1.
IRAN WILL STRIKE ISRAEL NUCLEAR SITES IF ATTACKED
Agence France-Presse
July 26, 2009 (0843 EDT -- 0543 PDT -- 1713 Tehran time)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090725/wl_mideast_afp/iranisraelnuclear
TEHRAN -- Iran has the capability to strike arch-foe Israel's nuclear sites firmly and will do so if it comes under attack, the head of the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps said on Saturday.
Asked by Iran's Arabic language television channel Al-Alam whether Iran has the ability to strike Israeli nuclear sites, Mohammad Ali Jafari said: "Yes, definitely we have this capability because of the advances we have made in the past two years to carry out such a task."
"We have said that all of Israel's soil is under the coverage of our missiles. We have such capability and can certainly respond to any attack" by Israel.
Jafari said Iran will give a "firm and precise" answer if attacked by Israel.
"We are not responsible for this regime and other enemies' foolishness. If they strike Iran, our answer will be firm and precise. They will have no answer when Iran bombards them and sends several of its missiles."
His comments come a day before the annual day of the Guards.
Jafari issued a similar statement in March.
Relations between the two arch-foes have deteriorated in the past four years under the rule of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Israel, although widely believed to have nuclear weapons itself, is strongly against Iran's controversial nuclear program.
Global powers feel Iran's nuclear drive is aimed at seeking atomic weapons. Tehran denies the charge.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced in May that Iran had successfully test-fired a new medium-range missile, Sejil-2, drawing a warning from Israel that Europe too should now worry about the Islamic Republic's ballistic program.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the test appeared to have been successful and his information was that the missile will have a range of approximately 2,000 to 2,500 kilometers (1,200 to 1,500 miles).
2.
World
Middle East
GATES, IN VISIT TO ISRAEL, WILL FIND IRAN LOOMING
By Elisabeth Bumiller
New York Times
July 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/world/middleeast/26israel.html
WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is to be in Jerusalem on Monday for the first time in two and a half years to meet with Israel’s prime minister and defense minister in talks that a senior American military official said would be characterized by Israel’s growing anxiety over Iran’s nuclear work.
The official, who asked not to be named under Defense Department ground rules, said that the trip was part of a regular consultation and that Mr. Gates was not traveling to Israel “to roll out a map and do contingency planning for some strike on Iran.”
Israel has made it clear that it could strike plants at the heart of Iran’s nuclear program, although it has agreed to the Obama administration’s policy of first trying to engage Iran in talks.
But the official, who was briefing reporters in advance of Mr. Gates’s trip, acknowledged that the Israelis did not think the diplomacy would work and that they were losing patience. “Are they anxious?” the official said. “Yes, they’re anxious. But we’re not having regular conversations where they’re coming in and saying, ‘Stop your engagement now, bomb Iran tomorrow.’”
President Obama has given Iran until late September to accept an offer of talks to give up its nuclear ambitions, and until the end of the year to show some progress on the issue.
A Middle East analyst familiar with Israeli thinking, who also asked not to be named while speaking about the topic, said that the meetings were expected to be more about coordination and reassurance that the United States stood by Israel and that it was too soon to get into discussions of any military action.
The Obama administration has sent mixed messages on its views of an Israeli strike.
Top Pentagon officials, including Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have said repeatedly that an Israeli strike on Iran would be destabilizing to the region.
But this month, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said that the United States “cannot dictate” Israel’s decision on military action.
Two days later, Mr. Obama told CNN that the United States was “absolutely not” giving Israel its approval for a strike.
Both Israel and the United States estimate that Iran is within one to three years of developing a nuclear-weapons ability.
David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the co-author of Myths, Illusions & Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East, said that Israel and the United States were not at odds on Iran, at least not in the current “intermission of a play” before decisions on a strike have to be made.
“A decision was made that it is better to have close U.S.-Israel consultations in assessing the situation in Iran than having a situation where Israel feels isolated,” Mr. Makovsky said. “In the context of isolation, Israel is more likely to strike out on its own.”
On Saturday, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard warned that Iran was prepared to counterattack. "There is nothing stopping us from targeting Israel’s nuclear sites and this will definitely happen if we are attacked,” Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari told the Arabic-language channel al-Alam, in a translation provided by the Associated Press. “Our rockets have the precision capabilities to target all the Israeli nuclear sites.”
Mr. Gates will be part of a stream of American government officials visiting Israel in the next week. Among them are James L. Jones, the national security adviser; George J. Mitchell, the special envoy for the Middle East, who arrived in Syria on Saturday; and Dennis B. Ross, the Iran expert on the National Security Council staff and Mr. Makovsky’s co-author. Senior military officials cast the timing of the trips as coincidental.
The visits come at a time of tension not only on Iran but during an unusual rift between the United States and Israel over Israeli construction in areas that the Palestinians hope to turn into a state. The Obama administration has called on Israel to suspend the construction of new housing in West Bank settlements and in East Jerusalem, but the Israelis say Mr. Obama is ignoring what they call clear understandings with the Bush administration that allowed them to build settlement housing within certain guidelines.
Military officials said Mr. Gates was unlikely to wade into the settlement issue, which is generally the province of Mr. Mitchell and the State Department. Mr. Gates is to leave Israel later Monday for a meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan.
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