This week we saw two diametrically opposed approaches to Iran between the U.S. and Israel.
In Israel, the Jerusalem Post reported “Israel is seriously considering taking unilateral military action to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, according to a report by top US political figures and experts released Wednesday.”
On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the U.S. will invite Iran to a regional conference scheduled for the end of March. Clinton told reporters: “If we move forward with such a meeting, it is expected that Iran would be invited as a neighbor of Afghanistan.”
Clinton added, "Our task is to dissuade them, deter them and prevent from acquiring a nuclear weapon."
The diplomatic tack by the Obama administration marks a huge shift from the Bush administration.
The military option and the diplomatic track are two ways to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. According to John Bolton, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, if Iran gets nuclear weapons, the power-shift in the region will be “fundamental, calamitous, and irreversible.”
Bolton expressed his views in an interview online at http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=MTM0OGUyMzQxYzFmYjM1YzYxNDJlNDM0ODNjNTZkNTQ=
In the interview Bolton warned the diplomatic track could dangerously miscalculate Iran’s nuclear progress:
“If you think that Iran is a year and a half away from nuclear weapons and that means you have a year and a half more of diplomacy. If you’re wrong is that estimate, you lose the possibility (of a military strike).”
He added that the military option is shrinking:
“The military option for Israel or for the United States is declining. Iran is getting more sophisticated defense weapons. They are certainly dispersing their exiting nuclear facilities, hardening them. Making it harder to go military.”
The major question facing the Israeli government in the making by Benjamin Netanyahu will be what – if anything – it will do about Iran’s nuclear program. Bolton thinks if history is a barometer, they will:
“I think it’s up to Israel and I think they demonstrated in the past when they saw an existential threat they bombed the (Iraqi) Osirak reactor outside Baghdad in 1991.”
Whether Israel will strike Iran remains to be seen but it’s certain that Israel, the Middle East and the world will not be the same if Israel strikes Iran militarily or if Iran gets nuclear weapons.