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How Washington Encourages Israel to Bomb Iran
(Wall Street Journal) Reuel Marc Gerecht - In front of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee this month Mr. Obama intensely affirmed "Israel's sovereign right to make its own decisions about what is required to meet its security needs." He added that "no Israeli government can tolerate a nuclear weapon in the hands of a regime that denies the Holocaust, threatens to wipe Israel off the map, and sponsors terrorist groups committed to Israel's destruction." By so framing the Iranian nuclear debate, the president has forced a spotlight on the efficacy of sanctions and the quality of American intelligence on Tehran's nuclear program. Iran made around $79 billion last year from the sale of oil and certainly still has the few billions required to finish producing highly enriched uranium, triggering devices, and warheads for its ballistic missiles. Many Iran observers would like to believe that sanctions could rapidly exacerbate divisions within the regime and thereby force Tehran to negotiate an end to possible nuclear weaponization. But this scenario beggars the Iranian revolutionary identity. Mr. Khamenei has shown no willingness to halt the program. Everything Khamenei and his praetorians have worked for since 1979 - the independence and pre-eminence of the Islamic Republic among Muslim states in its battle against the "world-devouring," "Islam-debasing" United States - would be for naught. It's an excellent bet that the Israelis now know that the CIA probably has no sources inside the upper reaches of the Iranian scientific establishment, Khamenei's inner circle, or the Revolutionary Guards' nuclear brigade. The Israelis surely know that when the administration says it has "no evidence" that Khamenei has decided to build a nuclear weapon, this really means that Washington has no solid information. That is, Washington is guessing. The writer, a former Iranian-targets officer in the CIA's clandestine service, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.