Hell Bent on Dragging the US into Another War.

Jerusalem - Israel and the US have agreed to postpone a major military defence exercise, a senior security official said on Sunday, amid rising regional tension over Iran's nuclear programme.

"Israel and the United States have agreed to postpone the manoeuvre planned for spring," the official said on condition of anonymity.

"The exercises will take place between now and the end of 2012," the official added, without elaborating.

Earlier, public radio said the "Austere Challenge 12" exercise would be pushed back to the end of 2012 over unspecified budgetary concerns, citing military sources.

Army radio, citing a defence official, said it was being postponed to avoid "unnecessary headlines in such a tense period".

Weapons drive

The joint manoeuvre was to have been the biggest yet between the two allies, and was seen as an opportunity to display their joint military strength at a time of growing concern about Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Israel, the US and much of the international community accuse Iran of using its nuclear programme to mask a weapons drive, a charge Tehran denies.

The postponement appeared to suggest fears the exercise could dangerously ramp up regional tensions, at a time when Iran has already threatened to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz - a chokepoint for one fifth of the world's traded oil - in the event of a military strike or severe tightening of international sanctions over its nuclear programme.

Meanwhile, the US sent Iran a letter over its threatened closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson said on Sunday, without revealing the letter's contents.

"The US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, sent a letter to Mohammad Khazaie, Iran's UN representative, which was conveyed by the Swiss ambassador, and finally Iraqi President Jalal Talabani delivered its contents to officials" in Iran, the official IRNA news agency quoted Ramin Mehmanparast as saying.

"We are in the process of studying the letter and if necessary we will respond."

In December, the Israelis insisted the joint manoeuvres were planned in advance and denied they were related to Iran.



Unease

"The exercise scenario involves notional, simulated events as well as some field training and is not in response to any real-world event," the military said.

The postponement was not expected to affect a visit to Israel by top US military chief General Martin Dempsey, who is scheduled to arrive later this week and meet with Israel's Defence Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Benny Gantz.

But the delay was announced as reports suggested unease in US-Israeli relations over the best response to Iran's nuclear programme, and after an Israeli official voiced "disappointment" at Washington's approach.

Washington has spearheaded a push for international sanctions against Iran, including on its oil exports and financial institutions.

But Israel's Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon told public radio he thought US President Barack Obama's administration should be tougher.

"France and Britain understand that the sanctions must be strengthened, in particular against the Iranian Central Bank," Yaalon said.

"The US Senate is also in favour, but the US government is hesitating, fearing higher oil prices in an election year," Yaalon said. "It's disappointing."

Assassinations

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, speaking on Sunday ahead of a trip to Britain, also accused the international community of dragging its feet.

"It is regrettable that the international community has not yet used all the means at its disposal to stop the Iranian nuclear programme," he said.

Israel has made no secret of its desire to see crippling sanctions imposed on Iran in a bid to slow its nuclear development, and reports suggest it has also taken other actions to delay the programme.

The Jewish state is suspected of involvement both in a computer worm that reportedly set back Iran's nuclear efforts, as well as a campaign of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists.

Media reports have pointed the finger at Israel's intelligence agency Mossad.

Foreign Policy magazine reported that Israel's actions had created friction with Washington, and the Wall Street Journal said on Friday US officials had warned Israel against unilateral military action against Iran.

Yaalon said on Sunday that a military strike remained a last resort for Israel.

"Israel must defend itself. I hope that we will not arrive at that point," he said.

Ready for the next war in the Middle East?

"You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go."

-Siegfried Sassoon

The media consensus on Israel is collapsing

Across the political spectrum, once-taboo criticism is now common

BY JORDAN MICHAEL SMITH SALON

With Hamas and Fatah meeting this week in Cairo, reconciliation between the rival Palestinian political parties is likely only a matter of time. Official U.S. policy holds that Hamas is only a terrorist entity, and any agreement between the two factions jeopardizes continued U.S. aid.  There is reason to believe, however, that more flexible, productive positions will be expressed in the U.S. media. Slowly but unmistakably, space is opening up among the commentariat for new, critical ideas about Israel and its relationship to the United States.

