This week, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke of a critical red line, a
watershed moment that the international community must tell Iran that there is
no turning back from, if Tehran wishes to avoid a military strike.
Just
what could that red line be? National security experts provide a range of
answers.
“I do not know what ‘red line’ Netanyahu has in mind, but at
this point, stopping all uranium enrichment, and full transparency for
International Atomic Energy Agency experts visiting all nuclear sites is
necessary to convince Israel that Iran no longer pursues a nuclear military
option, said Prof. Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin- Sadat Center for
Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University.
“Later on, dismantling the
uranium enrichment infrastructure is necessary,” Inbar said. Furthermore, the
prevention of construction of plutonium separation facilities “could reassure
Israel that Iran is not on its way to the bomb.”
Emily Landau, director
of the Arms Control and Regional Security Project at the Institute for National
Security Studies, noted that red lines have already been crossed by
Iran.
“I find myself totally in agreement with Netanyahu on this point,”
she said. “You need massive pressure on Iran to get it to negotiate seriously,”
Landau said, adding that this was the purpose served by defining a red
line.
Without a credible military threat, economic sanctions and
diplomacy stood no chance, she said. While international sanctions have been
tightened, “we’re not seeing a clear enough message on the credible threat,”
Landau added.
General statements by US President Barack Obama have not
been sufficient, Landau argued, “because it seems that the US is depending on
intelligence intercepts of information showing that Iran has made a decision,
that the supreme leader told the head of the nuclear program, go for it, we’re
going for nuclear weapons.”
But the US could very easily miss that
information, and Iran could move to the breakthrough stage in its nuclear
program without giving the US enough time to use military force, she
argued.
“The idea is to set a red line now, to beef up the credibility of
consequences,” Landau said.
The clearest red line would be any indication
that Iran has enriched uranium beyond the 20 percent level, she added. The IAEA
can detect that kind of change.
“That is a clear-cut red line. It is not
based on intelligence. The idea is that you get Iran to think that the US is
totally serious,” Landau said.
A 20 percent red line policy stands a
chance of getting Iran to enter into negotiations in a serious manner, in which
the West would aim to get the Islamic Republic to stop enriching uranium, ship
out its stockpile and shut down its subterranean nuclear site at
Fordow.
Ephraim Kam, deputy head of the Institute for National Security
Studies said he could only guess what Netanyahu meant by a red line: “A defined
and final timetable for negotiations with Iran, after which other measures will
be taken, including a military option.”
Most importantly, Kam said,
Netanyahu is expecting the US “to make it clear, without stuttering, that the
military option is real if Iran does not stop enriching uranium.”