Actions, not Words, Will Be Proof of Iran's Intent

Yesterday we reviewed the American-Iranian initiative to restart negotiations on Iran's nuclear enrichment program from their points of view. But there is a uniquely critical third party to any US-Iran negotiation - Israel. While the Obama administration works out how to respond to overtures from Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, President Obama must reassure Israeli officials that sanctions on Teheran will not be eased unless it first takes tangible steps to limit its nuclear program. Private discussions taking place both in Washington and Israel are meant to calm Israelis' fears that the United States is moving prematurely toward rapprochement with Iran at a time when Iran is already questioning US resolve to keep open the threat of military action. The latest public comments from senior Israeli officials suggest that the White House faces an uphill struggle to overcome those misgivings. The American effort to reassure Israel comes as Iranian President Rouhani, who has launched a massive PR barrage toward the United States, in advance of his trip to New York for his debut address at the United Nations next Tuesday. French President Hollande has already indicated that he will meet Rouhani in the wings of the General Assembly annual meeting. It remains to be seen which, if any, US diplomat will do the same. Most US experts say that it would be a bad idea for Obama and Rouhani to meet at this stage. Meanwhile, Israel has dismissed overtures to the West by Rouhani, and his pledge in an interview on US television that Iran would never develop nuclear weapons. "One must not be fooled by the Iranian president's fraudulent words," Netanyahu's office said in a statement on Thursday. "The Iranians are spinning in the media so that the centrifuges can keep on spinning." Both Israel and the United States have in the past warned of possible military action to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran if sanctions and diplomacy fail to curb its atomic program. But Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said a phrase used often in the past by US and Israeli leaders - that "all options are on the table" in confronting Iran - was not enough to persuade Teheran to stop its uranium enrichment." Steinitz said that three US aircraft carriers off the eastern Mediterranean coast would have led to a different response from Iran. In Washington, a leading pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, issued a memo on Friday supportive of Mr. Netanyahu’s plan. It added that Iran must allow inspectors into a military plant at Parchin where, it said, Iran tests explosives. “Pleasant rhetoric will not suffice,” the group said. “If Iran fails to act, sanctions must be increased.” And Steinitz said in an interview published in Israel Friday that the Iranians are six months away from developing a bomb, and that “there is no more time to hold negotiations.” Dore Gold, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and a former Netanyahu aide, said : "It’s certainly different perspectives looking at the same picture....Israel is clearly focused on Iranian action, and the messages in Washington seem more hopeful about Iranian intentions.” This position is echoed by many Israeli leaders and analysts, who see Mr Obama’s zigzag response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons as a bad omen for his resolve in stopping Iran. Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the United States, said there was a contradiction in many of Rouhani's statements : "He's saying, 'We've never wanted a nuclear weapon, we'll never produce a nuclear weapon,' '' Oren said. ''But then he says, 'Time is running out for a negotiated solution.' '' Emily Landau of the Institute for Nationa Security Studies at Tel Aviv University said she saw ''no indication of any willingness to reverse course on the nuclear front,'' citing 1,000 recently installed centrifuges and Mr. Rouhani's refusal to consider suspending uranium enrichment. But Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-Israel lecturer at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, said Friday that there was a chance Mr. Rouhani was promising real change. Mr. Netanyahu did not limit his criticism of Rouhani to the nuclear issue. He also addressed Mr. Rouhani's ducking of a question about whether he, like his predecessor, believes the Holocaust was a myth. Mr. Rouhani answered, ''I'm not an historian; I'm a politician.'' Mr. Netanyahu's reponse : ''It does not take an historian to recognize the existence of the Holocaust -- it just requires being a human being.'' ~~~~~ Dear readers, to repeat what I wrote yesterday, the US must have a clear set of goals in dealing with Iran. Both Iran and Israel have well-defined goals. Iran wants the crippling international sanctions against it lifted, and it wants its nuclear program to be internationally accepted as being for peaceful purposes. Israel wants all threats of a devastating nuclear strike from Iran eliminated and is not willing to accept anything short of regular international inspections of all Iran's nuclear facilities as a success. Israel wants actions from Iran, not mere words. The problem, as has been consistently the case with Obama diplomatic forays into the Middle East cauldron, it that he mistakes words for actions. Words serve to begin negotiations. Actions serve to end them. It would be not only a grave strategic error to mistake Iranian words for acts. It would be an act of treachery against Israel. That must never happen.