Freedom of this sort was visible in the pages of the New York Times last week. Thomas Friedman, the paper’s foreign affairs columnist, wrote that American leaders were betraying the country by outsourcing their foreign policy to Israel. A standing ovation given to the Israeli prime minister by the U.S. Congress this year was “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby,” he wrote. Phrased bluntly as it was, Friedman’s sentence was startling. As the quintessential establishment columnist, Bill Clinton’sfavorite pundit and a thrice Pulitzer Prize-winner, Friedman is often seen in the U.S. as authoritative on the Middle East and rivaled only perhaps by the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg in the influence of his writing on popular discussion.

Not surprisingly, Friedman’s piece elicited furor from those policing the conversation about Israel. The Israeli ambassador, American Jewish Committee, Jerusalem Postand even members of Congress gang-swarmed Friedman, accusing him of anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel. It was not the first time in recent months Friedman has been critical of Israel policy. In September, he wrote of the Obama government that the “powerful pro-Israel lobby in an election season can force the administration to defend Israel at the U.N., even when it knows Israel is pursuing policies not in its own interest or America’s.” A more damning critique of Israel and the lobby would be difficult to make.

Even so, Friedman is not the only Times-man to let go the pro-Netanyahu line. Columnist Roger Cohen is even more critical of Israel than is Friedman, and like Friedman he is notable for being a liberal supporter of the Iraq War — not exactly a radical, in other words. Cohen now regularly writes about Israel’s “illiberalism,” says U.S. foreign policy has been “Likudnized,” and calls opposing Israeli oppression of the Palestinians the most important task currently facing diaspora Jews.

Cohen believes the new conversations he has contributed to represent “changes going on in the U.S. Jewish community,” he said in a phone interview. “Jewish identify in postwar America was built very much on the Holocaust and support for Israel, and for younger American Jews that may have less resonance. There may be a rethinking of that form of attachment to Israel.”

J Street, the organization devoted to lobbying for Israel from a liberal perspective, is both reflective of, and a stimulant to, a more balanced conversation about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Cohen says. If he is right, J Street is performing its job well. Public discussion about the Mideast conflict is still nowhere near evenhanded in the United States, but it is more so than it used to be.

Three academics, Tony Judt, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, deserve a lot of credit for expanding the permissible. Whatever one thinks of their analyses or prescriptions, they endured opprobrium and ostracism, to state the obvious: The unconditional U.S.-Israeli relationship is good for neither the U.S. nor Israel. Walt has an important perch at Foreign Policy’s website, which he uses to regularly espouse his once-radical views on Israel.

Criticism of the special relationship, once rare, is now frequent. Newsweek/Daily Beast’s Andrew Sullivan  has become a regular source of attacks on the unqualified U.S. support for Israeli policy. Time magazine’s Joe Klein has been similarlyoutspoken. “If you don’t think that the Israel Lobby has an enormous influence on the Congress, you’re deluding yourself,” he wrote recently.

Peter Beinart, also of Newsweek/Daily Beast, inspired headlines with his critique of the “Failure of the American Jewish Establishment.” He has a forthcoming book sure to get a lot of attention called “The Crisis of Zionism.” Former New York Observer writer Philip Weiss has created a one-stop shop for critics of Israel and U.S. policy. And, of course, Salon’s own Glenn Greenwald regularly questions the bipartisan consensus on Israel.

As one would expect, these developments are causing a great deal of consternation from those determined that views favorable to the Palestinians never get a hearing. In 2006, the American Jewish Committee released its infamous report accusing these new critics of Israel of being simply anti-Semitic. Last year, Lee Smith of Tablet magazine made the odd charge that publications like the Atlantic and Salon encourage Jew-hating writers in the hopes of increasing page views. Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol has lamented that charging Israel’s critics with “anti-Semitism” doesn’t effectively silence them any longer. And this week Iran-Contra convict Elliott Abramscriticized Friedman and Klein because they exemplify the mainstreaming of Walt and Mearsheimer’s ideas.

