Ehud Barak, shown with Chief of Staff Benny Gantz at the site of a terrorist attack last year
An interview with Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak — thinly disguised as “the decision-maker” created a sensation in early August, when he suggested that an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities was imminent:
As the Iranians continue to fortify their nuclear sites and disperse them and accumulate uranium, the moment is approaching when Israel will not be able to do anything … For the Americans, the Iranians are not yet approaching the immunity zone − because the Americans have much larger bombers and bombs, and the ability to repeat the operation a whole number of times. But for us, Iran could soon enter the immunity zone. And when that happens, it means putting a matter that is vital to our survival in the hands of the United States. Israel cannot allow this to happen. It cannot place the responsibility for its security and future in the hands of even its best and most loyal friend.
Barak explained that Israel could not depend on an American commitment to destroy the program in the future, even if it were made today:
Ostensibly the Americans could easily bridge this gap,†he believes. “They could say clearly that if by next spring the Iranians still have a nuclear program, they will destroy it. But the Americans are not making this simple statement because countries don’t make these kinds of statements to each other. In statesmanship there are no future contracts. The American president cannot commit now to a decision that he will or will not make six months from now.
So the expectation of such a binding American assurance now is not serious. There is no such thing. Not to mention that President Obama doesn’t even know if he’ll still be sitting in the Oval Office come spring. And if Mitt Romney is elected, history shows that presidents do not undertake dramatic operations in their first year in office unless forced to. [my emphasis]
Suddenly this week, Barak began to sing a different tune. In an interview with the UK Daily Telegraph’s David Blair, he backed off:
His gnawing concern is that Tehran will fortify its nuclear plants, particularly the enrichment facility dug into a mountainside at Fordow, to the point where they become invulnerable to the striking power of Israel’s air force. If Iran reaches this “zone of immunityâ€, Israel would lose its ability to deal independently with a crucial threat, forcing the country to trust the rest of the world and break the principle of self-reliance that underlies its very foundation.
Earlier this year, however, Iran delayed the arrival of that moment. Tehran has amassed 189kg of uranium enriched to 20 per cent purity, a vital step towards weapons-grade material. In August, the country’s experts took 38 per cent of this stockpile and converted it into fuel rods for a civilian research reactor, thus putting off the moment when they would be able to make uranium of sufficient purity for a nuclear bomb.
Mr Barak said this decision “allows contemplating delaying the moment of truth by eight to 10 monthsâ€.
We can relax for a while, right?
I don’t think so. The problem is that the conversion of some relatively highly-enriched uranium into fuel rods does not stop Iran’s progress toward the “immunity zone,” even if it may delay the arrival of the day that a bomb can be assembled. The regime can still “fortify and disperse” its facilities so as to reduce the effectiveness of an Israeli attack. And they are doing so, continuing work on the deeply-buried Fordow plant.
Barak’s logic in August was that what was driving Israel’s decision wasn’t Iran’s progress towards a bomb per se, but rather its progress towards the “immunity zone.” And this progress hasn’t stopped. The argument is no less sound today than it was then.
We also need to keep in mind that fuel rods can be reprocessed, and that there are certainly things that we don’t know about the Iranian program (what Rumsfeld called “unknown unknowns”).
Now Barak is saying that the critical point — which was originally estimated to be right around now — will not be reached until “next spring or early summer.”
One way of looking at it is that nothing has changed — Israel has simply refined its estimate when all factors are taken into consideration.
But the immunity zone is not only a technical concept. It has political components also, the most important being the possible reaction of the US to an Israeli strike on Iran. I argued some months ago that the attack would likely come before the election, when the Obama administration would be concerned not to appear hostile toward Israel.
Unless something happens in the next few days, I was wrong about that. My guess is that the administration managed to persuade Barak that a re-elected Obama would provide backing for an attack, or at least non-interference.
The question that comes to mind is “where is Bibi Netanyahu on this?” We know that Barak met with Obama’s confidant Rahm Emanuel on a visit to the US in October, causing Netanyahu to reprimand him for an “uncoordinated” meeting.
Ehud Barak is a very ambitious man, and one supremely convinced of his abilities. It’s well-known that he thinks he would be a better Prime Minister than Bibi (or anyone else). Obama doesn’t like or trust Bibi, and in fact tried to replace him with Tzipi Livni, who strongly supported Obama policy toward the Palestinians. Given these facts, it’s easy to speculate that the administration promised to help Barak (who is also closer to Obama on the Palestinian issue) replace Netanyahu, in return for his pliability on Iran.
I am not saying that Barak has put his personal interests ahead of those of the state. But these issues are complicated and given to interpretation; perhaps there was a whole constellation of promises about what a new Obama Administration would do in regard to Iran and Barak himself. It’s hard to exaggerate the pressure that an American administration can put on Israel, so we can assume that there were sticks as well as carrots employed.
If this isn’t enough, let’s ask why Iran decided now to slow down its dash for the bomb, thus making it possible for Barak to back down in return. Perhaps it was a result of the secret meeting between administration representatives and the Iranians in Doha, Qatar on October 1 (see also here)? This meeting was said to include yet another close Obama confidant, Valerie Jarrett.
What a tangled web they weave!
Technorati Tags: Ehud Barak, Iran, Israel, Obama
