Obama ‘to offer Israel nuclear shield’
http://www.nation.co.ke/News/world/-/1068/501034/-/sdv8a7/-/index.html
US President-elect Barack Obama.
IN SUMMARY
Paper reports on strategic pact designed to fend off any attack by Iran
JERUSALEM, Thursday
US President-elect Barack Obama plans to offer Israel a strategic pact designed to fend off any nuclear attack on the Jewish state by Iran, an Israeli newspaper reported today.
Quoting an unnamed American source close to Obama, Haaretz daily said Obama’s administration would pledge under the proposed “nuclear umbrella” to respond to any Iranian nuclear strike against Israel with a US retaliation in kind. The US embassy in Tel Aviv had no immediate comment.
Asked about the report, an Israeli government official said only: “We do not engage in speculation whose source is unclear.”
Iran denies its nuclear programme has military designs. But virulent anti-Israel rhetoric from Tehran has spread fears that the Israelis, who are believed to have the Middle East’s only atomic arsenal, could attack their arch-foe pre-emptively.
The latitude for unilateral Israeli action might be limited by a US nuclear umbrella. Similar Cold War treaties – Nato in Europe, the nuclear umbrella over Japan – defended US allies while obliging them to get Washington’s nod for military moves.
Speculation on the possibility of a US-Israeli strategic pact was stirred two years ago, when President George W. Bush said in an interview with Reuters that his country would “rise to Israel’s defence” in the face of Iranian threats.
Israel was founded partly as a haven for survivors of the Nazi Holocaust, on the promise that Jews would now look to their own defence. Formally submitting to foreign protection could spell a major credibility crisis for the Israeli government.
And the Iraqi government has called for Obama’s administration to initiate sustained dialogue with Iran in hopes of greater Middle Eastern stability, a government spokesman said today.
Spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh also called for dialogue to improve relations between Iran and Arab countries.
“The time has come for a new, serious, and calm policy with an open-minded vision,” Mr Dabbagh said in a statement after he had given a speech in Washington.
The Shi’ite-led Iraqi government, which is friendly toward Shi’ite Iran and has been backed by Washington since the 2003 invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, has supported US-Iran dialogue before.
It now appears to be pinning its hopes on Mr Obama for greater talks between the long-time foes.
In a shift from outgoing President Bush, Mr Obama has said he favours direct engagement with Iran, even as he threatens to toughen sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme.
US and Iranian officials have held several rounds of talks in Baghdad – exclusively on Iraqi security and not Iran’s nuclear ambitions – in one of the few instances of direct communication between the two countries.
Antagonism between the US and Iran, which Washington accuses of stoking violence in Iraq, has at times strained ties between Tehran and Baghdad.
Iranian officials have accused Washington of plunging Iraq into bloody chaos and opposed a US-Iraqi security pact that will allow US troops to stay in Iraq until the end of 2011.
Iraq and Iran, which fought an eight-year war in the 1980s, both have a Shi’ite Muslim majority.
Many members of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Shi’ite-led coalition sought refuge in Iran during Saddam’s rule, when minority Sunni Arabs dominated Iraq, and have close ties today.
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