But it isn’t only pundits and academics. Diplomats and the people who would be on the center-right of American politics (if such a thing still existed) have been vocal about their alienation from U.S. discussion of Israel. Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution, an advisor to three presidents on Middle East and South Asian issues, told me in an email that “Fear of angering extreme evangelicals and the old lobby still inhibit real debate about Israel in American politics.”

Paul Pillar, former CIA bigwig, has become a stark critic of Israel for the National Interest. He has defended the comparison of Israel’s occupation policies with apartheid South Africa, and says that he agrees with all of Walt and Mearsheimer’s analysis, including the most incendiary charge — that the Israel lobby was instrumental in pushing the U.S. to invade Iraq.

Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff for Colin Powell, has been similarly outspoken about the power of what he calls “the Jewish lobby.” Jack Matlock, Ronald Reagan’s ambassador to the Soviet Union, has written that by far the greatest threat to Israel’s security and well-being is the policies of its own government. And in 2009 longtime diplomat Chas Freeman blasted the Israel lobby for successfully ending his nomination to be chairman of the National Intelligence Council.

For all the discussion-widening in the chattering classes, official U.S. foreign policy has changed little, if at all. Obama has overseen unprecedented military deals between Israel and the United States, and all but abandoned the Palestinians in the international diplomatic arena. Newt Gingrich’s historically discredited claim that the Palestinians are an “invented people” shows that American politicians still take some of the most extreme positions in the Israeli polity as gospel.

Still, at the outset of his term Obama made the biggest rhetorical push against Israeli settlement policy that any U.S. president ever has, only to back down in the face of Israeli objections. The resulting animosity between Netanyahu and the administration is no secret. Democratic rank-and-file voters are also less supportive of Israel than they used to be, and less so than Republicans are now. The new conversation about Israel has yet to make its way into Congress and the executive branch, but that day may be coming

Iran Receives an Early Christmas Present from the US, a Stealthy RQ-170

The US Air Force lost a top secret RQ-170 SENTINEL over Iran, not that long after a secret stealth helicopter was lost. That should be very helpful to Iran, China and Russia. From previous reports, we learn that two of these same RQ-170s were used to get bin Laden.

Mission
The RQ-170 is a low observable unmanned aircraft system (UAS) being developed, tested and fielded by the Air Force. It will provide reconnaissance and surveillance in support of the joint forces commander.

Background
The Air Force's RQ-170 program leverages the Lockheed Martin Advanced Development Programs and government efforts to rapidly develop and produce a low observable UAS. The RQ-170 will directly support combatant commander needs for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to locate targets.

The RQ-170 is flown by Air Combat Command's 432nd Wing at Creech Air Force Base, Nev., and the 30th Reconnaissance Squadron at Tonopah Test Range, Nev.

U.S. intelligence officials acknowledge that the stealthy RQ-170 Sentinel drone was used to provide ISR support for the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad.

The Sentinel did several key variety of tasks during the raid such as providing real-time imagery of the compound to the President and other authorities in DC to monitoring Pakistani military communications, all while orbiting overhead undetected, according to the Washington Post.

It could also have jammed Pakistani radars and beamed its footage of the compound to the SEALs in their inbound choppers.

Intelligence officials acknowledge that the CIA used the Air Force’s RQ-170 in Pakistan for months to monitor bin Laden’s house which lies within Pakistan’s air defense intercept zone that surrounds the capitol city of Islamabad.

The aircraft allowed the CIA to glide undetected beyond the boundaries that Pakistan has long imposed on other U.S. drones, including the Predators and Reapers that routinely carry out strikes against militants near the border with Afghanistan.

