Speaking to Democracy Now! Gershon Baskin — the Israeli peace activist who assisted the process that led to Hamas’ release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit — offers his thoughts on the permanent truce deal he was working on with military leader Ahmed Jabari (who Aluf Benn writes was a [...]]]>
Speaking to Democracy Now! Gershon Baskin — the Israeli peace activist who assisted the process that led to Hamas’ release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit — offers his thoughts on the permanent truce deal he was working on with military leader Ahmed Jabari (who Aluf Benn writes was a “subcontractor, in charge of maintaining Israel’s security in Gaza”) before he was assassinated by the Israelis:
]]>Now, my perspective on this was that Israel had to secure quiet. It is unacceptable for the civilian population in the south of Israel to be constantly under the threat of rocket fire from Gaza. There are several ways to achieve that quiet. One is to do what Israel is doing now: to assassinate people, to put two-and-a-half million people in—1.6 million people in Gaza under rocket fire, to put another million people in Israel under rocket fire. To kill a lot of people, to do a lot of damage, in the end will create some kind of deterrence and have quiet for a period of time. Or we could try what we’ve never tried before, and that’s engagement, dialogue and trying to reach some longer-term understandings. I don’t know if it would have worked. Honestly, I don’t know if Jabari would have held to the terms of the agreements or if the other factions would have given into that. My point was: Let’s try it. We’ve never done it before. Let’s try it. Maybe will have a dynamic of its own, which, instead of leading to more escalation, will actually bring about de-escalation and a possibility of having a new kind of relationship with Gaza.
There are two ways [...]]]>
There are two ways to look at red lines. One is, “should we make a public announcement than can be used by Israel or any country as its justification for going to war?” That we cannot do.
No. We cannot subcontract the right to go to war. That is an American decision.
Kissinger also merged Washington’s previously stated red line, an Iranian nuclear weapon, with Israel’s red line, nuclear capability, when arguing that the White House needs to decide what preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon boils down to:
Now, we do need to define for ourselves when we say that nuclear weapons are unacceptable — nuclear weapons capability is unacceptable — we need to know for ourselves what we mean by that. What is the definition?
I would say private red line, publicly decided in terms of tactical necessity.
Kissinger concluded by endorsing Mitt Romney’s “responsible foreign policy.”
On Iran, Mitt Romney told ABC that his “redlines” are essentially the same as Obama’s. But he subsequently changed his position on the subject when pressed by pro-Israel advocates in a private campaign forum, the Cable reports. It’s now unclear which position he and his foreign policy advisors agree on.
]]>This lonely press briefing issued today by the United Nations about ongoing political imprisonment in Iran reminds us that the more the international community focuses on Iran’s nuclear program, the less attention is given to Iranian human rights. These rights are consistently endangered and violated not only by the Iranian [...]]]>
This lonely press briefing issued today by the United Nations about ongoing political imprisonment in Iran reminds us that the more the international community focuses on Iran’s nuclear program, the less attention is given to Iranian human rights. These rights are consistently endangered and violated not only by the Iranian government, but by sanctions and threats of war too.
Iran’s rial is once again in free fall while Iran and the United States remain in political gridlock. Bibi Netanyahu may have backed off his Iran campaign for now but is unlikely to stop agitating for conflict. Today during an event at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Mark Fitzpatrick said that Iran is unlikely to change it’s stance prior to the Iranian presidential election in June 2013 because no one wants to grant Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a diplomatic success while he is in office. Fitzpatrick added that the West is likely to implement even more sanctions during to this time.
So while Iranians are being strangled by the Islamic Republic’s ever-present hand in their public and personal lives, so too ar they being forced to endure a strangulated economy that will only worsen. This feeling of impending suffocation — imposed from above and below — was at the core of Asghar Farhadi’s oscar-winning film “A Separation” which resonated so strongly with Iranians. In Iran the personal is political and vice versa while absurdity has become the norm.
In a recent interview with Nazila Fathi, the Iranian human rights defender Shirin Ebadi explained that war on Iran would “stir nationalistic feelings and rally the people behind the government to defend the country” as well as “save Iran’s rulers.” But she didn’t or couldn’t provide any indication as to what can be done to ease the burden being imposed on Iranians by their government and foreign governments.
