The US takes something off the table
There was something important to Israel that Secretary of State Clinton took off the table in last Thursday's meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu. Funny, I haven't seen thismentioned in the Israeli media.
What is different about the current U.S. package from a draft version that was presented to the Israelis in September and October is that the latest one does not explicitly mention the U.S. agreeing to a long-term Israeli Defense Forces presence in the Jordan Valley – on the West Bank/Israel’s eastern front with Jordan, Makovsky said.
“What’s different is that that some of the sensitive issues – the issue of [an IDF presence in] the Jordan Valley – how long the transition there will last – is basically not mentioned,” said Makovsky, currently traveling in Israel and the West Bank, who added that it might be something that will be part of discussions on a long-term U.S.-Israeli security agreement that will be negotiated in parallel to an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
Israeli officials have argued that the Israeli Defense Forces need to keep a long-term presence on Israel’s border with Jordan to secure the territory from threats from the eastern front. But Palestinian leaders have objected to an Israeli military presence in their future state and have proposed instead some sort of international force.
You want to tell me that they're going to agree on the borders during those three months and leave this issue open?
Prime Minister Netanyahu met with US Vice President Joe Biden in New Orleans on Sunday. But in the aftermath of the meeting, the USpushed back against Netanyahu's claim that sanctions aren't working and the only way to stop Iran is by force.
Netanyahu said that a credible threat of military action is the only way to ensure that Iran will rethink its nuclear program. According Israeli estimates, the only time that Iran paused its nuclear program was in 2003, when Iran believed there was a threat of military action.
But the U.S. was quick to rebuff the call to use force against Iran, which has repeatedly denied Western accusations that its civilian nuclear program is a mask for designs on an atom bomb.
"I disagree that only a credible military threat can get Iran to take the action that it needs to end its nuclear weapons program," U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Monday.
Sanctions against Iran were already beginning to bite, Gates told a news conference in Melbourne after security talks with Australia.
"We are prepared to do what is necessary. But at this point we continue to believe that the political, economic approach that we are taking is in fact having an impact in Iran."
However, Gates said that all options remained on the table.
"The president has said repeatedly that when it comes to Iran that all options are on the table and we are doing what we need to do to ensure that he has those options," he said.
Former President Bush writes in his memoirs, which were released this weekend, that then-Prime Minister Olmert asked Bush to bomb the Syrian reactor at al-Kibar in 2007 and Bush refused. Olmert then went ahead and bombed it himself without Bush's permission. In the aftermath of that attack, Bush trusted Israel to fight the war on terror for the first time since before the Second Lebanon War (apparently at least several months before, and maybe as far back as 2002 - follow that link).
Does Netanyahu even have less courage than the cowardly Olmert?
There was something important to Israel that Secretary of State Clinton took off the table in last Thursday's meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu. Funny, I haven't seen thismentioned in the Israeli media.