All this paints a picture of a raid that was indeed carried out without Pakistani knowledge (or, to give Islamabad plausible deniability with regard to the raid, for you skeptics). The remaining question is; were there really only two stealth helos used in the operation? Why use a stealth drone and two stealth helicopters and then send in two-to-three MH-47s that can be detected by radar deep into Pakistan to retrieve the SEALs and collect evidence? How did they do that without being detected?



Read more:

Hype Over Foiled Iranian Hit on Saudi Arabian Diplomat

The Saudi Hit on The United States of America. That was Terrorism.

Federal agents have foiled a plot by Iranian officials seeking to recruit a Mexican drug cartel to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S. in a bombing in a Washington restaurant, U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Tuesday.

I can't get too excited over this one. It seems that weekly, we hit someone somewhere with a drone missile, often with disastrous results to those unfortunate enough to be around the target or when we hit the wrong target. I am sure the intended targets are worthy of being killed, but you can't expect the government to be always wrong on some things and then always right on others. Both the US and Israel routinely kill enemies of the state where they find them, Pakistan, Italy, Yemen or Holland.

The proposed target in this case was a royal highness, a blessed prince and ambassador  of one of the more detestable countries on the planet, Saudi Arabia. Hillary Clinton is very upset about the proposed attack by members of Iran's special-forces unit, the Quds, charged with orchestrating the plot. One of the duo, Manssor Arbabsiar, has been arrested and appeared in New York Federal court last night. Gholam Shakuri, is still at large.

The allegations will dramatically ratchet-up tension between the US and Tehran.

Now, let's put this in perspective. Eighteen of the nineteen 911 murderers were Saudis. The Saudi attack on the US killed three thousand Americans and caused one trillion in damage. For some reason we attacked Iraq, the sworn enemy of Iran and did nothing to Saudi Arabia. Nothing. As I said, I can't get too excited over this one. Neither should anyone else.

Netanyahu Beating the War Drums on Iran

Believes each dead Israeli is equivalent to 70 dead Americans

In April of this year the New York Times ran a story By DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKER:
Gates Says U.S. Lacks a Policy to Thwart Iran

:Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has warned in a secret three-page memorandum to top White House officials that the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear capability, according to government officials familiar with the document.

That caught my attention because it was an obvious intentional leak designed to focus public opinion on the so-called "existential threat" of a nuclear Iran to Israel. The fanciful threat is ended, of course, by a pre-emptive US attack against Iran. Such an attack is the desired outcome of certain Israeli politicians and their minions in the US Congress (of which there are many). Such a reckless and needless attack against Iran would be the ruin of the US and could not come at a worse time given our existing wars and terrible financial troubles.

Many in Israel and the US are trying to make Iran a US problem. Iran is in many ways a problem for the US but Iran is not a threat to the US. If Israel believes that Iran is an existential threat, that is their problem. Israel is a nuclear power, armed to the teeth with an arsenal that could destroy Iran and every potential ally of Iran. Israeli paranoia should not lead to US folly. There is no US interest served by slavishly following Israel into a such a needless calamity.

If you do not think that this is going on, you are not paying attention. Benjamin Netanyahu is a dangerous demagogue and no friend to the US. Israeli problems are not solved by the US being dragged into another Middle Eastern war.
________________________



Middle East
Jun 10, 2011 ASIA TIMES



False bells on Iran's nuclear program
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

Confusion over an assessment of Iran's nuclear program by the Rand Corporation in the past week perfectly illustrates the quagmire that anyone has to contend with when sifting through bias on media reports.

