Gates clarifies US Iran policy in Riyadh after Biden fails in Israel
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report March 10, 2010, 5:37 PM (GMT+02:00)
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates arrived in Riyadh Wednesday, March 10, flying in unexpectedly from Kabul in Afghanistan, after the Saudis demanded urgent clarifications of the Obama administration's Iran policy.DEBKAfile's military sources report that the demand followed the failure of US Vice President Joe Biden's talks with Israeli leaders to resolve their differences on Iran.
As a result, two senior US officials are visiting to Middle East capitals at the same to under pressure to deal with the Iranian nuclear question.
Gates was closeted with Saudi rulers although it was as recently as Feb. 15 that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Riyadh and explainedWashington's strategy on Iran to King Abdullah and several senior Saudi princes. But she failed to allay her hosts' intense concerns that the US was doing enough to abort Iran's nuclear weapons program..
Then on Sunday, March 7, US Centcom Commander Gen. David Petraeus, asked by a CNN interviewer, whether countries in the Persian Gulf wish to see a US military attack on Iran, said: “…there are countries that would like to see a strike, us or perhaps Israel, even...”
In Israel, where the media are obsessed with the slightest Arab or Palestinian utterance, none cited the US general's comments.
DEBKAfile's military sources report that Petraeus' comments referred mainly to the two main Persian Gulf state, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In fact, the UAE foreign minister, referring to the assassination of Hamas member al-Mabhouh, noted this week that his country and Israel see eye to eye on the Iranian issue.
Reports of the Biden conversations in Jerusalem Tuesday have reached Riyadh. They reveal that not only is the Obama administration leaning hard on Israel to abstain from attacking Iran, but is even retreating from harsh sanctions. Such penalties have no been put on hold for five months.
The Saudis are as deeply alarmed by the latest American stance on Iran is as the Israelis.
US sources reported that no sooner did the US defense secretary land in Riyadh from Kabul when he was summoned to dinner with King Abdullah and the Saudi defense minister, Crown Prince Sultan. They admitted that he would be required "to present an update to Saudi officials who are intensely concerned about Iran's nuclear program and the fate of the American-led effort to impose new sanctions on Tehran."
Jerusalem expansion spurred by Biden's clampdown on Israeli action on Iran DEBKAfile Special Report March 10, 2010, 9:16 AM (GMT+02:00)
Tags: Jewish housing in E. Jerusalem 
Joe Biden
US Vice President Joe Biden in Jerusalem
Tuesday night, March 9, Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu told visiting US Vice President Joe Biden that the Interior Ministry district building commission's announcement clearing the addition of 1,600 homes to the existing East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo had been made without his knowledge. It would take another two years of paperwork for building to begin.
The announcement drew sharp condemnation from the White House in Washington and from Biden, who arrived late for dinner with the prime minister, after condemning the "substance and timing" of the announcement with the launching of proximity talks. This, he said "undermined the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions I've had here in Israel." The announcement was roundly condemned by the UN Secretary, Egypt and Jordan, as well as Israeli opposition leaders.
Israeli officials later assured Washington there had been no intention to undermine the Biden visit, but Netanyahu took no steps to reverse the decision made by ultra-Orthodox, hard-line Shas interior minister Ellie Yishai.
According to DEBKAfile's sources, the sweetness and light conveyed by public statements was hardly present in the US vice president's private talks with Israeli leaders. Netanyahu may well have approved the Jerusalem announcement as an indirect comeback for the way the American visitor laid down the law on a number of issues of Israeli concern, chiefly the matter of Iran's rapid progress toward a nuclear weapon.
The peremptory note was first noted when Biden called on president Shimon Peres, his first meeting with an Israel leader. He then explicitly warned Israel against venturing to attack Iranwithout prior American permission.
Even the oft-repeated American commitment to Israel's security was delivered with a notable reservation: I can promise the people of Israel that we will confront every security challenge that we will face, said Biden. This statement ruled out unilateral Israel operations in its defense. Forget unilateral, he was saying: From now "we" make the decisions about the levels of "security challenge" facing Israel and how to "confront it." And there was no false modestly about who the senior decision-maker was to be in this "alliance."
Jerusalem was also taken aback by the US vice president's assertion that Iran was isolated as never before. A distorting prism appeared to be held up by the Obama administration to justify its backtracking on painful sanctions for Iran. These sanctions were explicitly promised by the White House to Netanyahu and defense minister Ehud Barak in return for Israel's consent to hold back from striking Iran's nuclear facilities.
The Biden visit to Israel, therefore, far from meeting its avowed goal of smoothing over the differences between the Obama administration and Israel, has left Jerusalem more distrustful than ever.
The climate was not improved Monday, March 8, by Yukiya Amano, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, announcing that the IAEA board would get back to discussing Iran's nuclear program and making decisions only in five months' time. In other words, the UN Security Council would not have the nuclear watchdog's recommendations for supporting a sanctions resolution before July.
Israel attributed this delay to Washington's intervention as another gambit for shunting Israeland its demands for harsh sanctions aside, while also holding its hand against exercising any military options.
Approval for the expansion of Ramat Shlomo came on the heels of a tough new statement by defense minister Barak Tuesday. In a talk to students, he warned that when it came to Iran,Israel must keep its finger on the trigger at all times. And upon arrival in the United States this week, chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi was instructed from Jerusalem to talk tough on the Iranian question when he meets Pentagon officials in the coming days.
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