Israel's Strong Warning to America Regarding Iran is Concerning, Washington Post - 2003-08-13

In his editorial in the Washington Post today, Jim Hoagland believes that the path taken by the Israeli government in urging Washington to take Iran's nuclear activities seriously has raised concerns within the Bush administration that Israel is seriously considering bombing the Bushehr nuclear power plant. Hoagland states that if Israel takes such action, the entire strategy and diplomacy of the United States to contain and isolate Iran's and North Korea's nuclear weapons programs will be destroyed. This is because all the main architects of U.S. policy have recently concluded that there are no appealing military solutions regarding North Korea and Iran. However, if Israel unilaterally takes military action against the Islamic Republic's nuclear facilities, not only will European allies and Russia, who are gradually aligning with the U.S. on Iran, separate their paths, but fundamentally, U.S. policies in this area will be in ruins. During his recent visit to Washington, Sharon brought his military attaché, General Yoav Galant, to meet President Bush at the White House. The three-star Israeli general presented a thick file of photographs and charts of the Islamic Republic's clandestine nuclear activities for the U.S. President's judgment while Mr. Bush looked on with concern. Sharon told Bush that his intelligence assessment, which stated that Iran would be able to convert plutonium into a bomb in four years, was at least two years off, and that Iran would achieve the capability to build a nuclear weapon within a maximum of two years. The editorial writer of the Washington Post, a newspaper that usually reflects the most accurate news from the U.S. capital, believes that Ariel Sharon's statements are part of two decades of Israeli efforts to convince the U.S. not to underestimate the threat posed by Iran to the Israeli government. However, what has made his two-week-old visit notable and concerning is the dramatic and urgent presentation of the underground nuclear activities of Iran and Israel's successful experience in bombing the 'Osirak' nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981. The reason Israel bombed the Iraqi reactor at that specific time was intelligence reports indicating that Iraq would soon inject nuclear fuel into the reactor. If there had been nuclear materials in the Iraqi reactor, bombing it would have been a very difficult task due to the contamination of large areas of the Middle East. After the U.S. attack on Iraq in 1991, it became clear that Saddam Hussein was even ahead of Israel's assessment in reaching the bomb. Now, it is expected that later this year, as the Russians complete the Bushehr power plant, they will also load its nuclear fuel, after which the point of no return will be reached. Aside from the Russian source, the Islamic Republic has its own uranium mines and underground enrichment facilities.