When the Republican-leaning New York Post says history may well mark United States President Barack Obama "as the leader who let Iran get the bomb - and so doomed the Middle East to a new Dark Age", it based its assertion on a report it attributed to Rand Corporation analyst Gregory Jones.
"Using the latest data from the International Atomic Energy Agency, he recently concluded that, if Iran's centrifuges continue to produce enriched uranium at current capacity, the regime will have 90% of the 20 kilograms it needs to produce a nuclear weapon within two months - certainly by summer's end," the Post said in an opinion piece. [1]
The Post report was at least an accurate reflection of Jones'

calculations in a report dated June 2, but inaccurately reported that it was published by the Rand Corporation, when it was in fact from the Non-proliferation Policy Education Center. [2] Jones has written for Rand, but his last report for the non-profit policy and research think-tank was published in 2009.

Yet the New York Post was not alone. A deluge of commentaries took it at face value that Rand was alleging with iron-clad certainty that Iran was "two months away from making nuclear bombs". Media sources who attributed the report to Rand included Israel's Ynetnews, the Daily Mail in the United Kingdom, the Weekly Standard and American Thinker, the latter under the headline, "RAND Corp: Iran 8 weeks from the Bomb". [3]

The Rand Corporation's own report, Iran's Nuclear Future: Critical US Policy Choices, financed by the US Air Force and published on June 7, contained no such timetable and is about policy alternatives for the United States and urges greater engagement. [4]

The study's lead author Lynn E Davis, a senior political scientist at Rand, summed up the report in a statement saying, "The challenge for the United States is to influence how the Iranian leadership pursues [national security] interests, for they could provide reasons for acquiring nuclear weapons."

For all it is worth, the Rand report failed to mention that the US intelligence community has yet to revise its December 2009 finding that Iran as of early 2003 has stopped its nuclear weapon program. Nor does it mention that the IAEA despite its expressed concerns about the "possible military dimension" of Iran's nuclear activities has repeatedly stated that after extensive inspections it has found "no evidence of diversion of declared nuclear material".

Close scrutiny of the study shows repeated references to "considerable uncertainties" regarding Iran's nuclear program and, on page 14, it states categorically that "Iran is likely in the near to medium term to strive to stay within the bounds of international norms and laws established by the NPT [nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty], while continuing with uranium enrichment and warhead experimentation."

This is hardly an affirmation of an Iranian march toward nuclear weapons, unless the scope of outside inspections of Iran's nuclear activities by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is considered irrelevant. The IAEA's surveillance cameras at Tehran's enrichment facility in Natanz can easily detect any diversion of nuclear material.

A report by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh titled "Iran And The Bomb - How Real is the Nuclear Threat?" and published in the June 6 issue of The New Yorker magazine quotes former IAEA director general Mohammad ElBaradei as saying he didn't see "a shred of evidence" in 12 years in charge to suggest Iran is building nuclear-weapons facilities and using enriched materials.

"I don’t believe Iran is a clear and present danger. All I see is the hype about the threat posed by Iran," ElBaradei, a likely candidate for future Egyptian president, told Hersh in the interview. An abstract of Hersh's piece says:
There’s a large body of evidence, however, including some of America’s most highly classified intelligence assessments, suggesting that the U.S. could be in danger of repeating a mistake similar to the one made with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq eight years ago - allowing anxieties about the policies of a tyrannical regime to distort our estimates of the state’s military capacities and intentions. The two most recent National Intelligence Estimates (N.I.E.s) on Iranian nuclear progress have stated that there is no conclusive evidence that Iran has made any effort to build the bomb since 2003.

Yet Iran is heavily invested in nuclear technology. In the past four years, it has tripled the number of centrifuges in operation at its main enrichment facility at Natanz, which is buried deep underground.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors have expressed frustration with Iran’s level of cooperation, but have been unable to find any evidence suggesting that enriched uranium has been diverted to an illicit weapons program. [5]
Such frustration was in evidence on Monday when Yukiya Amano, ElBaradei's successor at the global nuclear watchdog, told the IAEA board the agency had acquired new "information related to possible past or current undisclosed nuclear related activities that seem to point to the existence of possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program".

