(Jerusalem Post) Herb Keinon - Speaking to the foreign press Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stepped back from former Mossad head Meir Dagan's appraisal that Iran will not get nuclear weapons until the middle of the decade. "I think that intelligence estimates are exactly that, estimates," Netanyahu said. "They range from best case to worst case possibilities, and there is a range there, there is room for differing assessments." Since the U.S.-led sanctions against Iran were aimed at changing the Iranian government's determination to obtain nuclear arms, "those sanctions have not yet achieved their objective," he said. "I think they should be strictly enforced and materially strengthened." Netanyahu said "the only chance these sanctions will achieve their objectives would be to couple them with an understanding from Iran that if they [the sanctions] don't achieve their goal, they would be followed by a credible military option." Netanyahu enumerated the steps he has taken to further the peace process, while the Palestinians had done nothing: calling for direct negotiations; removing hundreds of West Bank roadblocks to allow the economy there to flourish; accepting the two-state vision in his speech at Bar-Ilan University; agreeing to a 10-month settlement freeze; and then agreeing to another three-month freeze after negotiating the conditions with the Americans. The reason the additional freeze did not go into effect, he said, was because the U.S. decided that it would do nothing to move the process forward. "What is preventing the advent of peace negotiations is that the Palestinians are doing everything in their power to avoid them," he said. "This is the simple truth." Regarding the Syrian track, Netanyahu said that the peace agreement with Egypt was reached only after Anwar Sadat took Egypt out of the Soviet camp. A similar break from Iran would be necessary for Syrian President Bashar Assad to make peace with Israel, Netanyahu said, adding that he did not see "any clear willingness" on the part of Damascus to change its relationship with Teheran.
2011-01-12 09:37:15Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive