Obama discredits Iran 'green light' By Jim Lobe and Ali Gharib
WASHINGTON - Seeking to end speculation about whether his administration had
eased its opposition to an Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear
facilities, United States President Barack Obama on Tuesday insisted that
Washington's position remained unchanged.
When asked in an interview from Moscow, where he has been meeting with top
Russian leaders, Obama strongly denied that his administration had given a
"green light" to Israel to carry out such an attack.
"Absolutely not," Obama replied. "And I think it's very important that I'm as
clear as I can be, and our administration is as consistent as we can be on this
issue."
His denial came amid growing confusion here since Sunday when
Vice President Joe Biden told a Sunday news show that Israel, as a "sovereign
nation", could determine for itself how to deal with the threats allegedly
posed by Iran's nuclear program.
"[W]e cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do
when they make a determination, if they make a determination that they're
existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country,"
Biden told host George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week.
Biden's statement - which contrasted sharply with his warning three months ago
that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be "ill advised" to carry
out an attack on Iran - resulted in a sharp spike in speculation that the
administration had hardened its position against Iran, particularly in the wake
of the last month's elections there and the crackdown against the opposition
that followed it.
A number of neo-conservatives and other hawks have been pointing to the
disputed re-election of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and the subsequent violent
repression of protestors as additional reasons why it made no sense for Obama
to pursue his engagement strategy with Tehran.
"[W]ith no other timely option, the already compelling logic for an Israeli
strike is nearly inexorable," wrote American Enterprise Institute fellow John
Bolton in last Thursday's Washington Post. "Israel is undoubtedly ratcheting
forward its decision-making process. President Obama is almost certainly not.
He still wants 'engagement' (a particularly evocative term now) with Iran's
current regime."
In addition to the repression in Iran, last month's move by a prominent Iran
hawk, Dennis Ross, from the State Department to a senior position in the White
House overseeing policy in North Africa, the Middle East and the Gulf added to
speculation that the administration was leaning toward a more confrontational
policy.
Before joining the administration, Ross had signed on to reports that not only
called for increasing coordination between Israel and the US on Iran policy,
but for using the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran as leverage in a
negotiating process.
In a book released this year, co-authored with Washington Institute for Near
East Policy's David Makovksy, Ross writes that a "hybrid approach" of
engagement and pressure will allow the US to engage at low costs. The
Washington Post's Glenn Kessler paraphrases Ross and Makovsky's argument by
noting that "the 'hard choices' of stern deterrence or military strikes on Iran
would gain greater worldwide acceptance if diplomacy were tried first".
Moreover, a weekend report by London's Sunday Times that Israel had secured
Saudi Arabia's approval to overfly its airspace in an attack on Iran - a report
that was "categorically" denied by the Saudi government on Monday - also added
to the notion that Washington's policy had taken a sudden turn.
It was in this context that Biden's interview drew particular interest.
Asked whether he approved of Netanyahu's "tak[ing] matters into his own hands",
Biden seemed to suggest that the US would not attempt to dissuade Israel from
taking unilateral action.
"Look, Israel can determine for itself - it's a sovereign nation - what's in
their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else,"
said Biden.
While some analysts insisted that Biden's statements did not constitute a
change in policy, others insisted that his failure to state explicitly that
Washington would oppose an attack, as the vice president had done last April,
suggested neutrality at best.
Moreover, according to some analysts, so long as his remarks did not at least
imply that Washington opposed such an action, it would likely be understood in
Iran as a "green light" with the likely result that hard-liners within the
regime would use it to rally elite and popular opinion and thus strengthen
their position at a moment when they were under unprecedented domestic pressure
due to the election.
"Dangling the threat of Israeli military action over Iran is more likely to
trigger nasty unintended consequences than to help stabilize the Middle East.
And when it comes to the question of an Israeli air strike, Obama can profess
neither neutrality nor powerlessness," wrote Time.com senior editor Tony Karon
on his personal blog, calling for Obama to say "loudly and clearly not only
that it opposes any attack on Iran by Israel, but also that it will do whatever
is in its power to prevent such an attack".
That consideration may have played a role in Obama's decision to halt any
further speculation about the hardening of the administration's position on
Tuesday, even at the risk of embarrassing his vice president.
"I think Vice President Biden stated a categorical fact which is we can't
dictate to other countries what their security interests are," Obama said in
Moscow. "What is also true is that it is the policy of the United States to try
to resolve the issue of Iran's nuclear capabilities in a peaceful way through
diplomatic channels."
"I as the commander in chief preserve the right to take whatever actions are
necessary to protect the United States. But we are committed to a peaceful
resolution to this conflict and I think it is still possible, but ultimately if
we present an opportunity to the Iranians at some point, they've got to seize
that opportunity," he said.
While his statement may indeed succeed in quashing further speculation about a
major change in US policy, it's not yet clear how it will be received - and
used - by hardline factions in Iran, or, for that matter, in Israel.
Netanyahu has made little secret of his hopes that Obama will set a definite
deadline - as early as September - for diplomatic efforts to engage Iran on its
nuclear program to bear fruit before taking punitive measures. Obama, on the
other hand, has until now resisted such pressure, suggesting that he will
decide early next year whether the diplomatic route is likely to yield
substantial progress in limiting Tehran's nuclear program.
On Tuesday in the Washington Times, Eli Lake wrote that two Israeli officials
told him that the Israeli government had not even asked Washington for a "green
light".
Last year, then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert reportedly requested
equipment, including US-made bunker-buster bombs, to carry out an attack
against Iranian facilities. According to the New York Times, the request was
rejected by then-president George W Bush (2001-2009), who feared reprisals
again US forces and interests in Iraq and elsewhere.
Speaking at the same time as Biden, the top US military official, Joint Chiefs
chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, said that "any strike on Iran ... could be very
destabilizing".
Most analysts here believe the ongoing political crisis inside Iran could
further delay the engagement process, although some believe that the regime's
post-election weakness could make it more amenable to compromise.
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