DEC. 31 – With the expiration, tonight, of Washington’s ultimatum to Iran to agree to an imposed uranium enrichment deal or else face “crippling sanctions,” a number of Israeli media outlets are already noting the Obama administration’s planned change in tone.
Israel’s Channel 10 correspondent in Washington, Gil Tamari, reports that Washington instead plans to impose “targeted sanctions,” so as not to undermine the efforts of the popular uprising in Iran now gaining momentum.
Ben Caspit of Israel’s daily, Maariv, notes in a New Year’s eve column that the world’s intelligence community is eagerly awaiting a new U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran.
The 2007 report concluded that Iran froze its active efforts to manufacture nuclear weapons in 2003. It also maintained that Iran would not have such a capability until at least 2012.
“The report caused a clear sense of shock among many Western intelligence agencies, including [Israel's] Mossad,” Caspit writes. He cites a prevailing view among Western intelligence officials that the NIE findings were altered “for political reasons.”
Caspit maintains that recent British revelations pointing to Iran’s efforts to test a ”neutron initiator” in 2007–the same year the U.S. released its findings, place the NIE report “in a ridiculous light.”
Caspit says the only remaining question is what method Iran will employ as it gets closer to arming a nuclear weapon. “Will Tehran stop when it’s within each and wait for the right moment, or will it charge ahead until it reaches its goal?”
