culture is that so much a given it is each musician appearing on the market in the case of the dog this is how some would characterize the current drum people who are against iran at the center of this campaign is the i'm. getting from a kevin zero in here in moscow tonight eleven thirty pm moscow time on the top stories syria's defiant president vows to keep out what it calls foreign backed terrorists as washington dismisses the military attack other countries are withdrawing from syria over the violence between government forces an opposition fighters there's no place thousands of lives this president makes a move for peaceful foreign policy several war hungry politicians are sticking to their gods to calling for military action against iran this after senator john

mccain also fueled the fire by calling for strikes against syria. putin says the forty five million votes he won is all the proof he needs for an independent group of russian observers claimed the presidential poll was floored the league of voters reported violations but say they won't take the allegations to call. ahead people about his guest discuss the tight relationship between israel and the united states crosstalk next on arctic. please. liz. liz. you can. start. to. flow in welcome to cross talk you know all about is it

a case of wag the dog this is how some would characterize the current drumbeat for war against iran at the center of this campaign is the american israel political favors committee or a pack is attacking iran in america's interest or even israel's. live king. live. across the tight relations between israel united states i'm joined by valerie and lindsay in washington she is the editor in principal researcher for iran watch also in washington we have or khichri he is a tenured professor of law at arizona state university and in jerusalem we go to my ordinary she is a freelance journalist and writer all right folks rosenfeld that means you can jump in anytime you want i very much encourage it i my if i go to you first. public opinion poll came out in israel last week to found that nineteen percent of israelis favor attacking iran without american support and only forty two percent favor an attack on iran even if it has american support but the same time apac is

in washington d.c. saying it's go to war go to war go to war as a plant representing the interest of israel. and my opinion not at all and i think that you started with a brilliant question it was something i wanted to bring up myself israeli public is not marching to war we're iraq meaning our defense minister and that's and yeah oh ok and then you have a pat also which seems to be in the war camp. here in israel those of us who live here who are citizens who you know are have a future and a vested interest in this please we're not in a rush to go to war so ok well then already i mean if i can add on to that public appeal in israel and then in the washington post there's a full page ad of major figures that were in the military intelligence sectors of the united states asking all virtually begging obama not to go to war to reconsider

what is being floated into the public sphere for a drumbeat against iran i mean let's add those two together but apac still continues to really pressure our politicians in the united states to go to war almost to the point it's not it's not if it's when. you know i i wouldn't agree with the characterization that it's a pack and particular leading the drumbeat for war i think what iran has done is put the international community in an untenable position iran has international legal obligations that it's flouting you know they head of the i.a.e.a. has said that iran is working on military dimensions of a of a nuclear program and this i think that or and i think everybody should be here to be fair the i.a.e.a. says it has concerns it didn't say it. is it has concerns words are

important here when it comes when it comes to go to war and i'm sorry go ahead you want to jump in their mind and say that the american south. yeah the american intelligence agencies if i'm not the see again they have agreed that iran seems to have stopped building a nuclear weapon around two thousand and three and has not resumed this program so i mean let's say that iran continues its nuclear program if it doesn't want to work and what's the problem with having nuclear energy say is this an issue i mean and then also let's say they do want to build a weapon i mean usual deterrence will keep every ok what's going to mutual the current am i wrong ok there you traditionally cuomo get out and complain or you want to when we're mallory she hasn't said anything yet in the program that you want to jump in there. i did i think. we don't want to get we don't we won't we don't want to eilat we don't want to iraq allow iran to get in

a position where we have a nuclear weapon capability i don't think that's a world that anyone wants the americans or the israelis and i think that is why there is this sort of increased attention to iran at this point because there's a sense that if we don't do anything soon iran will be in the position to make a nuclear weapon when it decides to do so it will have that what we call a breakout capability and that is what we want to prevent ok but if i can stay with you you know before i got into television i was an academic historian and you know when the soviets got a nuclear weapon there was all just all this great hysteria and then when the chinese did there was all this hysteria there's going to be the third world war and then i'm going to go back to what maya said the whole concept of deterrence i mean why is the islamic republic of iran different then the hysteria that was around the soviet union around china around let's say well there's an islamic country in the world that has a nuclear weapon and that's that's not pakistan i mean what is the thing is that i guess i worry about and i pull back toward on this one here is the more you go down

