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The U.S. Can Meet Israel Halfway on Iran
(Washington Post) Dennis Ross and David Makovsky - There is no daylight between the U.S. and Israel on the objective and the preferred means for dealing with Iranian nuclear ambitions. Both President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu agree that the objective is prevention, not containment, and that a nuclear Iran could set off an arms race in an already-dangerous region. Any differences stem from a basic reality: The U.S., given its significantly greater military capability, can afford to wait longer than Israel to give diplomacy time to succeed. From Israel's perspective, forgoing the use of force against an existential threat goes against that country's ethos of self-reliance. With negotiations with Iran set to begin April 13, there is a need to assuage the Israeli fear that negotiations will drag on beyond a point at which Israel would lose its military option. The U.S. should make publicly clear that while it is serious about giving diplomacy a chance, it will not engage in a phony process. The better U.S. and Israeli clocks are synchronized, and the more Tehran understands this reality, the more likely the Iranians are to see that if they want to avoid force being used against them, they must take advantage of the diplomatic out that the U.S. is offering. Dennis Ross was a special assistant to President Obama on the Middle East. David Makovsky is a distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.