The Israeli-Sunni Coalition Against Iran
Is there a quiet coalition among the Gulf states and Israel to thwart a possible thaw in US-Europe-Iran ties?
"What Iran wants is to reach Japan or Germany's capability," a high-ranking Israeli diplomatic official who is actively involved in Israel's most sensitive decision-making told me earlier this week. I asked him to elaborate.
"Japan and Germany can assemble a nuclear bomb. They have the scientific, technical and logistical infrastructure. They're not interested in that. But if they were, they would need five to seven weeks to do it, were such a decision made. That's where Iran wants to be, and that's where it is going to be very shortly, unless the West comes around and understands that it is playing for time."
This is the essence of the current Israeli posture vis-a-vis the burgeoning "Iranian Spring." When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe “Bogie” Ya'alon and Knesset member Avigdor Liberman look out the window, what they see is not spring but fall.
"The hardest thing to do," the senior official told me, "is to enrich uranium to a 3% grade. The initial enrichment — from zero to three — is the hardest phase. Later in the process, enriching it to 20% is relatively easy. It's a function of centrifuges and time. And that's why Iran should not be allowed to enrich uranium on its soil, even if it is the so-called low-grade enrichment. Iran doesn't have an ‘inherent right’; there is no such legal or international concept. The pressure must not be let up until the Iranians understand that they have to forego enrichment."
