Cohen, in an interview at his home in Washington DC, told Sheizaf (my emphasis):

The bitter irony is that right now, ambiguity serves the interests of Israel’s rival in the Middle East. Iran is creating its own version of ambiguity: not the concealment of its project, but rather ambiguity with regard to the distinction separating possession and non-possession of nuclear weapons. It reiterates that it has no intention of building a bomb, but that it has the right to enrich uranium, and even come close to developing [nuclear] weapons – while still remaining true to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It is straddling the line, and in my opinion, Iran wants to, and can, remain for some time with the status of a state that might or might not have the bomb. Iran is a state of ambiguity.

Cohen also addresses the thinking behind Israel’s vehement opposition to Iran becoming a nuclear state. This concern is largely based on the belief that while Israel holds a technological edge in having nuclear weapons, a nuclear arms race in the region would not be in Israel’s interest.

At all government and semi-governmental forums, ministers from the Achdut Ha’avoda party, Yigal Allon and Israel Galili, argued that Israel should maintain its ‘technological edge’ in the nuclear sphere, but that we should be careful not to be the ones responsible for bringing nuclear arms to the region.

[…]

They had the concern that if we were to turn into a nuclear state, as Peres and then, later on, [Moshe] Dayan wanted, the Middle East would inevitably go nuclear. Should Israel gain nuclear capability, then it would be impossible to stop the other side from attaining its own nuclear weapon, sooner or later; that would create an arms race. And that was their nightmare.

Cohen explains (my emphasis again):

It’s interesting to look at how far-ranging this thinking was, because it has remained our nightmare to the present day. Were we to believe in mutual nuclear deterrence, we would be able to see that a nuclear Iran is something that can be lived with. But we are aware of an asymmetry, whose gist is: We are a smaller and more vulnerable country, and so even if everyone understands that we are the most advanced and strongest nuclear state [in the region] – a nuclearized Middle East is not in our interest.

• Reuters: John Irish reports that French President Nicolas Sarkozy has warned Iran that, “If a credible agreement [over its nuclear program] cannot be reached, Iran’s isolation would only worsen.”  Sarkozy continued, “And in the face of worsening threat, we would have to organize ourselves to protect and defend states that feel threatened.”  Sarkozy has said he supported the start up of the new nuclear power plant at Bushehr, fueled by Russian fuel rods, as long as it adheres to international law. (Commentary‘s Jennifer Rubin is encouraged, calling Sarkozy’s comments “Better Than Nothing.”)

• Associated Press (via Yahoo): Nasser Karimi reports that Tehran is proposing to jointly assemble nuclear fuel for the Bushehr nuclear plant alongside Russian technicians. The U.S. and Western allies agreed to lift their opposition to the Bushehr on the condition that Russia handle all the nuclear fuel. “We have made a proposal to Russia to create a consortium under Russian license to do part of the work in Russia and part in Iran,” the head of Iran’s atomic energy agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, told the Iranian state-run Press TV. Moscow is reported to be studying the new proposal.

• International Herald Tribune: Avner Cohen and Marvin Miller make the case for Israel ending its longstanding policy of nuclear opacity.  “International support for Israel and its opaque bomb is being increasingly eroded by its continued occupation of Palestinian territory and the policies that support that occupation. Such criticism of these policies might well spill over into the nuclear domain, making Israel vulnerable to the charge that it is a nuclear-armed pariah state, and thus associating it to an uncomfortable degree with today’s rogue Iranian regime,” they write. “Indeed, while almost all states publicly oppose the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran, there is also growing support for dealing with this problem in an ‘evenhanded’ manner, namely, by establishing a nuclear weapons free zone across the entire region.”  The authors emphasize that international support for Israel and its policy of opacity is eroding as Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories drags on.  (Ali wrote about Cohen and Miller’s op-ed yesterday.)

I’m still plowing through the Foreign Affairs article from which the Cohen and Miller’s IHT op-ed is drawn (I’ll report on the FA article later), but this little piece from the shorter version is worth taking note of with regards to the ongoing debate over Israel’s stance on the Iranian nuclear program:

Israel needs to recognize, moreover, that the Middle East peace process is linked to the issue of nuclear weapons in the region. International support for Israel and its opaque bomb is being increasingly eroded by its continued occupation of Palestinian territory and the policies that support that occupation. Such criticism of these policies might well spill over into the nuclear domain, making Israel vulnerable to the charge that it is a nuclear-armed pariah state, and thus associating it to an uncomfortable degree with today’s rogue Iranian regime.

Indeed, while almost all states publicly oppose the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran, there is also growing support for dealing with this problem in an “evenhanded” manner, namely, by establishing a nuclear weapons free zone across the entire region.

However, if Israel takes seriously the need to modify its own nuclear posture and its approach to the peace process, there will likely be stronger international support for measures designed to stop Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold and to contain a nuclear-armed Iran if those efforts fail.