“I don’t favor more sanctions against Iran, but I do not want to see the world ignore what the regime is doing to its people,” said Ebadi.
What then is in store for Iran’s people?
]]>via IPS News
Iran has again offered to halt its enrichment of uranium to 20 percent, which the United States has identified as its highest priority in the nuclear talks, in return for easing sanctions against Iran, according to Iran’s permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Ali Asghar [...]]]>
via IPS News
Iran has again offered to halt its enrichment of uranium to 20 percent, which the United States has identified as its highest priority in the nuclear talks, in return for easing sanctions against Iran, according to Iran’s permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Ali Asghar Soltanieh, who has conducted Iran’s negotiations with the IAEA in Tehran and Vienna, revealed in an interview with IPS that Iran had made the offer at the meeting between EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton and Iran’s leading nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili in Istanbul Sep. 19.
Soltanieh also revealed in the interview that IAEA officials had agreed last month to an Iranian demand that it be provided documents on the alleged Iranian activities related to nuclear weapons which Iran is being asked to explain, but that the concession had then been withdrawn.
“We are prepared to suspend enrichment to 20 percent, provided we find a reciprocal step compatible with it,” Soltanieh said, adding, “We said this in Istanbul.”
Soltanieh is the first Iranian official to go on record as saying Iran has proposed a deal that would end its 20-percent enrichment entirely, although it had been reported previously.
“If we do that,” Soltanieh said, “there shouldn’t be sanctions.”
Iran’s position in the two rounds of negotiations with the P5+1 – China, France, Germany, Russia, Britain, the United States and Germany – earlier this year was reported to have been that a significant easing of sanctions must be part of the bargain.
The United States and its allies in the P5+1 ruled out such a deal in the two rounds of negotiations in Istanbul and in Baghdad in May and June, demanding that Iran not only halt its enrichment to 20 percent but ship its entire stockpile of uranium enriched to that level out of the country and close down the Fordow enrichment facility entirely.
Even if Iran agreed to those far-reaching concessions the P5+1 nations offered no relief from sanctions.
Soltanieh repeated the past Iranian rejection of any deal involving the closure of Fordow.
“It’s impossible if they expect us to close Fordow,” Soltanieh said.
The U.S. justification for the demand for the closure of Fordow has been that it has been used for enriching uranium to the 20-percent level, which makes it much easier for Iran to continue enrichment to weapons grade levels.
But Soltanieh pointed to the conversion of half the stockpile to fuel plates for the Tehran Research Reactor, which was documented in the Aug. 30 IAEA report.
“The most important thing in the (IAEA) report,” Soltanieh said, was “a great percentage of 20-percent enriched uranium already converted to powder for the Tehran Research Reactor.”
That conversion to powder for fuel plates makes the uranium unavailable for reconversion to a form that could be enriched to weapons grade level.
Soltanieh suggested that the Iranian demonstration of the technical capability for such conversion, which apparently took the United States and other P5+1 governments by surprise, has rendered irrelevant the P5+1 demand to ship the entire stockpile of 20-percent enriched uranium out of the country.
“This capacity shows that we don’t need fuel from other countries,” said Soltanieh.
Iran began enriching uranium to 20 percent in 2010 after the United States made a virtually non-negotiable offer in 2009 to provide fuel plates for the Tehran Research Reactor in return for Iran’s shipping three-fourths of its low-enriched uranium stockpile out of the country and waiting for two years for the fuel plates.
The P5+1 demand for closure of the Fordow enrichment plant was also apparently based on the premise the facility was built exclusively for 20-percent enrichment. But Iran has officially informed the IAEA that it is for both enrichment to 20 percent and enrichment to 3.5 percent.
The 1,444 centrifuges installed at Fordow between March and August – but not connected to pipes, according to the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security – could be used for either 20-percent enrichment or 3.5-percent enrichment, giving Iran additional leverage in future negotiations.
Soltanieh revealed that two senior IAEA officials had accepted a key Iranian demand in the most recent negotiating session last month on a “structured agreement” on Iranian cooperation on allegations of “possible military dimensions” of its nuclear programme – only to withdraw the concession at the end of the meeting.
The issue was Iran’s insistence on being given all the documents on which the IAEA bases the allegations of Iranian research related to nuclear weapons which Iran is expected to explain to the IAEA’s satisfaction.
