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Israel's military chief of staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz said Sunday that he doubts diplomatic pressure will put a halt to Iran's nuclear ambitions, but Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Israel was not spearheading efforts to block Iran from becoming a nuclear power. (AP)
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| By Associated Press December 5, 2005 |
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Israel's military chief of staff said Sunday that he doubts diplomatic pressure will put a halt to Iran's nuclear ambitions, but Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Israel was not spearheading efforts to block Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
"It's clear we can't have a situation where Iran will become a nuclear power," Sharon said, repeating Israel's position. "Israel is not leading the process, but it is definitely a partner to countries concerned by this dangerous development."
Israel - which destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor in a 1981 air strike - considers Iran its biggest threat, and dismisses Tehran's claims that its nuclear program is peaceful.
Military chief Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz said he doubted attempts to negotiate Iran away from its nuclear ambitions would succeed.
"The fact that the Iranians are successful time after time in getting away from international pressure ... encourages them to continue their nuclear project," Halutz told foreign journalists in Tel Aviv.
"I believe that the political means that are used by the Europeans and the U.S. to convince the Iranians to stop the project will not succeed," Halutz said.
Asked how far Israel was ready to go to stop Iran's nuclear project, Halutz quipped, "2,000 kilometers." (1,250 miles).
With all the confusion surrounding the sale of nuclear materials following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it isn't clear how advanced Iran is in its quest to develop a nuclear warhead, Halutz said, adding in an aside, "Unless they already have a warhead ... Maybe they have something, no one knows."
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said the United Nations should step in. "We should let the diplomats handle this," he told Israel TV. "This is a hot potato which should be placed on the table of the Security Council."
Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the Sharon government to take action. Netanyahu, hoping to be nominated as the hardline Likud's candidate for premier for March 28 elections, recalled Israel's 1981 air strike on Iraq's nuclear reactor. "I believe that this is the action that we need to take," he told Israel Radio.
After Sharon left the party, Likud has been showing little strength in public opinion polls.
Last month, the European Union accused Iran of having documents that show how to make nuclear warheads, and joined the U.S. in warning Tehran that it could face referral to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.
There are military options to deal with Tehran, Halutz said.
"Who is the one to implement it? That is another question that I'm not going to answer. 'When?' is another question that I'm not going to answer. But there are options worldwide," he said.
Experts have said it would be more difficult to disable Iran's nuclear program than it was to destroy Iraq's reactor more than two decades ago, because Iranian facilities are scattered and often hidden underground.
On Friday, Israel successfully tested its Arrow missile defense system against a missile similar to Iran's Shahab-3, which potentially could be equipped with a nuclear warhead to reach Israel or several U.S. military installations in the Middle East.
Halutz said Israel continues to modify its Arrow project to deal with any kind of known missile in the region, and to deal with a larger quantity than is known to exist in the region. But although Israel is building a defensive shield, Israel will not wait to be attacked, he said. Defense, he added, "is not enough."
Israeli concerns about Tehran's intentions - already heightened after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in October that Israel must be "wiped off the map" - were compounded by media reports that Russia would sell Iran missiles and other defense systems valued at more than US$1 billion.
A Russian government spokesman said Saturday that weapons sales to Iran are purely for defensive purposes, but did not comment on the reported details of the deal.
An Israeli government source said diplomatic efforts would be made to sway Russia from its plans. Attempts earlier this year to block a Russian missile deal with Syria failed.
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