America must take action against Iran: Israeli official

Chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and member of the Likud party, Yuval Steinitz describes to Haaretz the current situation with Iran and what my government must do to resolve it:

"In my assessment, the Iranians are two years away from a nuclear weapon. It could be a bit more and it could be a bit less. After the success in enriching uranium at an initial 164-centrifuge cascade, the technology is largely in their hands. To create a first bomb they have to reach 10 cascades on 1,600 centrifuges. Now that they have the technology, the question is one of investment. If no one interferes with them and if they scoff at the world and invest resources and run ahead fast to accelerate the process, we're talking about two years, maybe a year and a half. Maybe even a year."

If so, this is a dramatic window of time. The military operation against Iran has to take place within the coming year and maybe even in the coming months.

"We're in the home stretch. If a massive military operation against Iran is mounted, it will be between this point of time, of April 2006, and the end of 2007."

You are not even talking about political options and sanctions.

"Only one thing will prevent an American military operation in Iran. Only if the United States shows the Iranians a very big stick and waves it wildly in front of them will it perhaps be able to prevent the use of that stick."

And the waving of the stick has to start soon?

"It should have started already."

Do you think that the United States has really reached a point where it is ready to operate militarily in Iran?

"Public opinion is ready and Congress supports it. I assume that the administration does, too."

..."What you are actually saying is that the Mossad not only supplies intelligence about the Iranian nuclear project but is also capable of thwarting it if the Americans should fail or refrain from doing the necessary work". "

Who says American foreign policy isn't crafted in Tel Aviv?

And what does our intelligence say about the time frame with regard to Iran's ability to produce nuclear weapons?

US intelligence chief John Negroponte remarked just yesterday :

"By the same token, our assessment at the moment is that even though we believe that Iran is determined to acquire or obtain a nuclear weapon, that we believe that it is still a number of years off before they are likely to have enough fissile material to assemble into, or to put into a nuclear weapon; perhaps into the next decade," he said.

"So I think it's important that this issue be kept in perspective,"

Whose view will prevail(again), mewonders?

This should come as no surprise when we refer back to this article from 3 years ago which also appeared in Haaretz:

In a meeting with U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton yesterday, Sharon said that Israel was concerned about the security threat posed by Iran, and stressed that it was important to deal with Iran even while American attention was focused on Iraq.

Bolton said in meetings with Israeli officials that he had no doubt America would attack Iraq, and that it would be necessary thereafter to deal with threats from Syria, Iran and North Korea.