{"id":11411,"date":"2012-08-02T09:44:51","date_gmt":"2012-08-02T16:44:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=11411"},"modified":"2012-08-02T09:44:51","modified_gmt":"2012-08-02T16:44:51","slug":"netanyahuu-s-assurances-on-iran-not-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=11411","title":{"rendered":"Netanyahu:U.S. assurances on Iran not enough"},"content":{"rendered":"

Netanyahu :U.S. assurances on Iran not enough<\/strong>
\n2 August, 2012 – By Robert Burns – The Daily Star<\/p>\n

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that U.S. statements of solidarity with Israel and its assurances that military strikes are still an option aren\u2019t working to convince Iran that the West is \u201cserious about stopping them\u201d from developing nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

Standing with Leon Panetta, Netanyahu dismissed the U.S. defense chief\u2019s counsel to give diplomacy more time to halt Iran\u2019s nuclear program.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now the Iranian regime believes that the international community does not have the will to stop its nuclear program,\u201d Netanyahu said at his residence in Jerusalem. \u201cThis must change, and it must change quickly because time to resolve this issue peacefully is running out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier Wednesday, at an Israeli defense site south of Tel Aviv, Panetta stood beside Defense Minister Ehud Barak to declare that the Obama administration is serious about the possibility of resorting to military force against Iran, while adding that all non-military measures must be exhausted first.<\/p>\n

Barak sounded as unconvinced as the prime minister, saying he appreciated U.S. support but adding there was an \u201cextremely low\u201d probability of international sanctions ever compelling Iran to give up its nuclear program.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s and Barak\u2019s statements dramatized the growing strains in U.S.-Israeli relations over Iran.<\/p>\n

Tehran has said its nuclear work is for civilian energy uses only, but suspicions it will use enriched uranium for nuclear weapons have resulted in international sanctions and saber-rattling from Israel, which perceives a nuclear Iran as an existential threat. The U.S. has discouraged Israel from a unilateral, pre-emptive military strike on Iran.<\/p>\n

Panetta Wednesday said repeatedly \u201call options,\u201d including military force, are on the table to stop Iran, should sanctions and diplomacy \u2013 the preferred means of persuasion \u2013 ultimately fail.<\/p>\n

However, Panetta said, \u201cIf they continue and if they proceed with a nuclear weapon … we have options that we are prepared to implement to ensure that that does not happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Netanhayu has said that if necessary he will order military action against Iran even if Washington objects. Panetta said in his appearance with Barak that he understands Israel must make such important decisions on its own terms.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir effort to decide what is in their national security interest is something that must be left up to the Israelis.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Panetta visit comes just days after U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney met with top Israeli officials and said that if he becomes president, he will \u201chonor\u201d whatever Israel decides to do about Iran\u2019s nuclear capabilities.<\/p>\n

….more<\/a><\/p>\n

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Netanyahu :U.S. assurances on Iran not enough 2 August, 2012 – By Robert Burns – The Daily Star OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that U.S. statements of solidarity with Israel and its assurances that military strikes are still an option aren\u2019t working to convince Iran that the West is \u201cserious about more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[1469],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11411"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11412,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11411\/revisions\/11412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}