Panetta Goes to Middle East as Iran Dominates Israel Talk
Source: Bloomberg
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta heads today to the Middle East where tensions are rising over the democratic transition in Egypt, turmoil in Syria and Iran’s suspected advances toward nuclear weapons.
His trip to Tunisia, Egypt, Israel and Jordan has a security agenda, including new concerns about Syrian chemical weapons, along with election-season political stakes. Panetta is scheduled to arrive in Israel on the heels of a visit by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who has appealed to Jewish voters by attacking President Barack Obama as lacking sufficient commitment to Israel’s security.
One public source of tension between the Obama administration and Israeli leaders involves the urgency of military strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites. While the U.S. and Israel both say they suspect Iran is covertly seeking nuclear-weapons capabilities through uranium enrichment and other activities, the two allies have disagreed openly about how much time to give economic sanctions and negotiations to persuade Iran to give up much its nuclear program.
With a lack of progress in the negotiations, “the clocks in Washington and Tel Aviv are out of sync” on the timing for military action, said David Makovsky, a Middle East specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The Obama administration’s strategy is to see if Iran backs down as international sanctions increasingly hurt its economy, saying there is time for military action as a last alternative.
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-28/panetta-heads-to-middle-east-as-iran-dominates-israel-talks.html
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