The Feb. 20 negotiating text shows that the IAEA sought to evade any requirement for sharing any such documents by qualifying the commitment with the phrase “where appropriate”.
At the most recent meeting on Aug. 24, however, the IAEA negotiators, Deputy Director General for Safeguards Herman Nackaerts and Assistant Director General for Policy Rafael Grossi, agreed for the first time to a commitment to “deliver the documents related to activities claimed to have been conducted by Iran”, according to Soltanieh.
At the end of the meeting, however, Nackaerts and Grossi “put this language in brackets”, thus leaving it unresolved, Soltanieh said.
Former IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei recalls in his 2011 memoirs that he had “constantly pressed the source of the information” on alleged Iranian nuclear weapons research – meaning the United States – “to allow us to share copies with Iran”. He writes that he asked how he could “accuse a person without revealing the accusations against him?”
ElBaradei also says Israel gave the IAEA a whole new set of documents in late summer 2009 “purportedly showing that Iran had continued with nuclear weapons studies until at least 2007″.
Soltanieh confirmed that the other unresolved issue is whether the IAEA investigation will be open-ended or not.
The Feb. 20 negotiating text showed that Iran demanded a discrete list of topics to which the IAEA inquiry would be limited and a requirement that each topic would be considered “concluded” once Iran had answered the questions and delivered the information requested.
But the IAEA insisted on being able to “return” to topics that had been “discussed earlier”, according to the February negotiating text.
That position remains unchanged, according to Soltanieh. The Iranian ambassador quoted an IAEA negotiator as asking, “What if next month we receive something else — some additional information?’”.
“If the IAEA had its way,” Soltanieh said, “It would be another 10 or 20 years.”
Soltanieh told IPS a meeting between Iran and the IAEA set for mid-October had been agreed before the IAEA Board of Governors earlier this month with Nackaerts and Grossi.
The Iranian ambassador said the IAEA officials had promised him that Director General Yukia Amano would announce the meeting during the Board meeting, but Amano made no such announcement.
Instead, after a meeting with Fereydoun Abbasi, Iran’s Vice President and head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Amano only referred to the “readiness of Agency negotiators to meet with Iran in the near future.”
“He didn’t keep the promise,” said Soltanieh, adding that Iran would have to “study in the capital” how to respond.
Soltanieh elaborated on Abassi’s suggestion last week that the sabotage of power to the Fordow facility the night before an IAEA request for a snap inspection of the facility showed the agency could be infiltrated by “terrorists and saboteurs”.
“The objection we have is that the DG isn’t protecting confidential information,” said Soltanieh. “When they have information on how many centrifuges are working and how many are not working (in IAEA reports), this is a very serious concern.”
Iran has complained for years about information gathered by IAEA inspectors, including data on personnel in the Iranian nuclear programme, being made available to U.S., Israeli and European intelligence agencies.
*Gareth Porter, an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy, received the UK-based Gellhorn Prize for journalism for 2011 for articles on the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
]]>During this 1-hour discussion on bloggingheads.tv, author Robert Wright goes through many of the most controversial issues about Iran with the best-selling Iranian-American author, Hooman Majd.
]]>During this 1-hour discussion on bloggingheads.tv, author Robert Wright goes through many of the most controversial issues about Iran with the best-selling Iranian-American author, Hooman Majd.
]]>News and views relevant to US foreign policy for Sept. 11
“New intelligence on Iran nuke work”: The Associated Press reports that the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) has received intelligence from the United States, Israel and at least two other Western countries showing that Iran has “moved further toward the [...]]]>
News and views relevant to US foreign policy for Sept. 11
“New intelligence on Iran nuke work”: The Associated Press reports that the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) has received intelligence from the United States, Israel and at least two other Western countries showing that Iran has “moved further toward the ability to build a nuclear weapon”.
“Nuclear Mullahs, Continued”: Bill Keller responds to reader questions about his column that argues against a preemptive war on Iran’s nuclear program:
Q: You say that after an attack, Iran would have strong motivation to rebuild its nuclear facilities, this time faster and deeper underground. But the Israeli attacks on nuclear reactors at Osirak, Iraq, in 1981 and Al-Kibar, Syria, in 2007 were quite successful in keeping those countries non-nuclear.
A: First, Iran’s multiple facilities, well fortified (especially the centrifuges buried deep in the rock at Fordow, near Qom) present a much tougher target than the reactors in Iraq and Syria. Second, and more important, the Osirak attack, far from stopping Iraq’s nuclear ambitions, hastened them. After Israel bombed the reactor, Saddam Hussein launched an accelerated, covert program to manufacture nuclear weapons. When the First Gulf War ended his ambitions in 1991, that program was well underway. Experts disagree how far Saddam was from having a weapon (estimates ranged from six months to three years) but the Israeli strike in Iraq accomplished what many fear a strike in Iran would accomplish: it gave the nuclear weapons program new life. Third, Israel’s attack on the (suspected) nuclear reactor in Syria was kept secret for a long time, so that Syria did not feel obliged to undertake reprisals against the superior Israeli military. It’s inconceivable that Iran and the world would not know whom to hold responsible for an attack on its facilities, and Iranian leaders would have to lash back, if only to save face. Fourth, what ended Iraq’s nuclear ambitions was a full-scale military invasion in 1991 – followed by an (unnecessary and botched) occupation in 2003. No doubt, occupying Iran would solve the problem of its nuclear program. Anybody up for that?
“Former CIA Chief: Obama’s War on Terror Same as Bush’s, But With More Killing”: Wired reports that Michael Hayden has offered words of praise for President Obama’s counterterrorism agenda after initially criticizing the POTUS’s early comments against programs Hayden helped formulate under George W. Bush, such as the use of “enhanced interrogation” techniques and domestic wiretapping:
“But let me repeat my hypothesis: Despite the frequent drama at the political level, America and Americans have found a comfortable center line in what it is they want their government to do and what it is they accept their government doing. It is that practical consensus that has fostered such powerful continuity between two vastly different presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, when it comes, when it comes to this conflict,” Hayden said Friday while speaking at the University of Michigan.
….
But Hayden, in a nearly 80-minute lecture posted on C-Span, said Obama came to embrace Bush’s positions. Both Bush and Obama said the country was at war. The enemy was al-Qaida. The war was global in nature. And the United States would have to take the fight to the enemy, wherever it may be, he said.
“The Deafness Before the Storm”: Vanity Fair’s Kurt Eichenwald delivers a bombshell report in the New York Times on the 11th anniversary of the September 11th attacks arguing that the Bush Administration had received multiple warnings prior to August 2001 from the CIA about Osama bin Laden’s intent and capabilities to attack US targets. According to Eichenwald, the White House dismissed the agency’s sources as agents “in” on a maskirovka directed by both Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden:
But some in the administration considered the warning to be just bluster. An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat. Intelligence officials, these sources said, protested that the idea of Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist, conspiring with Mr. Hussein, an Iraqi secularist, was ridiculous, but the neoconservatives’ suspicions were nevertheless carrying the day.
…
“The U.S. is not the target of a disinformation campaign by Usama Bin Laden,” the daily brief of June 29 read, using the government’s transliteration of Bin Laden’s first name. Going on for more than a page, the document recited much of the evidence, including an interview that month with a Middle Eastern journalist in which Bin Laden aides warned of a coming attack, as well as competitive pressures that the terrorist leader was feeling, given the number of Islamists being recruited for the separatist Russian region of Chechnya.
“Iraqi Spokesman: Al-Hashemi Is ‘Connected Directly’ To Terrorists”: Al-Monitor interviews Iraqi Government spokesman Ali Aldabbagh on the in absentia death sentence against the country’s Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi and the ongoing oil revenues dispute between Baghdad and the Kurdish north. The wide-ranging interview also touched on Iran-Iraq relations, including an oblique reference to reports that the US is pressuring Iraq to do more to undermine Iranian assistance to the Syrian regime:
]]>Al-Monitor: The US has asked Iraq to inspect Iranian planes flying to Syria to prevent arms and material from reaching the Syrian government. Is this a reasonable request? Will the government of Iraq consider doing so?
Aldabbagh: The US never asked [us] to do so, but it is our commitment not to allow the flow of arms or fighters to both parties in Syria. We had informed the Iranians that Iraq will never [allow the] use [of] its airspace to do so. Iraq is ready to be part of international efforts to stop any arms to Syria. We protect our borders from [allowing the flow of] any equipment or fighters to or from Syria. Iraq is totally committed to these principles. The US had satisfied with Iraq measures toward Syria.
