 |
 |
 |
|
|
Efraim Halevy: Israel must raise its hand and insist on being part of the imminent US-Iran strategic discussion
|
|
|
|
|
|
| By Israel Insider staff December 12, 2007 |
|
| |
 Bookmark to del.icio.us |
| |
The truth at last is coming out, and the American government is not looking particularly honorable, or reliable.
Confirming what Israel Insider, Debkafile and other media sources have been saying for days, former Mossad head Efraim Halevy says that President George Bush and the US government is about to open direct talks with Iran on every subject under the sun.
In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, he warned that Israel must be present in such talks or it would be excluded from discussions on the future of the region. Of course, the US has no intention of including Israel in such talks or it wouldn't have pulled the Annapolis double-cross.
Halevy said he had no doubt that Iran was bent on attaining a nuclear weapons capability, but that it could and must be deterred. He said that the latest American National Intelligence Estimate created an unjustified sense of relief among some because of its misleading talk of a halted Iranian nuclear weapons program, that in fact is likely to have resumed in different places soon after being temporarily suspended, with Iran engaging in disinformation to fool the United States, or at least providing a fig leaf for what the US planned to do anyway.
Halevy emphasized that even with its misreadings, the report made clear in its crucial final sentence that "Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so." He said that it was overoptimistic to think that Iran would produce enough highly enriched uranium to make a bomb only by late 2009 and certainly earlier than the 2010-2015 time frame. In any case, he said, Israel had to operate "on the basis of the worst-case scenario."
Despite the Iranian regime's messianic drive to bring an end to Israel and thus bring the "12th mahdi," he believed that Iran's government "operates in a rational way, based on its interests." At least, he hoped so. "They can be deterred," Halevy stated. "They have to be deterred."
"In the situation now developing, US-Iranian engagement is coming closer and closer - regardless of whether it's in our interest or not," he said. "The US will [engage diplomatically] whether we want it to or not. And if what is on the cards is engagement, it is essential that Israel have a seat at the table. The future of the region cannot be determined with Israel outside the door."
Asked why Iran would agree to any such direct contact with Israel, Halevy said that Israel should ensure that the US makes it a precondition. "As with Annapolis, everyone has to be there," he said. He ignored the fact, however, that Iran was not in Annapolis, which was to be an assembly of the moderates against the radicals, such as Iran and Syria.
Instead, the United States lured Israel's government into agreeing to unrealistic commitments such as a peace treaty within a year and then agreeing to have the US serve as "judge" of compliance with the "road map" -- without reference to Israeli objections to the road map, and President Bush's qualifying letter of April 2004 which made it clear that Israel could not be expected to return to the pre-1967 borders or accept Palestinian refugees.
At the same time, the United States was pursuing a back-channel deal with Iran, brokered by the Saudis, in which Israel was to be dealt out and left alone to face the Iranian nuclear threat.
The feeling of being double-crossed by the Americans is widespread in the Israeli security establishment. Veteran journalist Yossi Klein Halevy (no known relation to Efraim), writes from Israel for the New Republic: "The sense of betrayal within the Israeli security system is deep. After all, Israel's great achievement in its struggle against Iran was in convincing the international community that the nuclear threat was real; now that victory has been undone -- not by Russia or the European Union, but by Israel's closest ally."
"What makes Israeli security officials especially furious," Halevy writes, "is that the report casts doubt on Iranian determination to attain nuclear weapons. There is a sense of incredulity here: Do we really need to argue the urgency of the threat all over again?" He cities a "a key security analyst" as saying: "The report didn't surprise me. The [American intelligence] system isn't healthy. It has been thoroughly politicized. I saw it when I brought hard evidence to them through the 1990s about how the Palestinian Authority was violating its commitments. Their responses weren't professional but political. This report only deepens the crisis of confidence we feel."
A recent example of US intelligence failure, compounded by politicization, involves Syria's nuclear weapons program: "The Syrians were working on their nuclear project for seven years, and we discovered it only recently," says one security analyst. "The Americans didn't know about it all. So how can they be so sure about Iran?"
|
|
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
