Barak downplays current Iranian threat to Israel

US, UK readying tougher sanctions if UN proposals blocked

By ICEJ News

08 Mar 2010

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Monday downplayed the existential threat that Iran poses to Israel at present, suggesting the danger has gotten overblown in the national discourse.

“Perhaps in the future the Iranian regime will become a threat, but at the moment there is no need to get too agitated," he said at the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. "We are acting to prevent Iran from becoming [a threat].”

Meanwhile, Israeli President Shimon Peres sounded a bit agitated himself at Tehran on Sunday as he warned that, “Iran has the intention of ruling the Arab world, using our conflict with the Palestinians as an excuse to cover up the differences between Sunnis and Shiites.”

Their comments come as Western diplomats are working with Middle Eastern and Asian countries to set up alternative sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program in the expectation that any measures agreed upon by the UN Security Council will be heavily diluted by Russia or China. The Daily Telegraph (UK) is reporting that Washington’s latest proposal presented to allied governments includes a list of dozens of companies suspected of being fronts for the Revolutionary Guard, which has taken over a sizeable chunk of the Iranian economy besides controlling its nuclear facilities.

China’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi signaled once again yesterday that Beijing was not on board with stiffer sanctions, insisting “we don’t think diplomatic efforts have been exhausted.”

A counterview came from Gen. David Petraeus, head of US Central Command, who told CNN on Sunday that questions about whether or not Iran was actively pursuing nuclear weapons are "a little bit immaterial at this point in time, because all of the components of a program to produce nuclear weapons... have been proceeding." He went on to explain that the fragile governments of the Gulf oil sheikdoms are very irresolute, sometimes hoping that Israel or the US will strike Iran and sometimes dreading that they will.

In Iran itself, Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi announced on Sunday the opening of a production line for what he claimed would be highly accurate, short range cruise missiles capable of evading radar. The new missile, called the Nasr1, would carry enough of a punch to take out targets up to 3,000 tons in size. Western and Israeli analysts were largely shrugged off the announcement, since Iran frequently exaggerates about its military capabilities.

Of much greater concern was a report in the reputable defense magazine Janes that images taken by an Israeli satellite seem to confirm suspicions that Iran has accelerated construction of a large new center for launching rockets into space that could easily also serve to launch long range missiles. The launching pad at the Semnan space center includes a launch tower closely resembling the tower at North Korea’s launch pad at Tongchang, indicating close cooperation between the two rogue states. [To see satellite photos, CLICK HERE!]

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