Jim Hoagland says that Israel thinks Iran is close -- very close -- to developing nuclear weapons, and that Israel may choose to act on its own if the U.S. strategy of containment doesn't show progress. There is urgency here... but it's mostly behind-the-scenes. Something has to work before Iran's plan is operational.
A grim warning from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to President Bush that Iran is much closer to producing nuclear weapons than U.S. intelligence believes has triggered concern here that Israel is seriously considering a preemptive strike against Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor.Sharon's description of the unacceptable risks of Iran's being able to launch "a nuclear holocaust" comes just as the Bush administration is making headway in constructing a diplomatic containment strategy for the nuclear weapons programs of Iran and North Korea. Unilateral Israeli action against Iran would destroy this strategy and gravely complicate Bush's reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan as well.
Bush's frequently warring senior policymakers have reached a consensus (now there's news) in recent weeks that the United States has no attractive military options in Iran or North Korea. Instead, Washington must work with its allies to impede these rogue efforts to create nuclear arsenals.
But Sharon's presentation to Bush challenges the assumptions and viability of the emerging U.S. nonproliferation strategy on Iran. U.S. intelligence estimates that put Iran's covert nuclear weapons drive about four years short of being able to turn plutonium into a workable nuclear warhead overstate the time factor by at least 100 percent, Sharon argued. One to two years is his projected timeline.
Posted by Alan at August 13, 2003 12:03 PM