Israel center stage as U.S. builds coalition against Iran

09:38, February 17, 2010
Just days after Iran announced to the world it would commence greater enrichment of uranium, the international community is focusing anew on Iran's nuclear program.

The United States appears to be seeking an international coalition that will place sufficient diplomatic pressure on Tehran to make it think twice about its nuclear activities, said Israeli analysts.

As this coalition is being built, Washington has deemed it necessary to seemingly calm nerves in Israel with two top officials making the trip to the Middle East this month and next.

Deemed by analysts as another effort in the coalition building exercise, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Moscow this week for talks with leading Russian officials in a bid to persuade them not to sell Iran an S-300 surface to air missile system, which could foil any attempt to airstrike its nuclear facilities.

ISRAEL IN FOCUS

When U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen met Israeli journalists on Sunday, their questions focused on the Iran issue. Clearly in town to calm Israeli nerves, at least in part, Mullen said there was no way Iran would be allowed to possess nuclear weapons.

For years, the United States, Israel and some other countries have been accusing Iran of enriching uranium to make a nuclear bomb, while Tehran denied the accusation, saying it has the right to pursue its nuclear program for peaceful use.

Mullen's visit to Israeli military headquarters at this highly sensitive time was not overlooked in Tehran.

"Netanyahu, Clinton, Mullen waging Iranophobia campaign," read a headline on the Iranian al Alam news website on Monday.

As if to keep Israel at the center of attention, Mullen's visit will be followed up next month by the arrival in Israel of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.

The Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported that U.S. President Barack Obama was dispatching his second in command "to try to calm the situation."

In the opinion of Ephraim Asculai, a senior researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, this approach of ensuring that Israel does not attack Iran by sending in the big guns has a negative side effect. Instead of keeping the Israelis out of the limelight, the Obama administration is putting Israel at the focus of global attention, said Asculai.

"It's not too healthy when Israel is at the center of things. This is the world's problem, not Israel's," Asculai told Xinhua.

Partially agreed with Asculai, Meir Javedanfar with the Middle East Economic and Political Analysis, a company that examines events within the region, added another slide. "It is best to keep Israel on a low profile. But Iran has been able to isolate itself in the region recently, and that allows Israel to play a bigger part," said Javedanfar.

Asculai maintained Washington was forced to send Mullen and Biden to Israel because Obama has not been strong enough in fighting Iran on the diplomatic front. Israel has only felt the need to flex its muscles as the administration has not pushed hard enough, he said.

CARROT AND STICK

However, Asculai argued there is more to the visit than a mere pat on the shoulder for the Israelis. This is also a warning to Tehran.

"They are coming to relax Israel and to say to Iran 'listen, Israel is not alone,' but I don't think anyone outside of the talks knows precisely how much it is the calming and how much the warning," Asculai said.

In the eyes of Israeli analysts, the visit this week by U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to Qatar, where she met Arab leaders, is also part of the stick in America's carrot and stick diplomacy towards Iran.

"I wouldn't use the word 'attack' but this is part of the same activity in which the Americans want to show that there is a problem, because the Americans have come to the conclusion that negotiating with the Iranians around a table seemingly won't work, " said Asculai.

Both the Clinton visit to Qatar and the American diplomatic missions to Israel are part of the coalition building exercise, Javedanfar told Xinhua. In his opinion, Netanyahu's trip to Moscow this week was part of the same effort.

TRIP IN MOSCOW

If the Israelis could persuade Russia not to supply Iran with the S-300s, it would go a long way to show that the international community is united in its opposition to Iranian's nuclear program, the analysts suggested.

After the meeting between Netanyahu and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday, Israeli officials expressed a certain degree of satisfaction, according to sources in Israeli delegation to Russia.

Though Russia did not promise any move, but the Israelis had an impression that "it is going towards a positive way," a source, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, told Xinhua on Tuesday.

During the meeting in Moscow, the host told reporters the relationship between the countries was not ordinary but "special," the word the U.S. uses to describe its bond with the Jewish state.

Netanyahu hopes this elevated status will help Moscow to think twice before agreeing to any arms deal with Tehran.

With the world still differing in how to deal with the new developments of Iran issue, the U.S. is anxious to pull together as broad a coalition as possible to "attack" Iran diplomatically, especially by sidestepping the Security Council, the analysts suggested.

Source: Xinhua

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