Quotes of the day

“Six months after the revelation of a secret nuclear enrichment site in Iran, international inspectors and Western intelligence agencies say they suspect that Tehran is preparing to build more sites in defiance of United Nations demands…

“The most compelling circumstantial evidence, people familiar with the inspectors’ view say, is that while Iran appears to be making new equipment to enrich uranium, that equipment is not showing up in the main plant that inspectors visit regularly. Nor is it at the Natanz site in the Iranian desert, or the new facility at Qum, which inspectors now visit periodically…

“If Iran is indeed making plans to build new facilities, it would be in violation of its agreement with the I. A. E. A. In reports and interviews, inspectors have said they received no notice of new Iranian preparatory activity, even though Tehran once agreed to provide such information.”

***
“We are not used to seeing the US probed and prodded for weakness in this way. The administration talks of embracing a multipolar world and ‘resetting’ relations with certain countries after a disastrous loss of respect in the Bush years, but it has very little to show for it so far. Mr Obama’s famous open hand of diplomacy has been met not so much by a clenched fist, as by a thumb placed on the end of the nose, and waggling fingers…

“As the [Iranian] protests spread [last summer], Mr Obama was faced with the dilemma that if he backed a new revolution, he could be made by the Iranian regime to look like an imperialist interloper. If he did not, the regime would win.

“The result has been to leave Mr Obama looking weak among his key Gulf allies – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other, smaller sheikhdoms, which fear Iran as much as Israel does. They would like the President to devise a tougher strategy that solves the crisis without a military intervention by Israel. That, though, is viewed in the Gulf as increasingly unlikely.”

***
“By my reading, Bibi is in a very bad place right now. His options are either 1) total public humiliation and agreement to demands that could topple his government, followed by a diplomatic process that would force potentially lethal concessions on Israel, or 2) the U.S. preventing him from attacking Iran and removing the diplomatic shield that protects Israel from the deranged anti-Semitism of Europe and the Middle East (two increasingly indistinguishable regions).

“There is a third scenario: Israel completely reshuffles the deck by attacking Iran.”

***
1. ISRAEL ATTACKS

“Without telling the U.S. in advance, Israel strikes at six of Iran’s most critical nuclear facilities, using a refueling base hastily set up in the Saudi Arabian desert without Saudi knowledge. (It is unclear to the Iranians if the Saudis were active participants or not.)

“Already-tense relations between the White House and Israel worsen rapidly, but the lack of advance notice allows Washington to say truthfully that it had not condoned the attack.

2. U.S. STEPS IN

“In a series of angry exchanges, the U.S. demands that Israel cease its attacks, though some in Washington view the moment as an opportunity to further weaken the Iranian government, particularly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“Telling Israel it has made a mess, Washington essentially instructs the country to sit in a corner while the United States tries to clean things up.”

3. U.S. SENDS WEAPONS

“Even while calling for restraint on all sides, the U.S. deploys more Patriot antimissile batteries and Aegis cruisers around the region, as a warning to Iran not to retaliate. Even so, some White House advisers warn against being sucked into the conflict, believing that Israel’s real strategy is to lure America into finishing the job with additional attacks on the damaged Iranian facilities.”