Israel to Obama - hold Iran's feet to fire

Israel will go along with U.S. President Barack Obama's Iran diplomacy, but try to shorten the deadline for results by signaling its willingness to attack Iranian nuclear sites if need be. Israel votes on Tuesday and its next prime minister -- the front-runner is rightwinger Benjamin Netanyahu -- is likely to go to Washington within a few months and press Obama to stick to his campaign promise not to let Iran develop an atomic bomb. Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. Middle East negotiator now at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, said the visit would entail a "strategic conversation" with Obama. "It need not be conclusive or threatening, but it will be very serious and ... scare the daylights out of the president that unless the international community mobilises to address the situation, the Israelis will," Miller said. Unlike his predecessor, George W. Bush, Obama has offered direct talks with Tehran. But he has yet to define his policy, which officials say is under review. He has spoken of tougher sanctions if needed and has not excluded military action. Israelis fret that diplomatic overtures will only give Iran more time to perfect its uranium enrichment program -- which the Iranians say is meant to produce electricity, not bombs. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has found no proof of Iranian nuclear bomb-making. But the West sees as sinister Iran's refusal to stop enriching uranium -- an activity it is permitted as a Non-Proliferation Treaty signatory. Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak called this week for a "strategic agreement" with Washington to ensure that any talks with the Iranians "should be kept short and followed by harsh sanctions and readiness to take action." And an Israeli legislator and weapons expert, Isaac Ben-Israel, said his country had a year or so to attack Iranian nuclear sites pre-emptively and could do so on its own, even if such strikes would only delay, not destroy, Iran's program. Iranian officials dismiss the chance of a blitz by Israel, assumed to be the Middle East's only nuclear power, but say Iran would retaliate against Israeli and U.S. interests if attacked. "We are not worried about an Israeli attack," Aliakbar Javanfekr, an aide to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told Reuters last week, adding that "wise people" in the United States and Europe would restrain the Israelis. Any Israeli bombing would unleash more chaos in the Middle East and global oil markets, inevitably entangling the United States and its Gulf Arab allies, and posing ferocious new challenges to U.S. involvements in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ali Ansari, an Iran scholar at St. Andrews University in Scotland, said an Israeli strike would be catastrophic and that discussion of it aimed at sabotaging any U.S.-Iran dialogue. "It's extraordinarily unlikely. It would completely hamstring the Obama administration," he declared. Others are less ready to rule it out. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said this week Iran would need another two to five years to achieve nuclear weapons capacity, citing CIA and other U.S. intelligence estimates. Many analysts argue that Israel could not act without a green light from Washington -- particularly since the direct route to Iran lies through U.S.-managed Iraqi air space. China and Russia, which both wield veto power on the U.N. Security Council, have resisted tighter sanctions, especially after U.S. intelligence agencies said in December 2007 they believed Iran had halted its nuclear arms program in 2003.