Talks With Iran Already Have Failed, And Yet Obama Seeks Further Talks, Bolton Says; Israel May Strike Iran Soon

Military Strike Might Not Kill Facilities; Bolton Urges European Missile Defense As Shield Against Iranian Missile Attacks

A defiant Iran won’t agree to abandon its nuclear program that in coming years likely will produce nuclear weapons, pushing a horrified Israel to move toward striking and annihilating Iranian nuclear facilities, perhaps after the Nov. 4 U.S. presidential elections, a veteran expert on Iran said.

John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President Bush, spoke before a forum of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank.

There is no hope that Iran can be talked into surrendering its nuclear program, Bolton said, while adding that Iran nonetheless is quite willing to enter negotiations in bad faith, because that will buy it time to develop nuclear weapons without having to face harsher sanctions for that obstinate stance.

"We offered every carrot possible to Iran" to persuade it to abandon the nuclear program, Bolton said, terming negotiations "an old idea that has failed." Negotiations have costs as well as potential benefits, he warned, costs not only in money but in lost opportunities to prevent Iran from emerging as a nuclear-bombs-wielding presence in the volatile Middle East. Meanwhile, time is wasted in talks, and "time works on the side of the proliferator," Bolton warned. "They’ve said repeatedly … they’re not going to" cease nuclear production.

Although talks won’t work, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the Democratic presidential nominee, has offered to negotiate, Bolton observed.

Meanwhile, however, Israel has no illusions or wrong-headed hopes that Iran can be persuaded to abandon its path to nuclear-power status, Bolton said. So, he added, Israeli leaders, facing an existential threat, are very actively considering a tough military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.

Such an Israeli initiative may come very soon, after the Nov. 4 U.S. presidential election, but before Bush leaves office Jan. 20, Bolton said. On the other hand, however, he said Israel might not be able to act that swiftly, if it first must gather more intelligence about the location and fortification of Iranian facilities.

While it is true that an Israeli military strike might not succeed, "it is far more unattractive" to countenance an Iran launching a nuclear strike on Israel, Bolton observed.

Therefore, after the U.S. presidential election pitting Obama against Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican hopeful, Israel "may decide to strike," before Bush leaves office, Bolton said. This is, he said, "a very, very live option" in Israeli top-level deliberations. "Force is very much at the top of their minds."

Israel may well decide to launch the strike, even though Israel will suffer a reprisal as a result, Bolton said. In the event of an Israeli strike, he predicted, the Hezbollah terrorist group would launch a renewed missile attack on Israel.

Hezbollah, working from strongholds in southern Lebanon, in 2006 launched thousands of rockets and missiles into Israel, striking civilian buildings, causing injuries and deaths to civilians. The group also used a missile to hit an Israeli naval ship.

Since that assault, Bolton observed, Hezbollah "has been resupplied" with more advanced missiles than were employed in the 2006 attack. Hezbollah receives weapons from Iran.

Further, Bolton predicted that if Israel strikes Iranian nuclear sites, "we’re going to get blamed," and U.S. interests will be hit by forces in the region. There would be increased terrorist attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, he warned.

Israel fears the advent of a nuclear-armed Iran for several reasons.

First, Iran defies world opinion by continuing to produce nuclear materials in thousands of centrifuges, material it claims is for peaceful electrical generation but which Western leaders say may be used to build nuclear weapons.

Iran also has launched multiple missiles in salvo tests, launched a missile from a submerged submarine, and said it is developing a space program that would involve technologies similar to those for an intercontinental ballistic missile.

And Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Israel must be wiped from the map, and Israel soon shall cease to exist.

Although Iran is working rapidly to develop longer-range missile capabilities, Bolton said Iran might wish to avoid retaliation for any nuclear strike it initiates by delivering the atomic weapons to a target city via smuggling.

But Space & Missile Defense Report asked Bolton whether the United States needs to press forward with plans to emplace the proposed European Missile Defense (EMD) system in the Czech Republic and Poland, and Bolton replied that is vital.

"This is a matter of considerable urgency," Bolton stressed. "We’re still a long way" from" constructing a complete, operating EMD system. (Please see full story in this issue.)

And if Obama is elected president, the EMD system may never be built, Bolton warned.

"The viability of that system is in question if Sen. Obama wins the presidency," though Bolton added that he isn’t entirely sure on that point.

He and others appearing at the Heritage Foundation forum also said that there is no certainty that the United States could foster, successfully, a popular movement for regime change in Iran that would sweep out Ahmadinejad and other current leaders.

After Bolton’s presentation, during an ensuing panel discussion, James Brookes, senior research fellow with the Heritage Foundation, agreed that no negotiations are going to persuade Iranian leaders to abandon their nuclear program.

"I don’t think carrots are going to work," he said.