Al-Monitor: How do you assess Iraq-Iran relations? Does your relationship with Iran complicate your ties with the United States, as in the case of Syria?
Aldabbagh: Never, on the contrary. The US understands that Iraq should maintain good relations with Iran, as we [have] been mediating between them. Even with the Syrians, we differ on some issues with US, while we agree and have the same ideas on some Syrian aspects. Such differences never affect our relations — the US respects Iraq sovergnity [sic] in building relations with others.
News and views relevant to US foreign policy for Sept. 10
“The Interview: Zbigniew Brzezinski”: An interview with former US Secretary of State Zbigniew Brzezinski in the Tokyo-based publication the Diplomat includes Brzezinski’s thoughts on Iran and the Arab Spring:
Q: You have long advocated negotiating seriously with Iran, something the [...]]]>
News and views relevant to US foreign policy for Sept. 10
“The Interview: Zbigniew Brzezinski”: An interview with former US Secretary of State Zbigniew Brzezinski in the Tokyo-based publication the Diplomat includes Brzezinski’s thoughts on Iran and the Arab Spring:
Q: You have long advocated negotiating seriously with Iran, something the Obama administration at least came into office intent on doing. Before talks got underway, however, street protests broke out in Tehran following the 2009 Presidential election. While the administration claimed this came as a complete shock to them, I imagine it was less so for you given that in 2007 you stated that Iran “is a country that may be confronting serious internal problems once Iranians don’t feel that the outside world, and particularly the United States, is subjecting them to a siege.” You also have personal experience with handling street demonstrations in Tehran. How did the Obama administration do in responding to the 2009 Iran protests in your opinion? What about the uprising that latter swept through much of the Arab world?
A: I do not feel that the United States had much freedom of action insofar as a response to the upheavals in Iran and more generally in the Middle East is concerned. These processes are inherently connected with social change within the region, and especially so in regards to the phenomenon of massive political awakening of their younger populations. The rhetoric that is used in that connection by many of the spokesmen involved in the upheavals tends to be democratic, but democracy is not necessarily the real object of mass political aspirations. The aspirations are rooted in historical resentments, social discrimination, financial envy, and sheer frustration. The result tends to be assertive populism which is not to be confused with imminent institutionalization of democratic processes.
“Saudi Arabia May Become Oil Importer by 2030, Citigroup Says”: A research report from Citigroup this week projected that at present domestic consumption rates, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will become a net importer of oil by 2030:
Oil and its derivatives are used for about half of the kingdom’s electricity production, which at peak rates is growing at about 8 percent a year, the bank said today in a an e-mailed report. A quarter of the country’s fuel production is used domestically, more per capita than other industrialized nations, as the cost is subsidized, according to the note.
“If Saudi Arabian oil consumption grows in line with peak power demand, the country could be a net oil importer by 2030,” Heidy Rehman, an analyst at the bank, wrote. The country already consumes all its natural-gas production and plans to develop nuclear power, which pose execution risk amid a lack of available experts, safety issues and cost overruns, Rehman said.
Last year the Guardian reported that a handful of Aramco executives had confided to US and Saudi officials that “the kingdom’s crude oil reserves may have been overstated by as much as 300bn barrels – nearly 40%” in recent years.
“France gives Syria “liberated zones” aid, mulls weapons – source”: Moving ahead of Turkey, the UK and the US, Reuters reports that France, one of the more enthusiastic voices in support of Syrian rebels — “has started helping rebel-held parts of Syria so these “liberated zones” can run themselves and is considering the possibility of supplying heavy artillery to protect them from government attacks.”
According to Reuters:
Paris said last week it had identified areas in the north, south and east that had escaped President Bashar al-Assad’s control, creating a chance for local communities to govern themselves without residents feeling they had to flee Syria.
“In zones where the regime has lost control, such as Tal Rifaat (40 km north of Aleppo), which has been free five months, local revolutionary councils have been set up to help the population and put in place an administration for these towns so as to avoid chaos like in Iraq when the regime pulls back,” the source said.
The source said France, which last week promised an extra 5 million euros ($6.25 million) to help Syrians, had started giving aid and money on Friday to five local authorities from three provinces – Deir al-Zor, Aleppo and Idlib. The areas are home to about 700,000 people.