the path of war the more it will make a rand want to have a weaponized. nucular device i mean that logically gets all twisted up go ahead oregon washington. well you know it's a little more sure a couple things first of all i have the quote from the i.a.e.a. in front of me and they say the report says there's information available to the agency indicating that iran has carried activities that are relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device if you read through the report article is clear that iran is working on all three aspects of the nuclear explosive device weaponization and richmond which is the hardest part and also a delivery system why are we particularly concerned about iran because this is a government that well may not be deterrable what evidence do you have in the but if it is still around of that word what evidence do you have about what that's an interesting statement this is a government. this is a government with a messianic apocalyptic like soviet communism and

a government also well you know the soviet the soviet communists were atheists they didn't believe that chaos would help bring a better world in the world to come ok ok so i don't mind if i could have been here for my wedding so these people are gone i don't have a death wish they want to be completely obliterated right i mean is there anything in the history of the islamic republic that gives you an idea that there were allowing to risk everything there in what you want to protect most is a regime that's what seems to me ok my thinking i'm going to have somebody you know uniting mind here i mean definitely kristen zion is that are you know. you know rabid supporters of israel i mean they definitely have the messianic features to you and i don't hear anyone saying that

oh the christian zionists didn't have any you know powers so i mean i don't think that i'm reminded of the only thing roll something you want you don't want to bring this into the conversation. ok valerie i'm sure there is going to join me in there for snow the reason was all right i want to have valerie stearns go ahead please i think we need to let's leave aside the nature of the iranian regime and just look at what would happen if iran were in a position where it had nuclear weapons we're talking about an issue an inheritance problem if there's any kind of instability in the country what happens to the weapons we're talking about the reaction of other countries in the region who are going to want to develop nuclear nuclear capability or even nuclear weapons of their own it's already a quite unstable region so i think there are a lot of dynamics here that are incredibly worrisome for israel in the united states leaving aside the nature of the iranian regime which is worrisome ok or what about israel's nuclear weapons program kind of a moot point because i understand why you go ahead right. this is kind of

a moot point because they understand that there is a ronnie a nuclear program that if there was a strike that it would set back the program it wouldn't end the program so i mean you know if anything striking iran might then make a self-fulfilling prophecy that we say oh they want to destroy it they want to destroy is they're going to destroy us and then we do a preemptive strike which only encourages them to escalate their program so i mean they've already got a lot of their photos ok my understanding is that ok my interest to the capacity my interest rate i said my question that i was going to give to or go ahead i want to respond to what i just said there. sure those who call for a military strike on iran and i don't call from the terry strike on iran at least at this time point to the example of israel strike on the iraqi reactor which set the iraqi program back so far there was never reconstituted and also the israeli strike on the syrian reactor which set the syrian program back so far that it has

yet to be reconstituted so there is something to be said for setting programs back for buying time ok valorie so do you think you're iran is like you know what the syrians and the iraqis berkeley exactly i mean the thing is is that i mean dollar if i can ask you if there is a military strike against iran that's open war and there the consequences of that for the region are sorry men's and an arms race could ensue after that i mean isn't that another law of unintended consequences that are not being thought about here. yeah i mean the iranian response to any kind of a military attack on its nuclear facilities is very hard to predict but we can we can assume that there will be one some a symmetrical to a large extent but there will be one and this sort of unpredictable element makes it i would say and everyone agrees that you know an option of last resort i believe that obama was right in his speech at apac to say that the diplomatic options have not been exhausted i think that now coming into this summer we're going to have

really crippling sanctions that are going to be put in place on iran and the negotiations that happen during this period are going to happen in that context of incredible economic pain in iran so i think there is still a chance for diplomacy but it's it's a small it's the window is closing i think that's the message that benjamin netanyahu brought to washington and i think it's an accurate one ok it sounds like netanyahu said the window is already closed i think it is all right go ahead my keep going head to head in jerusalem. sorry and that's a young themselves speaking to an australian periodical in january netanyahu said that sanctions are working so i'm not you know too keen on on trusting anything netanyahu says because he's speaking out of both sides of his mouth you know in january the sanctions are working now in march suddenly they're not working and he's you know pressuring to get this hardline from obama so i mean do we really want to listen to what netanyahu says in other words the sanctions the sanctions are working the sanctions are working they're having

a significant effect on the iranian economy but there's a race basically between the sanctions and the iranian nuclear program which is moving forward despite the sanctions i agree with president obama that it is too risky to contemplate containment of an iranian regime and if you read between the lines of what a bomber had to say the price of an iranian of a nuclear armed iran may be higher than the price of stopping iran from acquiring nuclear weapons all right we're going to go far she cause ok number of states in the region that have made it clear that they plan to acquire nuclear weapons next all right we're going to a short break and out about a short break we'll continue our discussion on obama's rhetoric on iran today our.

