Israel's time frame to attack Iran "growing shorter": Report

Israel's time frame to attack Iran "growing shorter": Report

Press Trust of India
Thursday, March 05, 2009, (Jerusalem)


Israel's time-frame for a military action against Iran to foil its nuclear ambition is "growing shorter" due to advances made by Tehran in acquiring atomic technology and missiles from Russia, a report said.

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) report, "Preventing a Cascade of Instability", explains Israel's growing impatience with Tehran's efforts to acquire air defences and also dispersal of its nuclear installations to additional locations, The Jerusalem Post reported.

"It's (Israel) quite serious in acting on its own about a nuclear-armed Iran," former US ambassador to the UN Nancy Soderberg, one of the task force members said on Wednesday on the report's release.

Soderberg noted that the timetable for an Israeli attack might be "significantly" moved up if Jerusalem believed Russia was going to make good on its pledge to supply Iran with the S-300 surface-to-air missile system, which would greatly complicate any Israeli attack.

In order to maintain Israel's military edge in the region the report recommends supply of more arms to the Jewish state, such as more modern aircrafts, if the Russian delivery does occur.

The study stresses the importance of having a united global front and pushes for intensified diplomacy with Russia to both make sanctions more effective and to persuade Moscow not to deliver the S-300 system.

The US think tank also argues that international sanctions against Iran need to be intensified urgently for the engagement the Obama administration is planning with the Islamic Republic to be effective.

Even if engagement, sanctions and other measures prove ineffective, the report warns against sanctioning a "fallback" policy where Iran is allowed to have some, even if limited, capacity to enrich uranium in its territory.

"Iran's having a latent capability to quickly make nuclear weapons could lead to much the same risk of cascading instability as an Iran with an actual weapon," it says pointing to the risk for nuclear proliferation, Iranian regional hegemony and more.

The report recommends increasing security guarantees and supply of missile defences and other protective measures to US allies in the Middle East, both to reassure them of Washington's commitment to them and to dampen the perceived effectiveness and appeal of nuclear weapons for Iran.

However the authors of the report, several of whom met with high-level Israeli officials to assess their perspective, note that Jerusalem is not interested in becoming part of an American nuclear umbrella, even as Gulf countries want more assurances on that front.

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