Israel Increases Pressure on U.S. to Act on Iran
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ramped up pressure on the White House on Sunday to put the buildup of Iran’s nuclear program ahead of other crises in the Middle East, complaining of a lack of urgency on the issue and saying that the Obama administration must demonstrate “by action” to Iran’s newly elected president that “the military option which is on the table is truly on the table.”
Speaking via satellite on the CBS News program “Face the Nation,” Mr. Netanyahu expressed concern that Iran was pursuing “alternate routes” to a nuclear weapons capability, including a plutonium bomb, even while stopping just short of the specific enriched-uranium levels he had set in a speech at the United Nations last year as a “red line” for military action.
He also reiterated his familiar demands that Iran must be forced to stop all enrichment of nuclear material, ship its current stockpile out of the country and shut down a deep underground enrichment site, called Fordo, that Israeli military officials acknowledge they probably do not have the ability to destroy.
Mr. Netanyahu said those demands “should be backed up with ratcheted sanctions,” adding, “They have to know you’ll be prepared to take military action; that’s the only thing that will get their attention.”
Formally, the United States agrees with Mr. Netanyahu’s demands. But in negotiations that fell apart last spring, the Obama administration appeared willing to lift some sanctions in return for far more modest “confidence building” steps, and seems likely to be willing to leave Iran with some limited nuclear production capability in return for highly intrusive inspections.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/world/middleeast/israel-calls-for-new-urgency-on-iran.html?_r=0
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