Disagreements have bubbled to the surface beween Israel’s Prime Minister and a UN nuclear watchdog agency on the degree of the threat posed today by Iran:
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned Wednesday that Iran is nearing a “point of no return” in developing a nuclear weapon that could be used against his country.
In a CNN interview, Sharon said Iran was years away from possessing a nuclear weapon — but could be just months away from overcoming “technical problems” in building one.
“The point of no return depends upon the ability of the Iranians to solve some technical issues, and once they solve it, I think that will be the point of no return,” he said.
Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has said the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency has no hard evidence Iran is building a bomb.
Sharon was asked if Israel had such evidence.
“We have evidence that Iran makes every effort to possess nuclear weapons,” Sharon said, without elaborating.
Israel has a long history of taking on Iran on this issue, since it knows it would likely be one of its prime targets:
In 1981, Israel launched a unilateral strike on a suspected nuclear weapons site in Iraq.
Sharon was asked under what conditions Israel would consider a similar strike against Iran. Sharon said the 1981 strike saved many lives, but that the current situation is different. Actions to pressure Iran should involve a coalition of democracies, led by the United States, he said.
As for a unilateral strike, he said, “We don’t think that is what we have to do.”
But notice he isn’t ruling it out, either. If the situation was grave enough, Israel could indeed be expected to act unilaterally and it would also be acting as a kind of surrogate for the United States…if it reaches that point. Will it? The picture is confused but the Iranians seem defiant.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.