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Ross: Create a Firewall Against Iran Nuclear Weapons

(Times of Israel) Eric Cortellessa - Former Middle East peace negotiator Dennis Ross, who worked in the Obama administration as an adviser, shared his policy recommendations on Iran with the Times of Israel in an interview in Washington. "The [Iran] deal itself buys you 15 years. One of my main concerns is what happens after year 15, when they basically can have as large a [nuclear] program as they want, and the gap between threshold status and weapons status becomes very small. To deal with that vulnerability you have to bolster your deterrence in a way that convinces them there is a firewall between threshold status and weapons status." "The more you make it clear that for any misbehavior they pay a price, and it's the kind of price that matters to them, the more likely they are to realize the firewall is real, and the less likely they are to ever test it. I would like to see us do things that create that firewall and the legitimacy of it in the eyes of the rest of the world. So if [Iran] is going to dash toward a weapon the answer is not sanctions, it's force. And everybody knows that and accepts that, and it becomes legitimate." "I would like to see a joint consultative committee between the United States and Israel on the implementation. That's not to replace what's done with the other members [of the P5+1], but because the Israelis will be looking at everything with a microscope. I think it would be reassuring to the Israelis and it would send a message that we are really going to hold the Iranians to what they are obligated to do. But I would also like that committee to be a forum for contingency planning to deal with options for when the Iranians ratchet up what they will do in the region."
2015-10-28 00:00:00
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