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Obama: No green light for Israel to attack Iran

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Message: If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/38522/full/38522/obama-no-green-light-for-israel-to-attack-iran/ Obama: No green light for Israel to attack Iran Thursday, July 9, 2009 | by j. wire reports jerusalem | After getting mixed messages this week from the Obama administration on whether it could attack Iran, Israel was told no by the president. Over the weekend, Vice President Joe Biden appeared to give a green light when he said that Israel has a “sovereign right” to make its own decisions. But after 48 hours of fevered speculation, President Barak Obama said emphatically that it was “absolutely not” a green light during a CNN interview. <div class="capDivLeft" style="width: 216px;"><img alt="USjta biden" class="left" height="249" src="http://jweekly.com/images/uploads/z_photos_2009/x07_10_09/USjta biden.jpg" title="Vice President Joe Biden photo/ap/charlie riedel" width="216" /> <div class="caption">Vice President Joe Biden photo/ap/charlie riedel</div> </div> “We have said directly to the Israelis that it is important to try and resolve this in an international setting in a way that does not create major conflict in the Middle East,” Obama said on July 7, referring to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “I think Vice President Biden stated a categorical fact, which is we can’t dictate to other countries what their security interests are. What is also true is that it is the policy of the United States to resolve the issue of Iran’s nuclear capabilities in a peaceful way through diplomatic channels,” he said. The confusion began when Biden, appearing July 5 on ABC’s “This Week” said the United States would not stand in the way if Israel decided to take out Iran’s nuclear program. “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,” he said. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly, however, denied that the vice president was giving Israel American approval for an attack on Iran. “I certainly would not want to give a green light to any kind of military action,” Kelly said. The Washington Times reported July 7 that neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his top deputies had formally asked for U.S. aid or for permission for a possible military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, reportedly because they feared the White House would not approve. The report quoted two unnamed Israeli officials. An anonymous senior Israeli official was cited by the Times as saying that Netanyahu felt “it made no sense” to press the matter after the negative response former President George W. Bush gave former prime minister Ehud Olmert, when he asked early last year for U.S. help in a possible military strikes on Iran. Israel is unlikely to attack Iran without at least tacit U.S. approval, in part because it would require U.S. cooperation. At the very least, Israel would most likely have to fly over Iraqi airspace, which is controlled by the U.S. Air Force. However, a July 5 Times report claimed that talks conducted by Mossad head Meir Dagan resulted in Saudi Arabia agreeing to let Israeli air force jets fly over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Meanwhile, the Conference of Pres-idents of Major American Jewish Organizations announced this week it plans to push for major rallies in September to press for sanctions against Iran. The push will be coordinated to assist efforts by AIPAC to nudge toughened sanctions legislation through Congress in September. The plans are for a massive Washington Day on Sept. 10 that would include meetings at the White House and in Congress, and for a mass rally in New York on Sept. 24 to protest Mahmoud Ahmadine-jad’s speech before the U.N. General Assembly. The clearest sign of the renewed assertiveness was a series of statements by senior U.S. officials culminating in a speech July 7 by Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The United States still prefers diplomacy, he said, “but with all options on the table, including, certainly, military options.” Explicitly invoking “military options” is rare, especially by the top U.S. soldier, although Mullen insisted he had done so in the past. Moreover, Mullen suggested that for the first time Israel and the United States were closer than ever on when exactly Iran’s nuclear program becomes intolerable. Mullen noted that he consulted closely on the matter with Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the Israeli military chief of staff. The dire warnings did not come out of the blue: Mullen made a number of public appearances this week, speaking on the Iran issue. He enumerated several reasons why the United States was still committed to diplomacy and wary of confrontation — “the vulnerabilities of regional countries that are friends of ours.” Does a strike, he asked, “get contained or does it expand response in other parts of the world?” Mullen said the very fluidity of the situation gave him pause. “We’re not very good at predicting what’s going to happen, where it’s going to happen,” he said. “And not just we — lots of countries in the world.” JTA and the Jerusalem Post contributed to this report.

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