’s oil exports.
Israel has welcomed the sanctions. But it has pointedly refused to rule out military action and in recent weeks sent signals that its patience is running thin.
Israel believes a nuclear-armed Iran would be a threat to its very existence, citing Iran’s support for Arab militant groups, its sophisticated arsenal of missiles capable of reaching Israel and its leaders’ calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.
Last week, Israel accused Iran of being behind a string of attempted attacks on Israeli diplomats in India, Georgia and Thailand.
There is precedent for Israeli action. In 1981, the Israeli air force destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor. And in 2007, Israeli warplanes are believed to have destroyed a target that foreign experts think was an unfinished nuclear reactor in Syria.
Experts, however, have questioned how much an Israeli operation would accomplish. With Iran’s nuclear installations scattered and buried deep underground, it is believed that an Iranian strike would set back, but not destroy, Iran’s nuclear program.
Launch
There are also concerns Iran could fire missiles at Israel, get its local proxies Hezbollah and Hamas to launch rockets into the Jewish state, and cause global oil prices to spike by striking targets in the Gulf.
In an interview broadcast on CNN Sunday, Dempsey said Israel 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.”
He expressed concern that an Israeli attack could spark reprisals against US targets in the Gulf or Afghanistan, where American forces are based.
“That’s the question with which we all wrestle. And the reason that we think that it’s not prudent at this point to decide to attack Iran,” Dempsey said.
Describing Iran as a “rational actor,” Dempsey said he believed that the international sanctions on Iran are beginning to have an effect. “For that reason, I think, that we think the current path we’re on is the most prudent path at this point.”
The arrival of White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon was the latest in a series of high-level meetings between Israel and the US Last month, Dempsey visited Israel, and next month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to visit the White House.
Donilon was set to meet with Netanyahu late Sunday, and with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Monday before leaving.
Asked whether he believed Israel could be deterred from striking, Dempsey said: “I’m confident that they understand our concerns, that a strike at this time would be destabilizing and wouldn’t achieve their long-term objectives. But, I mean, I also understand that Israel has national interests that are unique to them.”
Hague delivered a similar message in Britain. Speaking to the BBC, he said Britain was focused on pressuring Iran through diplomatic means.
“I don’t think a wise thing at this moment is for Israel to launch a military attack on Iran,” he said. “I think Israel like everyone else in the world should be giving a real chance to the approach we have adopted on very serious economic sanctions and economic pressure and the readiness to negotiate with Iran.”
In a sign that the diplomatic pressure might be working, Iran’s foreign minister said Sunday that a new round of talks with six world powers on the nuclear program will be held in Istanbul, Turkey. Ali Akbar Salehi didn’t give any timing for the talks.
The last talks collapsed in Istanbul in January 2011, but Iran has responded positively to an EU offer to look at reviving them.
“We are looking for a mechanism for a solution for the nuclear issue in a way that it is win-win for both sides,” Salehi said.
But he added that Iran remained prepared for a “worst-case scenario.”
A November report by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, strongly suggested Iran’s programme included nuclear weapons research.
The IAEA delegation due in Tehran on Monday is to hold two days of talks with Iranian officials on those suspicions.
A previous visit on the same issue at the end of January, though, yielded no breakthrough.
“I’m not optimistic that Iran will provide much more information because I think any honest answers to the IAEA’s questions would confirm that Iran had been involved in weapons-related development work and Iran wouldn’t want to admit that for fear of being penalised,” Mark Fitzpatrick of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies told AFP.
Expand
Iran is poised to greatly expand uranium enrichment at a fortified underground bunker to a point that would boost how quickly it could make nuclear warheads, diplomats tell The Associated Press.
They said Tehran has put finishing touches for the installation of thousands of new-generation centrifuges at the cavernous facility — machines that can produce enriched uranium much more quickly and efficiently than its present machines.
While saying that the electrical circuitry, piping and supporting equipment for the new centrifuges was now in place, the diplomats emphasized that Tehran had not started installing the new machines at its Fordo facility and could not say whether it was planning to.
Still, the senior diplomats — who asked for anonymity because their information was privileged — suggested that Tehran would have little reason to prepare the ground for the better centrifuges unless it planned to operate them. They spoke in recent interviews — the last one Saturday.
The reported work at Fordo appeared to reflect Iran’s determination to forge ahead with nuclear activity that could be used to make atomic arms despite rapidly escalating international sanctions and the latent threat of an Israeli military strike on its nuclear facilities.
Fordo could be used to make fissile warhead material even without such an upgrade, the diplomats said.
They said that although older than Iran’s new generation machines, the centrifuges now operating there can be reconfigured within days to make such material because they already are enriching to 20 percent — a level that can be boosted quickly to weapons-grade quality.
Their comments appeared to represent the first time anyone had quantified the time it would take to reconfigure the Fordo centrifuges into machines making weapons-grade material.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard says it has begun a two-day land military exercise to upgrade its capabilities to defend the country against possible external threats.
Commander of the Guard’s ground forces Mohammad Pakpour said on comments posted on the force’s website sepahnews.com that the maneuvers dubbed Valfajr, or Dawn, began Sunday outside the city of Yazd in central Iran.
The Guard is Iran’s most powerful military unit.
The exercises are the latest in a series of maneuvers held amid escalating tensions between Iran and the West over Iran’s nuclear program.