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Israelis Doubt World Will Stop Iran's Nuclear Quest

(Reuters) Dan Williams - The latest report by UN inspectors has hardened suspicions that Iran is seeking nuclear arms capability, but Israeli experts have little confidence that international action will deny the Islamic Republic the means to make a bomb. "Can this (IAEA) report create a new basis for increasing the pressure on Iran? There is no good reason for being optimistic," said Ephraim Kam, deputy director of Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies and a former Israeli military intelligence colonel. W. Pal Sidhu of New York University's Center on International Cooperation said: "I think we have reached a limit in terms of sanctions," adding that Iran had "a complete (nuclear) fuel cycle that is unlikely to be stopped only with outside technical sanctions." Sidhu said Iran's distant, dispersed and defended facilities "may well be a bridge too far" for Israel's armed forces and that the U.S. would be loath to launch its own preemptive strikes without Security Council approval. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said: "So far the international community has imposed sanctions on Iran only on 30% of areas where it could be possible....Even if the Western world would impose sanctions without China and Russia, it would be enough to strangle Iran."
2011-11-16 00:00:00
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