JERUSALEM, May 17, (Agencies): The United States has a military option “ready” if diplomacy fails to halt Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, the US envoy to Israel has said, an Israeli newspaper reported on Thursday.
“It would be preferable to resolve this diplomatically through the use of pressure than to use military force,” right-wing nationalist daily Makor Rishon quoted Daniel Shapiro as telling an Israeli bar association meeting this week.
“But that doesn’t mean that option is not fully available,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. “It is not just available, but it is ready, the necessary planning has been done to ensure that it is ready.”
The United States, Israel and much of the international community believes Iran’s nuclear programme masks a weapons drive, a charge Tehran denies, saying the programme is for peaceful civilian energy and medical use.
Washington has pursued a policy of pushing tough sanctions against Iran, while leaving the door open to a diplomatic resolution.
After a 15-month hiatus, Iran and the P5+1 powers — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany — held their first talks in Istanbul in mid-April, which were described as “positive.”
The parties agreed to more in-depth discussions in Baghdad on May 23.
But Israel has expressed scepticism about the talks, warning they could simply give Tehran more time to pursue a weapon.
And Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Monday that the demands being made of Tehran “are so minimalist that even if Iran were to accept all of them, it could still continue and advance its nuclear programme.”
Israel has publicly warned it is keeping all options, including a military strike, on the table when it comes to dealing with the Iranian nuclear programme.
Its stance on the issue has led to speculation that it could carry out unilateral military action, despite the caution of US officials who have repeatedly stressed that sanctions must be given a chance to work.
Rejects
Iran rejects Western pressures over its nuclear activities and will never give up its rights, Tehran’s chief nuclear negotiator said Thursday ahead of crunch talks with world powers in Baghdad next week.
“If we participate in the negotiations... it is because of our resistance (to Western powers). Thanks to our resistance, we have defended the rights of the Iranian people,” Saeed Jalili said in a speech broadcast on local television.
“The Iranian people will never give up even an iota of their rights,” Jalili added, in reference to the Islamic republic’s nuclear drive which the West suspects is masking a weapons programme. Tehran vehemently denies the charge.
“I advise Western officials against making calculated mistakes. In Baghdad, we can negotiate for cooperation on the basis of respect for Iran’s undeniable rights,” Jalili said.
“The path chosen by our country is a path of no return. The (West) would like to block Iran’s progress in the nuclear domain, but they have failed. Iran today has become a nuclear power,” he added.
“To those who say that time is running out for dialogue, I reply: What is running out is the policy of pressuring Iran, because this strategy has not yielded the results” expected by world powers.
The United States and the European Union have tightened economic sanctions on Iran, imposing tough restrictions on its vital oil industry, to pressure it over its disputed uranium enrichment programme.
US President Barack Obama warned Iran in March that time was running out to resolve the standoff through diplomacy.
But Jalili was defiant on Thursday, insisting that sanctions and international pressure were not affecting Iran’s determination.
“Those who think they can pressure Iran with these sanctions are wrong... because the sanctions have allowed us to make progress,” he said.
He argued that the conditions imposed on Iran at talks in Geneva in 2009 for the delivery of uranium enriched to 20 percent for its Tehran research reactor had in fact forced it to produce the nuclear fuel itself.
“We told them: ‘If you do not give us the fuel, we will produce it ourselves.’ I will never forget the smiles from certain members of the P5+1.
“But in less than two years we produced the fuel, and we are using it today.”
Sanctions
Facing an imminent toughening of sanctions, Iran is hinting at a readiness to give some ground in its long nuclear stand-off with world powers, but any flexibility could split their ranks and lead to protracted uncertainty about how to respond.
The stakes are high, for the longer the impasse goes on, the closer Iran will get to the technological threshold of capability to develop atomic bombs, raising the odds of last-ditch Israeli military strikes on its arch-foe and the risk of a new Middle East war a troubled global economy cannot afford.
A succession of optimistic statements by Iranian officials and academics has raised speculation that Tehran may offer concessions to its six main negotiating partners in talks scheduled for May 23 in Baghdad, a move that could ease regional tensions and soothe fears of a fresh spike in oil prices.
Such an offer would also be closely studied by Israel, which has threatened to use force to destroy nuclear installations the Islamic Republic says are purely civilian in nature but the West suspects are geared to gaining a weapons capability.
Any talk of a diplomatic breakthrough, though, is almost certainly premature.
Whatever concrete gestures are tabled by Iran would test anew the cohesiveness of joint Western, Russian and Chinese efforts to prevent an Iranian atom bomb capability, and might simply lead to months of inconclusive consultations among its interlocutors about how to answer Tehran’s move, analysts say.
Differences in how best to match an Iranian offer - for example by suspending some sanctions in return for Iran shelving enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity, a level that worries UN nuclear experts - could snag efforts to turn any such initiative into meaningful movement towards negotiations.
“Don’t expect a ‘Kumbaya’ (celebratory) moment. It’s going to be a poker play” between Iran and the major powers, French analyst Bruno Tertrais said. “I would be surprised if what happens in Baghdad was more than an agreement on interim steps.”
There is “no doubt “ that Iran’s policy would be to split the six, known as the P5+1, says Dennis Ross, until November a chief Middle East strategy adviser at the White House.
“I also have no doubt that they probably will put something on the table that they think will be attractive to some of the members of the P5+1,” Ross told an audience at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington.
He said one such move could be Iranian assurances on a halt to stockpiling of 20 percent enriched uranium.
That level, well beyond the 5 percent of fissile purity suitable for running civilian nuclear power plants, is intended only to replenish the fuel stocks of a medical isotope reactor, Iran says. But it also moves Iran farther down the road towards the highly enriched grade of uranium usable in bombs.
One Western government assessment is that it would take Iran two to three years to manufacture a usable nuclear weapon in the event that authorities in Tehran decided to attempt that task.
Analysts and some diplomats have said Iran and the global powers must compromise for any chance of a long-term settlement, suggesting Tehran could be allowed to continue limited low-level enrichment if it accepts more intrusive UN inspections.