JERUSALEM, Jan 15, (RTRS): A senior Israeli official voiced disappointment in the Obama administration on Sunday, saying “election-year considerations” lay behind its caution over tough Iran sanctions sought by US legislators.
While Washington has been talking tougher about Iran’s nuclear work and threat to block oil export routes out of the Gulf if hit with harsher sanctions, new US measures adopted on Dec. 31 gave President Barak Obama leeway on the scope of penalties on the Iranian central bank and oil exports.
Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s vice prime minister, contrasted the administration’s posture to that of France and Britain, which he said “are taking a very firm stand and understand sanctions must be imposed immediately”.
“In the United States, the Senate passed a resolution, by a majority of 100-to-one, to impose these sanctions, and in the US administration there is hesitation for fear of oil prices rising this year, out of election-year considerations,” Yaalon told Israel Radio.
“In that regard, this is certainly a disappointment, for now.”
The Democratic president says he is determined to deny Tehran — which insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful needs only — the means to develop an atom bomb. His aides cast their sanctions strategy as a bid to work collaboratively with foreign powers and win over states that import Iranian oil without triggering price-boosting shocks to energy markets.
The remarks by Yaalon, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, appeared to jar with praise centrist Defence Minister Ehud Barak offered last month for what he described as Obama’s resolve against Iran.
Running for re-election in the face of Republicans who hold sway over big pro-Israel constituencies, Obama has sought to burnish his credentials as a friend of the Jewish state despite having frosty relations with Netanyahu.
In a phone conversation with the prime minister on Thursday, Obama “reiterated his unshakable commitment to Israel’s security,” the White House said. Both sides said the leaders’ discussion dealt with Iran and Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.
Reputed to have the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal, Israel sees the makings of a mortal threat in Iran’s uranium enrichment and missile projects, and has threatened to resort to force if it deems diplomatic isolation of its foe a dead end.
The prospect of Israel worsening regional instability with a unilateral strike has stirred worry in war-weary Washington.
Obama’s top military adviser, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey, was due to make his first visit to Israel on Thursday.
Israeli media predicted Dempsey would seek to persuade his hosts not to “surprise” the United States on Iran. The US embassy had no immediate information about the visit’s agenda.
Yaalon, himself a former top armed forces commander, said Israel should not “leap forward” to attack Iran.
“But Israel has to be ready to defend itself,” he said. “Let’s hope we do not arrive at that moment.”
Netanyahu sounded sanguine last week about the efficacy of big-power pressure on Iran, telling an Australian newspaper: “For the first time I see Iran wobble ... under the sanctions that have been adopted and especially under the threat of strong sanctions on their central bank.”Israel’s intelligence minister distanced himself on Sunday from the killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist last week that Tehran blamed on agents of Israel and the United States.
“I don’t know this subject and I would not want to discuss it at all,” Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor told Israel Radio, remarks that ended the government’s blanket silence on the Jan. 11 car-bombing that killed Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan.
The United States was quick to disavow the killing.
Meridor, the cabinet minister responsible for intelligence and nuclear affairs, said Israel was not the only regional power seeking to deny Iran — which insists its uranium enrichment is for peaceful needs only — the means of making a bomb.
“I think the campaign against Iran is a very important, serious and broad campaign,” he said. “The desire to prevent Iran nuclearising is an interest of almost all Arab countries, with the exception, perhaps, of Syria.”
Sanctions
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Sunday he was confident the European Union would impose far-reaching sanctions on Iran’s oil industry and possibly other sectors at an EU meeting next week.
He also said he hoped the 27-member European bloc could agree on further sanctions against Syria within the next 10 days over its military crackdown on protesters but gave no details.
EU states have agreed in principle to ban imports of Iranian oil over Tehran’s nuclear programme. They are working on details of how the ban will be implemented before a Jan. 23 foreign ministers’ meeting.
Iran has threatened to stop the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz if foreign sanctions are imposed on its crude exports, a move that could trigger military conflict with economies dependent on Gulf oil.
“We must not be put off further sanctions by bluster or statements from Iran. This is an increasingly dangerous situation that Iran is developing a military nuclear programme,” Hague told Sky News. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons.
“I am confident we will adopt very significant additional measures against Iran at the European Foreign Affairs Council a week tomorrow, on the 23rd, covering the oil sector and possibly other sectors as well,” he said.
Criticised
 China critised US sanctions on a Chinese company selling refined petroleum products to Iran, calling Washington’s punishment an unreasonable step beyond international sanctions on Tehran’s nuclear programme.
On Thursday, the Obama administration invoked US law to sanction China’s state-run Zhuhai Zhenrong Corp, which it said was Iran’s largest supplier of refined petroleum products.
“Imposing sanctions on a Chinese company based on a domestic (US) law is totally unreasonable, and does not conform to the spirit or content of UN Security Council resolutions about the Iran nuclear issue,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said in a statement issued on the ministry’s website (www.mfa.gov.cn) late on Saturday.
“China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and adamant opposition,” said Liu.
The Obama administration said its sanctions against the Chinese company and two other firms are part of a broadening effort to target Iran’s energy sector and press Tehran to curb its nuclear ambitions, which Western governments say appear aimed at developing the means to make atomic weapons.
Iran says its nuclear activities are legitimate and entirely for peaceful ends.