Haaretz
Shvat 3, 5767
President George Bush
will order an attack on Iran if it becomes clear to him that Iran is set
to acquire nuclear weapons capabilities while he is still in office,
Richard Perle told the Herzliya Conference on Sunday. Perle is close to
the Bush administration, particularly to Vice President Richard Cheney.
The leading neoconservative and fellow at the American Enterprise
Institute addressed the session on Iran's nuclear program. He said that
the present policy of attempting to impose sanctions on Iran will not
cause it to abandon its nuclear aspirations, and unless stopped the
country will become a nuclear power.
A less decisive opinion was
expressed by Dr. Robert Einhorn, who until 2001 was senior advisor to the
secretary of state on nuclear nonproliferation, chemical, biological and
missile delivery systems. Einhorn told the conference that of all
available options, including the military one, he preferred continued
pressure on Iran that would force its leadership to pay a political,
economic or other price and conclude on its own that its nuclear
aspirations were harming its interests.
Einhorn emphasized, however,
that the military option still exists and can be carried out on short
notice. Natanz, the nexus of Iran's uranium enrichment program, would be a
major target of such action.
Dr. Gary Samore, Director of Studies
at the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, told the Herzliya Conference he
believed Iran was still years away from attaining nuclear weapons
capability, He admitted that at this stage it would be difficult to judge
whether Iran has a second, secret nuclear program parallel to its declared
one. Samore said that even if it this is the case Iran still cannot yet
create enough fissionable material to make its first nuclear
bomb.
Dr. Eli Levita, deputy director of Israel's Atomic Energy
Commission, did not discuss the Israeli position. Instead, he emphasized
that since 1989 the world has been in what he called the "third nuclear
age." He said this age, which would continue until approximately 2011, was
characterized by destabilization of the nuclear order and the appearance
of new nuclear powers. The war in Iraq, Levita explained, was the first
war to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The next
age, the fourth age according to Levita, could see the rise of Iran as a
nuclear power, the disintegration of Pakistan as a result of its
possession of nuclear weapons, serious consequences resulting from the
continuing crisis in North Korea and the danger of nuclear weapons finding
their way to terror groups.
Netanyahu on Iran
Opposition
head Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the Iranian nuclear threat extensively
in his speech at the conference. According to Netanyahu, the threat should
be countered with a series of steps to explain the situation in the
international arena, as well as with economic sanctions.
He
proposed starting with a divestment by major U.S. pension funds of
companies doing business in Iran.
"I call on the world that did
not stop the Holocaust to stop investing in Iran to prevent genocide," he
said, recommending garnering international support to bring Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to trial for genocide.