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welcome back to our start time beautiful to remind you we're talking about president barack obama's speech at eight. q. ok valerie i'd like to go back in there in that ad that was in the washington post and it stated that not every challenge has a military solution and unless we or now it is attacked or should be the last last option. do you see that in the air i mean it seems to me and in i remember two thousand and three very well it seems to me there's

a drumbeat for war the american media has been saturated for decades of being very anti-american i mean remarkably enough a pew public opinion poll says that americans think iran is the most threatening country to the united states which is patently absurd ok it seems to me that you know we have a lot of military people intelligence people very worried about the consequences of a military conflict but you see that really diplomacy is being taken seriously because of that apec meeting diplomacy wasn't high on the agenda i diplomacy was a high on the agenda but i wouldn't say that you know u.s. lawmakers are not aware that diplomacy is important or another aspect of the diplomacy which is the same track early on iraq slate man who is the chair of the house foreign affairs committee has been pushing a number of different bills through trying to get bills through congress that would strengthen sanctions close loopholes etc so i think you know there is a sense in the united states among policymakers that there are still things we can do to cripple the iranian economy further ok when you think about that or do you

think the diplomacy is still taken seriously. i think diplomacy is taken very seriously look you just have to look at barack obama who told the iranians that if they would unclench their fist they would find an extended hand and for a year president obama did not ramp up sanctions it was made clear to the iranians that there was a wonderful offer on the table and in fact the offer as i understand it is still on the table the obama administration would be quite willing to sit down with the iranians but the iranians have shown no interest in talking no interest in making meaningful concessions when you think about that mind you think they'd be the iranians that are not interested in diplomacy ok well i don't think they're interested in a military conflict either they're so obviously much much weaker than israel as a regional about power and the united states as a superpower i mean anyone has to just look at a map and the number of american bases that surround iran and you have a fleet to the south i mean it isn't there's not some and there's no cemetery here

whatsoever i don't see any interest of the iranians want to have a military conflict my own what about diplomacy i mean do you think the political elite in israel really are interested in diplomacy. well i actually want to make a comment on these words that or it is you know interest if i'm not mistaken iran did actually send a letter recently indicating that it is interested in talking so i don't know about these words no interest first of all second of all i think diplomacy can work i mean we do need to think up a price that the iranian people will pay i understand that there are you know that the price of basic food stuffs is going way way up you know and we don't want to starve the population that's not the correct thing to do. i recognize you know that there are concerns about a nuclear iran but the people should not have to pay the price and what's really interesting to me about this conversation about sanctions and diplomacy is that israel is in violation of plenty of international laws you know is violating the

human and civil rights the palestinians on a daily basis and where is the discussion about sanctions and diplomacy you know around that to me the iran issue represents to some extent you know an attempt to to put over here you know hey everyone look over there look at iran so you know israel can continue building settlements house demolitions home demolitions in the west bank are up this year above the two thousand and eleven level which was the highest that it's ever been so we're already seeing an escalation you know under the cover of the iran and the elections israel is doing what it wants are just that are you saying that if israel would stop building settlements that iran would stop with its nuclear program are you implying that that's the motivation for iran's nuclear program. what i will i want a frank is from where you are you know what i mean it's a very interesting thing that it's a very interesting thing at the apec meeting there wasn't any of that i'm aware of any mention of the quoting quote peace process and i think in there's a great it's very interesting for western media particularly american media to

change the subject here because i mean it's claims of the president of iran said that israel should be wiped off the map of the world of the earth but i mean the israelis are wiping the palestinians off the map that would i would say but let's go back to the iranians they really are not wiping the palestinians off and that why that's the palestinians that we're not talking about do that issue here right now or if i know either the palestinian or you know he's already being wiped off the face and over her head where's the peace can can we go back i mean look i mean it's you know this is their response engagement on diplomacy i mean i think i think i'm to come back to something that my own said i think iran has traditionally and this let's let's be clear there have been diplomatic efforts going on for eight nine ten years trying to get iran to roll back its program iran has been offered a number of different economic and political goodies including to some extent nuclear concessions so i think iran has used the diplomatic track to essentially delay as instilling its nuclear program has continued now the next set of