The disclosure of new information came as Iran announced it would enrich nuclear fuel at an underground facility whose function had been secret until 2009, boosting its production of enriched uranium in spite of UN sanctions over its refusal to halt the enrichment program, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

It is ironic, albeit understandable from the prism of the US Air Force, which is in competition with other branches of the US military and has a vested interest in promoting itself by getting ahead in the "war-games", that the Rand report on Iran's nuclear program pays scant attention to the actual program and, instead, focuses on various potential scenarios and the policy implications for the US, Israel, and Iran's neighbors in Persian Gulf.

Although maintaining that "different future Iranian nuclear postures are possible", it nonetheless takes for granted Iran's evolution of a nuclear weapons program that allegedly could be either "virtual", ie fully developed short of building the actual bombs", or "ambiguous" or "declared". The reason for the multiple authors' collective certainty that Iran is acquiring a nuclear weapon capability is that "Iran's national security interest could be served by nuclear weapons".

Not so, and in fact the Rand study itself provides several clues that contradict its abstract generalization on Iran's national security interests, such as the implication of Iran's Arab neighbors being spurred to emulate Iran and build their own bombs and thus hurl the oil region into a costly nuclear arms race, to US playing nuclear shield for the supposedly vulnerable Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states indefinitely, etc. As the authors concede, "expanded US conventional activities could be counterproductive" and "heighten Iranian threat perception."

In addition to a distorted understanding of Iran's national security interests and priorities, the report also has a distorted view of how Iran's neighbors view the Iranian nuclear threat, claiming that none of the Gulf Cooperation States (GCC) states support "an approach that seeks to reduce the threat posed to Iran".

In fact, the myth of a monolithic GCC bloc with a unified voice on Iran needs debunking, and following the report's own line of argument, the GCC states should logically support a more congenial security environment with reduced risks for Iran that could, in turn, keep Iran's nuclear potential just that; potential rather than actual.

Interestingly, the Rand report's release coincided with a Washington conference on the changing Middle East and future of US-Iran relations on Tuesday, featuring the former head of US Central Command, Admiral James Fallon, who told the audience that there was very little chance of any US and or Israeli strike on Iran and that the US and Iran should pursue the path of comprehensive dialogue and engagement in light of their shared concerns in the region.

Unfortunately, instead of giving coverage to such voices of reason, the US media and others opted to give prominent and erroneous billing of alarming new information about Iran's nuclear program; yet another example of Chomskyan "manufacturing consent".

Should the US be Dragged Into a Third Asian War by Israel?

Netanyahu equates disapproval of Israel with hatred of Jews. He states that Israel is unique in the World in the threat that it faces from a possible nuclear Iran. He argues that Israel can only afford its military prowess by a strong entrepreneurial society that can fund the burden of defense.

Netanyahu argues the birthright of all Jews (in the US) is bound and tied to Israel. He then goes on to define the threat of Iran to the United States, demanding that the US must lead the World community and make clear by word and deed that it will not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. Netanyahu by implication is making the extraordinary claim that the US is bound to Israel and Israel cannot allow Iran to have nuclear weapons.

That sounds like an Israeli claim against the military assets of the US to join Israel in an inevitable showdown with Iran.

The United States, through huge expenditure and extraordinary defense commitments, has adjusted to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by first Russia, China, Pakistan and North Korea. It has done so without military action against any of these powers. Netanyahu argues that things are different this time because of the unique threat of Islamic terrorism.

The conclusion to be derived from Netanyahu's argument is that to not be anti-Semitic, to be opposed to militant Islam and against Iranian development of nuclear weapons joint action must be taken and led by the United States. The implied threat is that without such action, Israel will go alone.

This is patent nonsense. Israel is a massive nuclear power in its own right. It has forward deployed nuclear assets capable of destroying any single or combined nuclear threat from any islamic state. Israel also has advanced anti-missile defense systems developed with support of the United States. Israel has an intelligence capability that has riddled every layer of Iranian society. The possibility of Iran being capable of planning and executing a nuclear attack against Israel and Israel being preemptively destroyed by Iran without an Israeli response is an outright fabrication.

