The Jerusalem Post
As the United States prepares to sit down with Iran next month, Israeli officials are intensifying their calls to immediately impose tough sanctions on Teheran as a more effective means of stopping its nuclear program. While the United States is looking more seriously at sanctions, it has indicated such a move wouldn't come until the end of the year after efforts at diplomacy have had more time to run their course.
Senior US officials told Jewish leaders last week that they have become increasingly skeptical of the diplomatic path and want to lay the foundations for tough sanctions so that they would be ready to implement them if talks falter. US President Barack Obama has spoken of reevaluating the approach to Iran at year's end. But in the short term, the US has accepted a meeting with the Iranians as part of the P-5+1 multilateral framework that also includes Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. Those talks are now scheduled for October 1.
That plan didn't keep Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, a close associate of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, from urging the imposition of harsh sanctions immediately and questioning the usefulness of such conversations. "This is really the last moment to do something serious, something significant to stop the Iranians," he said at an appearance at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on Tuesday. "The time is right now and we feel desperate about it. The people in Israel feel that maybe we're left alone." (Read more...)
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