negotiations that may come about in the next weeks and months are going to take place in a context where iran the economy is suffering and serious sanctions are going to be put in place that may change iran's calculation as it goes into the negotiations but in the past in the past nearly a decade iran has not been a good partner when it's come to diplomatic negotiations that's just a fact when you think about that maya. the means are not good partners well i want to say again what i already said that and so you think that the american intelligence agencies believe that iran stopped building a weapon in two thousand and three and so the question again that i don't believe anyone's answer for me is what would be the problem with an iranian nuclear program that is for civilian program is this an issue and why is it ok that other. countries in the region have nuclear weapons why is that when you talk about a regional where you go ahead valorie jump in that's the whole point of the program

go ahead when when you when u.s. intelligence says that iran has suspended or frozen its nuclear weapons program it's talking about a very small part of an overall nuclear weapons program it's talking about weaponization weaponization and delivering the weapon are about ten percent of the overall sort of africa that's required to make nuclear weapons overwhelmingly the most important aspect is making nuclear fuel and why iran is doing now on the ground at a fortified plant and forgo is essentially creating a stockpile of fuel that could be quickly enrich to weapon grade for breakout capability or if i go to you what if the proposal of having a nuclear free zone for the entire region meaning israel opens up its nuclear arsenal for inspection do you think that would be accomplished that could be on the table for diplomacy i mean that's fair isn't it transparent isn't it. i think i think that's a very interesting idea and obviously the nuclear nonproliferation treaty review

conference call for a conference in two thousand and twelve on that very topic moving forward towards a nuclear weapons free zone in the region the israelis have always stated that they support such an idea and concept but that such an idea can only be invented in the context of a comprehensive peace in the region and i believe that that's the u.s. position as well well that sounds kind of ridiculous to me i mean if you everyone has to disarm and then we'll have the one party left saying you know well actually be for the region when you think about that mind you think the israeli public opinion would go for that you know you show our quote you will show our cards you show your cards i mean without build any confidence within israeli society. i don't think so but i think that i mean forget about what israeli society was and so we need to talk about what the leaders want because i feel at this point that that i mean as someone who lives here and is

a citizen and dreams the water and pays taxes i feel like i'm on a roller coaster right right now but i don't know what these leaders are going to do and what they're going to drag the whole country into you and perhaps america as well so i mean forget about what society wants to talk about with the leaders line and the leaders here i don't think are interested in a peace process you know we said something earlier someone said something earlier about that iran using diplomacy as a way to stall and i think that absolutely applies to israel as well i mean diplomacy has bought israel time to build more settlements to you know really clamp down on gaza the blockade on gaza which is cruel and inhumane and so no i don't think that you know israel will disarm if we have peace i mean it's not that's not going to happen we won't have peace. before israel disarms it's a catch twenty two well and what do you think the next step is i mean how how worried are you that there will be

a military strike against iran. i think we're entering a period now which will be critical but it will depend i think to a large extent on the type of sanctions that are put in place in the next say six months or so and it will depend on it iran's approach at the negotiating table because i think there will be some type of some type of talks i think a year from now we're going to be looking at iran with a with a pretty serious breakout capability and it's not clear to me that israel or the united states is going to be able to accept that ok or i'm going to give you a lot i do think you know after following this oh i was going to ask one last question before we run out of time here is israeli and american interests identical in dealing with iran in your opinion is it wag the dog. well i think they're both very very concerned about iran's nuclear program you know if you look at president obama's interview with the atlantic last week he was asked what would

your peak position be on iran's nuclear program if israel isn't weren't in the picture he said it would still be a profound national security interest the united states to prevent iran from getting a nuclear weapon the one difference i think between the two countries is in terms of timing the united states wants to give more time for biting sanctions to bring iran to the table for serious concessions and israel is concerned because they don't they may not have the military capability in six months to stop iran's program and so i think there's kind of a calendar issue between the two countries all right we still have a little bit more time valerie what do you think about that i mean how aligned are israel united states i personally can't see how iran is a really big threat to the united states maybe except for maybe alleged proliferation. i think that israel and the united states are more or less aligned in terms of their on their sort of the way they ascertain the threat i think it's really a question as or instead of how to deal with that threat and the time in which you

have to let sanctions work and the time at which you decide that you know military strike is necessary all right thank you very much to all of you for an interesting discussion many thanks my guest today in washington and in truth and thanks for viewers for watching us here to see you next time and remember. led mission in the cretaceous three per cent store charges three. maintenance three per. studio three a pearl a long sleeved lunch mineola for your media projects a free media.