Additional British and US humanitarian and communications aid has also been promised in the past few weeks. The Syrian government has complained that this aid is going to jihadist groups, the New York Times reports, also citing a report in Reuters in which the director of Doctors Without Borders claimed to have encountered many anti-Assad foreign fighters in Aleppo.
Supporters of the rebels, including unnamed US officials speaking to the Telegraph, have countered that all aid recipients have been carefully vetted for links to jihadist organizations.
“Bridging the U.S.-Israeli gap on Iran”: The Washington Post’s editorial board weighs in on the Democrat party controversy over whether or not to include language on Jerusalem in the 2012 party platform. The editors mainly focused on “the differences between Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu over the urgency of considering military action against Iran.” The Post urges the administration to redress “the bizarre spectacle of senior U.S. military and diplomatic officials focusing their time and attention on trying to prevent an Israeli attack rather than an Iranian bomb” and publicly state that all options, and specifically military actions, are on the table:
]]>Certainly there would be dangers to a more explicit presidential statement, including that the United States would start down a slippery slope toward war. But if Mr. Obama really is determined to take military action if Iran takes decisive steps toward producing a bomb, such as enriching uranium to bomb-grade levels or expelling inspectors, he would be wise to say so publicly. Doing so would improve relations with Mr. Netanyahu and deter unilateral Israeli action — and it might well convince Iran that the time has come to compromise.
During the weekend Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his demand that the “international community (read the Obama administration) establish clear “red lines” for Iran’s nuclear program. Then we were told that President Obama was “poised to announce the ‘red lines’ that would trigger a US attack [...]]]>
During the weekend Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his demand that the “international community (read the Obama administration) establish clear “red lines” for Iran’s nuclear program. Then we were told that President Obama was “poised to announce the ‘red lines’ that would trigger a US attack on Iran“. Yet speaking with Bloomberg in Russia on September 9, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton not only refused to set a new red line (the current one being Iranian acquisition of a nuclear weapon), she also insisted that the US remains committed to pursuing diplomacy with Iran through sanctions at this time:
]]>QUESTION: On Iran, nuclear negotiations have ground to a halt despite increasing noises out of Israel about a possible preemptive military strike. The EU is now talking about new sanctions. What’s the game-changer here? Does the U.S. need to state more explicit redlines to persuade Iran to take the deal that was offered and to reassure Israel to hold off from a military strike?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think we’ve maintained a steady course of our two-pronged policy. We have always said every option was on the table, but we believe in the negotiation, the diplomatic effort through the P-5+1, but also pressure. And we are working to increase that pressure. The sanctions, we know, are having an effect. The efforts that the P-5+1 have made to pin Iran down on what exactly they are willing to do are still underway, and we will be having some meetings in the next month in New York and elsewhere to take stock of where we are. So I think it’s a very challenging effort to get them to move in a way that complies with their international obligations, but we believe that is still, by far, the best approach to take at this time.
QUESTION: Is there a deadline?
SECRETARY CLINTON: We’re not setting deadlines. We’re watching very carefully about what they do, because it’s always been more about their actions and their words.
QUESTION: Right. The Israelis, of course, have their own timeline and their own deadlines in their mind. What are the latest that you’re hearing from them privately beyond what’s coming out in the media about their willingness to wait for negotiations to have time to work?
SECRETARY CLINTON: I don’t think that there’s any difference in their public and their private concerns. I mean, they feel that it would be an existential threat if Iran were a nuclear-weaponized state. And no nation can abdicate their self-defense if they feel that they’re facing such a threat.
Our message has been very clear, and the Israelis have supported us through the last three and a half years, that we had to unite the international community, we had to put the most intensive sanctions we could possibly get, both through the international community and then unilateral by the United States, by the Europeans, and others. And they really have recognized, in all of our conversations, that these sanctions are making a difference. They’re more anxious about a quick response because they feel that they’re right in the bull’s eye, so to speak, if this doesn’t end up changing Iranian behavior and their nuclear weapons program. But we’re convinced that we have more time to focus on these sanctions, to do everything we can to bring Iran to a good faith negotiation.
The interview can be listened to here:
Audio clip: [...]]]>
The interview can be listened to here: