Israeli credibility on line over Iran nuclear challenge

Israel risks a loss of credibility over both its "red line" for Iran's nuclear program and its threat of military action, and its room for unilateral maneuver is shrinking.

After years of veiled warnings that Israel might strike the Islamic Republic, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid out an ultimatum at the United Nations last September.

Iran, he said, must not amass enough uranium at 20 percent fissile purity to fuel one bomb if enriched further. To ram the point home, he drew a red line across a cartoon bomb, guaranteeing him front page headlines around the world.

However, a respected Israeli ex-spymaster says Iran has skillfully circumvented the challenge. Other influential voices say the time has passed when Israel can hit out at Iran alone, leaving it dependent on U.S. decision-makers.

"If there was a good window of opportunity to attack, it was six months ago - not necessarily today," said Giora Eiland, a former Israeli national security adviser. Pressure from Washington, he said, had forced Israel to drop its strike plan.

Israel has long insisted on the need for a convincing military threat and setting clear lines beyond which Iran's nuclear activity should not advance, calling this the only way to persuade Iran that it must bow to international pressure.

Serving officials argue that Netanyahu's repeated warnings of the menace posed by Iran's nuclear project have pushed the issue to the top of the global agenda and helped generate some of the toughest economic sanctions ever imposed on a nation.

But some officials have also questioned the wisdom of his red line, arguing that such brinkmanship can generate unwelcome ambiguity - as the United States has discovered with its contested stance on the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

Amos Yadlin, a former military intelligence chief who runs a Tel Aviv think-tank, suggested last week that Israel had also got itself into a tangle, saying Iran had expanded its nuclear capacity beyond the Israeli limit, without triggering alarms.

"Today it can be said that the Iranians have crossed the red line set by Netanyahu at the U.N. assembly," Yadlin told a conference at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), which he heads.

DRUM BEAT RESUMES

Netanyahu's office declined to respond to Yadlin's remarks, noting that the prime minister, in recent public statements, had said Iran was "continuing to get closer to the red line".

Tehran denies there is any military component to its nuclear activities, saying it is focused only on civilian energy needs. It charges that Israel, widely believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, is the greater regional threat.

Keeping in step with Netanyahu, Israeli defense and military officials issued clear warnings this month that Israel was still prepared to go it alone against Iran, once more beating the drums of war after months of relative quiet.

"We will do what is necessary when it is necessary," armed forces chief of staff Benny Gantz told Israel Radio on April 16.

But there is increasing skepticism within diplomatic circles about the viability of such an option. Envoys doubt that the Israeli military could now make much of a dent on Iran's far-flung, well-fortified nuclear installations.

"If nothing happened last year, I struggle to see why it will happen this year," said a top Western diplomat in Tel Aviv, speaking on condition of anonymity given the sensitivities.

Israeli President Shimon Peres has done little to bolster belief in unilateral action, making clear this month that he thought U.S. President Barack Obama would be the one to go to war against Iran if nuclear diplomacy failed.

"He knows no one else will do it," Peres told Israeli TV.

The United States offered Netanyahu a new array of military hardware last week, including refueling tankers that could be used to get fighter jets to and from Iranian targets.

However, Israel cannot match the sort of firepower that the United States could bring to a battlefield. For example, Israel lacks the biggest bunker-busting bombs that experts say would be needed to penetrate Iran's underground Fordow enrichment plant.

Such limitations always cast doubt on a possible Israeli assault and the more time passes, the more the doubts grow.

Ehud Barak, the previous Israeli defense minister, said in November 2011 that within nine months it would probably be impossible to halt Iran because it was increasing the number of centrifuges and its network of sites, creating what he termed a "zone of immunity". Seventeen months have gone by since then.

RECONVERSION RATES

Washington has promised Israel it will not let Iran develop a nuclear bomb. Israelis get jittery, however, because they have set a very different clock for when they believe it would be necessary to intervene - hence the importance of the red line.

The Israelis make no distinction between Iran developing the capacity to build an atomic bomb and having the actual weapon. Yadlin told the INSS conference that as soon as Tehran could put just one rudimentary device on a boat and sail it to an Israeli port, it was a de-facto nuclear-armed nation.

Some analysts question whether Iran would indeed attack Israel if it had an atom bomb, or even try to build one, rather than just establish an apparent nuclear capability to project deterrence and regional power. To fire a nuclear weapon at Israel, they say, could spell the ruin of the Islamic Republic in counter-strikes by a foe with a far bigger nuclear arsenal.

Gantz himself said last year he felt Iran's leadership was "very rational" and unlikely to build an atomic bomb.

The U.S. concern is to prevent Iran, which has called for Israel's destruction, from reaching the verge of acquiring a nuclear bomb - a nuance at variance with Israel's position that provides a longer window of opportunity to continue diplomacy.

Exasperated by Washington's refusal to set a clear ultimatum, Netanyahu came up with his 240-250 kg (530-550 pound) limit for 20 percent enriched uranium, hoping this would concentrate minds. The Iranians stayed below this threshold by converting 110 kg of the gaseous material to solid form that they say is destined to power a research reactor.

Yadlin said that rather than turn all of this into solid reactor fuel, Iran had kept 80 kg of it in the interim powdered state. That, he said, could be converted back to original gas form in around a week, inflating the stockpile beyond 250 kg.

With the red line in possible jeopardy, and unilateral military action in doubt, one security official suggested that Israel might turn to covert sabotage, with renewed focus on those specifically working on the 20 percent enrichment.

Five Iranian scientists and academics have been killed or attacked since 2010 in incidents believed to have targeted Iran's nuclear program. Israel has remained silent about the attacks and other known acts of sabotage at Iranian sites.

Kerry says U.S. ready to "reach out" to North Korea

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday stressed the United States is willing to engage with North Korea as long as it takes steps to give up nuclear weapons.

He also vowed the United States would protect its Asian allies against any provocative acts by the North, but said Washington wants a peaceful solution to rising tensions in the region.

"We are prepared to reach out but we need (the) appropriate moment, appropriate circumstance," Kerry said, adding that North Korea had to take steps towards giving up its nuclear programs.

"They have to take some actions. Now how many and how much I want to have a discussion with folks back in Washington (about)... but they have to take action," Kerry told a small group of reporters.

The North has threatened for weeks to attack the United States,South Korea and Japan since new U.N. sanctions were imposed in response to its latest nuclear arms test in February. Speculation has mounted of a new missile launch or nuclear test.

"I think it is really unfortunate that there has been so much focus and attention in the media and elsewhere on the subject of war, when what we really ought to be talking about is the possibility of peace. And I think there are those possibilities," Kerry earlier told a news conference in Tokyo after a meeting with his Japanese counterpart, Fumio Kishida.

Kerry was in Japan for the final stop on an Asian tour aimed at solidifying support for curbing North Korea's nuclear program, and reassuring U.S. allies.

Kerry said the United States would "do what was necessary" to defend its allies Japan and South Korea, but added: "Our choice is to negotiate, our choice is to move to the table and find a way for the region to have peace."

Kerry also sought to clarify his comments made in Beijing on Saturday, which some took to suggest he might be offering to remove recently boosted missile defense capabilities in Asia if Chinapersuaded North Korea to abandon its atomic programs.

The Pentagon in recent weeks has announced plans to position two Aegis guided-missile destroyers in the western Pacific and a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system to Guam.

"The president of the United States deployed some additional missile defense capacity precisely because of the threat of North Korea. And it is logical that if the threat of North Korea disappears because the peninsula denuclearizes, then obviously that threat no longer mandates that kind of posture. But there have been no agreements, no discussions, there is nothing actually on the table with respect to that," Kerry said.

Japan's Kishida told the same news conference that the two allies want Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

"We agreed that North Korea should cease provocative speech and behavior and show it is taking concrete action toward denuclearisation," he said. "We cannot allow North Korea in any way to possess nuclear weapons."

NORTH KOREA UNBENDING

Pyongyang, which was preparing to celebrate the birth date of state founder Kim Il-Sung on Monday, reiterated it had no intention of abandoning its atomic arms programs.

"We will expand in quantity our nuclear weapons capability, which is the treasure of a unified Korea ... that we would never barter at any price," Kim Young-nam, North Korea's titular head of state, told a gathering of officials and service personnel applauding Kim Il-Sung.

The KCNA news agency also rejected as a "cunning trick" South Korean President Park Geun-hye's suggestion last week of holding talks with the North.

The South Korean capital, Seoul, displayed the calm it has shown throughout the crisis. Residents strolled in bright sunshine a day after the city's World Cup stadium was jammed with 50,000 mostly young fans of local rapper Psy.

On Saturday, Kerry met leaders in China, the North's sole diplomatic and financial benefactor, and said China and the United States were committed to "the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula in a peaceful manner".

During his first stop in South Korea, where the United States has 28,000 troops stationed, Kerry said North Korea, furious at joint U.S.-South Korean military drills, would be making a "huge mistake" if it were to launch a missile.

He also said China was in a position to influence the North's policy and had to put "some teeth" into efforts to persuade Pyongyang to alter its policies.

Japan, separated from North Korea by less than 1,000 km (625 miles) of water and a frequent target of its anger, is well within range of North Korea's medium-range missiles.

Japanese news reports said Tokyo had sent Aegis-class destroyers capable of missile interception to the Sea of Japan. Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptor missiles have been deployed at key locations in the capital and surrounding areas.

Kerry's agenda in Tokyo also included Japan's territorial disputes with China, and the future of U.S. bases in Japan.

He repeated that while Washington took no position about the ultimate sovereignty of tiny isles in the East China Sea claimed by both China and Japan, the United States "opposed any unilateral action that would somehow change the status quo".

A flare-up of the territorial row has raised fears of an unintended military incident near the islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China. The United States says the islets fall under a U.S.-Japan security pact, but is keen to avoid a clash in the economically vital region.

Kerry to North Korea: Don't test missile or you will regret

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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a stark warning to North Korea on Friday not to test-fire a mid-range missile, while tamping down anxiety caused by a new U.S. intelligence report suggesting significant progress in the communist regime's nuclear weapons program.

Kicking off four days of talks in an East Asia beset by increasing North Korean threats, Kerry told reporters in Seoul that Pyongyang and its enigmatic young leader would only increase their isolation if they launched the missile that American officials believe has a range of some 2,500 miles — or enough to reach the U.S. territory of Guam.

"If Kim Jong Un decides to launch a missile, whether it's across the Sea of Japan or some other direction, he will be choosing willfully to ignore the entire international community," Kerry told reporters. "And it will be a provocation and unwanted act that will raise people's temperatures."

If the trajectory of the test missile suggests that it could be a threat to either the U.S. or allies, the military would move to shoot it down from one of nine warships armed with sophisticated ballistic missile defense systems in the Pacific, including two that were moved closer to the Korean peninsula, U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss military plans.

Kerry said the test would be a "huge mistake" for Kim.

"It will further isolate his country and further isolate his people who are desperate for food and not missile launches," he warned. "They are desperate for opportunity and not for a leader to flex his muscles."

Kerry's diplomatic tour, while planned long in advance, is unusual in that it brings him directly to a region of escalated tensions and precisely at a time when North Korea is threatening action. The North often times its military and nuclear tests to generate maximum attention, and Kerry's presence on the peninsula alone risked spurring Pyongyang into another provocation. Another key date is the 101st birthday of the nation's founder, Kim Il Sung, on April 15.

After meeting South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, Kerry also weighed in on an intelligence report that rocked Washington on Thursday, suggesting that North Korea now had the knowhow to arm a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead — even if the weapons would lack reliability. Kerry, repeating assertions by other administration officials, noted that Pyongyang still hadn't developed or fully tested the nuclear capacities needed for such a step.

Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., surprised a hearing on the defense budget Thursday when he read aloud one paragraph of an otherwise classified Defense Intelligence Agency report. The assessment said the Pentagon's intelligence wing has "moderate confidence" that North Korea has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles but that the weapon was unreliable.

The disclosure took even Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by surprise and he refused to discuss it at the budget hearing. While analysts have made similar statements over the last two years, the reading of it at the same time Kim was renewing threats against the U.S. and its allies gave the notion new urgency.

Kerry offered strong words of solidarity for South Korea, praising Park's "bright vision" of a prosperous and reunified Korean Peninsula without nuclear weapons. By contrast, he said North Korea's Kim, by estimates only 29 or 30 years old, has a choice to make between provocation and returning to talks to de-escalate tension and lead to the end of its nuclear program.

