海角大神

A daily summary of global reports on security issues

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come to the United States with a mission: to battle newly elected Iranian prime minister Hassan Rouhani's "onslaught of smiles" with "facts" and "the truth."

The United States and Israel are generally at least coordinated in their response to Iran's nuclear program and bellicose rhetoric. But Iran's recent charm offensive, consisting of letters, media interviews, and offers to potentially negotiate away the country's nuclear ambitions has driven a wedge in that alliance as US President Barack Obama has seized the opportunity to negotiate with one of the West's longstanding bugbears.

海角大神's Scott Peterson wrote about the diplomatic push last week:

But Mr. Netanyahu is urging the Obama administration not to be naive, and is unapologetic about being the party "spoiler," the Monitor's Jerusalem bureau chief, Christa Case Bryant, reports.

鈥淚srael doesn鈥檛 trust anybody, not even the American president,鈥� says Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University. 鈥淎 word doesn鈥檛 mean anything. Not even a signed paper. So it鈥檚 a big gap between how liberal Americans think about international relations and how Israelis and Arabs [see it].鈥�

Talking to Obama Monday, Netanyahu made a case for maintaining, not slackening, global pressure on Iran. FOX News laid out Netanyahu's case:

Israel punctuated its point by disclosing on Sunday that it had arrested an alleged Iranian spy posing as a businessman earlier in September. Ali Mansouri (or "Alex Mans," as his Belgian passport supposedly identified him), was born in Iran and held Belgian and Iranian citizenship. He reportedly set up a business in Israel as a cover for 鈥渋ntensive intelligence and terror activities," and photographed the United States Embassy building in Tel Aviv,聽The New York Times reports.

The timing of Israel's disclosure, the day before Netanyahu met with President Obama, may have been intended to prove Israel's point that Iran's promises should be treated with deep skepticism.

The European Union is taking a cautiously positive attitude toward the Iranian outreach effort, with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton saying that she was "struck by the energy and determination [Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif] expressed to me," according to The Wall Street Journal.

The stakes at this point are are high: estimates of the scope of the Iranian nuclear program vary, but generally suggest that the country has made real strides toward having the "breakout" capability to construct a nuclear weapon within a short period should it be seen as necessary. In a brief updated in January of 2013, The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation evaluates Iran's need for "highly enriched uranium, a device capable of initiating a nuclear explosion, and a delivery vehicle" and finds:

It's a very real possibility that Iran's charm offensive could be foiled from within. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ultimately pulls the levers, not Rouhani, and Iran's hardline elements are watching Rouhani's diplomatic moves warily. As Scott Peterson writes in the Monitor: