FM: If Iran sanctions don't work, all options on the table

JPost -- Lieberman makes comments to 15 ambassadors at UN in New York after Russia said Israel's hard-line approach on Iran could have "catastrophic consequences."

Israel hopes recent sanctions taken against Iran will get Teheran to stop its nuclear development, but if it does not, Jerusalem "is keeping all options on the table," Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told 15 ambassadors to the UN Thursday in New York.

Lieberman's comments during a meeting in New York with the ambassadors, including eight whose countries are on the Security Council, came amid a steady drumbeat of bellicose comments coming from both Israel and Iran.

Among the ambassadors in the room was the UN envoy from Russia. On Wednesday, Mikhail Ulyanov, head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's security and disarmament department, told Interfax that Israel's hard-line approach on Iran could have "catastrophic consequences."

AFP quoted Ulyanov as saying "the inventions” concerning the possible development of nuclear arms by Iran “are increasing the tension and could encourage moves towards a military solution with catastrophic consequences."

The “noise” about Iran’s nuclear intentions “have political and propaganda objectives which are far from being inoffensive,” he said.

Ulyanov's comments came less than a week after Russia blocked a UN Security Council resolution condemning Syrian President Bashar Assad for killing hundreds of his own countrymen, and one Israeli diplomatic official said the two events were linked.

"A country bending over backward to defend Syria is now making common cause with Iran, which is doing the same," the official said.

Russia has "invested all its stock in Syria and Iran," and as those countries are increasingly in trouble, Moscow is just "raising the stakes," rather than ending its investment.

"In the end it's the same old trick," the official said. "Blame Israel."

Lieberman, during his meeting with the ambassadors, warned Hezbollah against creating a "provocation" on the northern border to divert attention from the situation in Syria. "We hope this won't happen, but are ready for that possibility," he said.

In a related development, The New York Times reported Thursday that Israel and the US were at odds over whether Iran's crucial nuclear facilities were about to become impregnable.

The debate stems from Defense Minister Ehud Barak's increasing use of the term "zone of immunity" to describe the point beyond which a military attack on Iran would become ineffective. The "zone of immunity" refers to the point beyond which Iran's key nuclear facilities are fortified to the extent that a military action to stop the nuclear program would be ineffective.

For the US, the "point of no return" for Iran is when its leaders make the political decision to assemble a bomb. While Israel and the US agree on the perception of Iran's threat and, to a large extent, on how far their program has developed, there is a significant time difference between when Iran becomes "impregnable" to attack, and when its leaders make the decision to assemble a bomb.

That difference is significant regarding how much time the stepped up sanctions should be given, with the "zone of immunity" allowing for much less time.

According to the New York Times report, Obama administration officials said that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu "does not favor the phrase 'zone of immunity'."

But one PMO official, who was not willing to comment on the bulk of the report, would say only that regarding Iran, Barak and Netanyahu were "on the same page."