"It's up to Kim Jong Un what he decides to do," Kerry said.

A missile launch, he said, "is not going to change our current position which is very clear: We will defend our allies. We will stand with South Korea and Japan against these threats. And we will defend ourselves."

Speaking beside Kerry, South Korea's Yun called for more United Nations action against Pyongyang if it commits another provocation.

He refused to comment specifically on the U.S. intelligence report, saying only that the North has "high nuclear and missile capabilities" but that it is still some time away from a nuclear bomb that is "small, light and diversified."

Both Yun and Kerry kept the door open for future negotiations with Pyongyang.

But both seemed to suggest that such talks were unlikely in light of the North's increasingly bombastic threats, including nuclear strikes on the United States. Most experts say those are unfeasible based on the North's current capacity and would never be explored seriously because the U.S. response would be overwhelming against a regime focused primarily on survival.

Kerry said any talks with North Korea have to lead toward denuclearization.

They have to be really serious," Kerry said. "No one is going to talk for the sake of talking and no one is going to play this round-robin game that gets repeated every few years, which is both unnecessary and dangerous."

Kerry to meet China's top leaders to discuss North Korea

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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meetsChina's top leaders on Saturday in an effort to persuade them to exert pressure on North Korea to scale back its belligerent rhetoric and, eventually, return to nuclear talks.

Travelling to Beijing for the first time as secretary of state, Kerry made no secret of his desire to see China take a more activist stance toward North Korea, which in recent weeks has threatened nuclear war against the United States.

As the North's main trading partner, financial backer and the closest thing it has to a diplomatic ally, China has a unique ability to use its leverage against the impoverished, isolated state, Kerry said in the South Korean capital Seoul late on Friday.

"There is no group of leaders on the face of the planet who have more capacity to make a difference in this than the Chinese, and everybody knows it, including, I believe, them," Kerry told U.S. executives.

"They want to see us try to reach an amicable resolution to this," he said. "But you have to begin with a reality, and the reality is that if your policy is denuclearization - and it is theirs as it is ours as it is everybody's except the North's at this moment - if that's your policy, you've got to put some teeth into it," he said.

Kerry is scheduled to see the top echelon of China's leadership on Saturday, including President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang and State Councilor Yang Jiechi, China's top diplomat who outranks Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

In remarks before reporters at the first meeting, neither Kerry nor Wang directly referred to North Korea, though the trip had "come at a critical moment", Wang said.

"Obviously there are enormously challenging issues in front of us and I look forward to having that conversation with you today to do exactly what you said - lift this conversation up, broaden it, set a roadmap, define for both of us what the model relationship (would) be and how two great powers, China and the United States, can work effectively to solve problems," Kerry told Wang.

Kerry's visit to Asia, which will include a stop in Tokyo on Sunday, takes place after weeks of shrill North Korean threats of war since the imposition of new U.N. sanctions in response to its third nuclear test in February.

North Korea has repeatedly said it will not abandon nuclear weapons which it said on Friday were its "treasured" guarantor of security.

"HUGE MISTAKE"

Beijing has been reluctant to apply pressure on Pyongyang, fearing the instability that could result if the North were to implode and send floods of refugees into China.

However, U.S. officials believe China's rhetoric on North Korea has begun to shift, pointing to a recent speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping in which - without referring explicitly to Pyongyang - he said no country "should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gain."

Kerry, who arrived in  early on Saturday, told reporters in Seoul that if North Korea's 30-year-old leader went ahead with the launch of a medium-range missile, he would be making "a huge mistake."

Kerry's visit coincided with preparations for Monday's anniversary of North Korean state founder Kim Il-Sung's birth, a possible pretext for a show of strength, with speculation focusing on a possible new intermediate missile test launch.

At a news conference in Seoul on Friday and in a U.S.-South Korean joint statement issued on Saturday, Kerry signaled the U.S. preference for diplomacy to end the tensions, but stressed North Korea must take "meaningful" steps on denuclearization.

"We will continue to encourage North Korea to make the right choice. If North Korea does so, we are prepared to implement the commitments under the 2005 Six-Party Joint Statement," it added, referring to the aid-for-denuclearization agreement.

The United States and its allies believe the North violated the 2005 deal by conducting a nuclear test in 2006 and pursuing a uranium enrichment program that would give it a second path to a nuclear weapon in addition to its plutonium-based program.

China asks North Korea to ensure safety of its nationals

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 China deplored rising tension on theKorean peninsula on Sunday but said its embassy was operating normally in the North Korean capital and it asked authorities there to ensure its diplomats and other citizens were kept safe.

North Korea, angry about new U.N. sanctions imposed for its thirdnuclear weapon test in February, has made increasingly strident warnings of an imminent war with South Korea and the United States.

The United States, keen to avoid action that could provoke the North, on Saturday postponed a long-scheduled missile test in California.

The North told diplomats on Friday to consider leaving Pyongyang because of the tension, but diplomatic missions appeared to view the appeal as more rhetoric and staff have stayed put.

South Korea said it was ready to counter any move, including a missile launch, that the North's unpredictable leaders might make.

China is reclusive North Korea's sole major diplomatic and financial backer, but its official statements have reflected an increasing impatience with the action of North Korean authorities under 30-year-old leader Kim Jong-un.

"At present, tensions on the Korean peninsula are rising unceasingly, and China expresses grave concern about this," China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website (www.mfa.gov.cn).

China, it said, had asked North Korea "to earnestly ensure the safety of Chinese diplomats in North Korea, in accordance with the Vienna Convention and international laws and norms".

The ministry said China's embassy was "understood" to be operating normally in Pyongyang. China would "protect the legal rights and safety of Chinese citizens and Chinese-invested organizations in North Korea". It did not elaborate.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, addressing a forum on the southern island of Hainan, appeared to refer to the tension when he said no country "should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gain".

Stability in Asia, he said, "now faces new challenges, as hot spot issues keep emerging and both traditional and non-traditional security threats exist".

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard told the same forum that avoiding conflict on the Korean peninsula was vital.

"There, any aggression is a threat to the interests of every country in the region," she said.

"I do welcome the growing co-operation of all regional governments to prevent conflict on the Korean peninsula and to counter North Korean aggression ... Asia must be a region of sustainable security in which habits of co-operation are the norm."

In Washington, a defense official said a test of the Minuteman III intercontinental missile, scheduled to take place at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, would be postponed.

"This is the logical, prudent and responsible course of action to take," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

He said the test had been unconnected to "anything related to North Korea" and added that another test launch could be expected next month. The United States remained fully prepared to respond to any North Korean threat, the official said.

MISSILE LAUNCH "COULD OCCUR"

The South Korean president's office said the country had a "firm military readiness" for any eventuality. It described as "planned behavior" the North's call for South Korean workers to leave the Kaesong joint industrial park, just inside North Korea, and for diplomats to evacuate Pyongyang by April 10.

"Ahead of that time, a situation like a North Korean missile launch could occur," Kim Haing, a spokeswoman for the presidential Blue House, quoted the chief of the National Security office as saying.

"As of now, there are no signs of all-out war, but if a local conflict breaks out, North Korea should be aware that it will pay the price."

Kim Jong-un is the third member of his dynasty to rule North Korea. He took over in December 2011 after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, who staged confrontations with South Korea and the United States throughout his 17-year rule.

North Korean anger over the sanctions following its nuclear weapon test has been compounded by joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises that began on March 1.

The North has always condemned the exercises but it has been especially vitriolic this year as the United States dispatched B-2 bombers from their home bases to stage mock runs.

North Korean television provided little evidence of tension on Sunday, with newscasts showing old footage of Kim visiting military units. Nor was there any tension in Seoul, with residents strolling in the city centre on a chilly spring day.

South Korean media said on Friday the North had moved two medium-range missiles to the country's east coast, but there has been no confirmation of such a move. That prompted the White House to say that Washington would "not be surprised" if the North staged another missile test.

North Korea has not shut down a symbol of cooperation with the South, the Kaesong industrial zone. But last week, it prevented South Koreans from entering the complex and 94 returned home on Saturday, the Unification Ministry said, leaving a further 518 there.