Netanyahu boasted at his prowess in chess. He should know that to exchange a queen, two knights and both bishops for a pawn just ain't going to happen. The United States should make it very clear to Israel that if she takes on Iran preemptively there will be no automatic call on US support.

A third Asian war involving the United states will not protect Israel or make it stronger. it would be a calamity and a disaster for the US. It would result in the final assault on overextended and exposed US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and every other place on the planet by inflamed Islamic crazies.

It would be the final straw in the destruction of the US financial system. No US president should ever agree to such a reckless venture. Netanyahu needs to hear that and understand if he goes it alone, he goes it alone.

_____________________________________







U.S., Israel at Odds Over Iran Policy
Published November 08, 2010 | FoxNews.com

Though military action against Iran remains an option, the threat of force is not the only way to stop Iran from building a nuclear bomb, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu turned up pressure on the U.S. to take a tougher line.

Meeting with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday in New Orleans, Netanyahu said that only a ‘credible’ threat of military action will ensure Iran does not obtain nuclear weapons, a senior Israeli official said.

Although sanctions have hurt Iran, Netanyahu told Biden that Tehran will be determined to produce nuclear weapons unless it thinks a military strike is a real option, Israeli media reported Monday.

"Sanctions are important. They are increasing pressure on Iran. But so far there has not been any change in the behavior of Iran and upgrading of international pressure is necessary," Mark Regev, Netanyahu's spokesman, quoted Netanyahu as telling Biden.

If Israel concludes that Tehran is close to a bomb it could launch its own military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities within months.

Speaking in Australia, Gates rejected the notion that Iran will only listen if it thinks it's about to be attacked.

The latest international sanctions are hitting Iran harder than that country's ruling regime had expected, and should be allowed more time, Gates insisted.

President Obama's administration, while not ruling out a military option against Iran, has so far stressed sanctions and diplomacy as its preferred course for dealing with Iran's nuclear program.

Iran insists its nuclear program is designed to produce energy, not bombs.

Israel, like the West, disputes Iran's claims that its nuclear program is energy driven. In the past, it has said it prefers to block the Iranian threat through diplomacy, though it has not ruled out a military strike.

Israel sees Iran as its fiercest threat because of its nuclear program, its ballistic missiles capable of hitting the Jewish state and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated references to Israel's destruction.

The Associated Press and Newscore contributed to this report.

Iran can be bombed -General David Petraeus, Head of Central Command

Iran can be bombed says General Petraeus

The US military commander for the Middle East and the Gulf region has confirmed that the United States has developed contingency plans to deal with Iran's nuclear facilities.

By Alex Spillius in Washington
Published: 8:57PM GMT 10 Jan 2010
Telegraph

Gen David Petraeus, head of Central Command or Centcom, did not elaborate on the plans, but said the military has considered the impacts of any action taken there.

Asked about the vulnerability of Iran's nuclear installations, he told CNN: "Well, they certainly can be bombed. The level of effect would vary with who it is that carries it out, what ordnance they have, and what capability they can bring to bear."

He added: "It would be almost literally irresponsible if Centcom were not to have been thinking about the various 'what ifs' and to make plans for a whole variety of different contingencies."

Iran maintains its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes, but the United States and other Western nations fear Tehran wants to acquire nuclear weapons.

Israel has called Iran's nuclear programme the major threat facing its nation. Gen Petraeus declined to comment about Israel's military capabilities, according to CNN.

Iran had until the end of last year to accept a deal offered five permanent UN Security Council members – Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany.

It did not do so. Instead, Tehran gave the West until the end of January to accept its own proposal.
Petraeus said he thought there was still time for the nations to engage Iran in diplomacy, noting there is no deadline on the enactment of any US contingency plans.

But he added that "there's a period of time, certainly, before all this might come to a head".