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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, center, escorted by his bodyguards, Monday, Nov. 21, 2005. (AP)
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| By Associated Press November 24, 2005 |
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Iran's negotiations with the international community are an attempt to buy time as the Islamic nation pushes ahead with a nuclear weapons program, a respected Israeli think tank said in its annual report on the military balance in the Middle East.
The Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University said Iran is "walking a thin line" between continuing negotiations with international inspectors while advancing its military program.
"The dynamic that has characterized negotiations thus far leaves little room for hope that Iran will terminate its program," the report said. "Should the program advance to the point that Iran achieves nuclear capability, this would represent the most significant long-term potential threat facing Israel and the strategic balance in the area."
Researcher Emily Landau, who wrote the report's chapter on Iran, said she had little doubt about Iran's real intentions. "According to all indications, it looks like they are active in the military direction. I have no doubt they have intentions in this field, despite all their denials," she said Wednesday.
Under the latest international proposal, Iran would move its uranium enrichment reprocessing to Russia, depriving the Iranians of the chance to enrich uranium to weapons grade, suitable for use in the core of nuclear warheads.
Iran says it only wants to enrich to lower levels of uranium to generate energy. Still, it has resisted the plan to move its enrichment capabilities to Russia, insisting it has the right to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle.
Iran resumed uranium reprocessing - one step before uranium enrichment - at its Isfahan facility in August. Iran's parliament on Sunday also approved a bill requiring its government to block any in-depth U.N. inspections of its nuclear facilities if Iran is referred to the U.N. Security Council.
European Union foreign ministers urged Iran on Monday to live up to the "clear obligations" made to the international community to allow U.N. inspectors to tour its nuclear facilities.
The Jaffee Center's report also said that Israel has expanded its military supremacy in the Middle East.
"The strategic balance decidedly favors Israel, which has continued to widen the qualitative gap between its own military capability and deterrence powers and those of its neighbors," said the report, which is submitted to Israeli policy-makers.
The military balance gave a breakdown of the armed forces of 21 Mideast nations, including those of neighboring Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt.
However, in a modern, high-tech, military world, the quantitative differences between Israel and its neighbors has almost become moot, said researcher Yiftah Shapir, who co-edited the report.
"Strategically speaking, our situation has never been better," he said. "The numeric differences are not that great, but from year to year the numbers are less and less important since they less and less reflect the qualitative differences."
Israel added F-16I planes, Apache Longbow helicopters and Gulfstream surveillance aircraft to its arsenal, he said. Aside from the United States, Israel is the only nation in the world to have modernized its military systems to a point where it could quash other armies with minimal casualties to its own troops, he said.
"The Israel Defense Forces could erase the Syrian army in two weeks with less than 100 casualties, and the Syrians know this," he said.
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