U.S. congressman confirms high-level U.S.-Israel spat over Iran

WASHINGTON, Sept 6 (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu blew up at the U.S. ambassador last month
because he was “at wit’s end” over what he sees as the Obama
administration’s lack of clarity on Iran’s nuclear program, a
U.S. congressman who was at the meeting said.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, a
Republican, made his first public comments about the late August
meeting in Israel in an interview with Michigan’s WJR radio on
Tuesday.

His disclosure comes only hours before President Barack
Obama will at the Democratic National Convention to accept the
party’s nomination as its candidate in the November election, in
which the level of the Obama administration’s support for Israel
has become a contentious topic.

“Right now the Israelis don’t believe that this
administration is serious when they say all options are on the
table, and more importantly neither do the Iranians. That’s why
the program is progressing,” Rogers said.

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful energy
purposes.

Israel is facing growing international pressure not to
unilaterally attack Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and the United
States has made clear it opposes any such strike.

Rogers said if the United States does not show Israel more
clarity on where it draws “red lines” on Iran’s nuclear program,
then Israel might conduct a strike.

“If I were betting my house today, I would guess that they
probably will do it if we don’t have a change in more clear red
lines from the United States,” he said.

The State Department had no immediate comment.

The spat between Netanyahu and U.S. Ambassador to Israel
Daniel Shapiro appears to confirm a deep chasm over how to deal
with Iran, which the two allies have tried to play down
publicly.

Obama has vowed to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear
weapon, but says there is still time for sanctions and diplomacy
to work. The White House says it has brokered international oil
and banking sanctions that are far tougher on Iran than previous
administrations achieved.

The original purpose of the meeting was for Netanyahu and
Rogers to discuss intelligence cooperation and other matters.
But it “devolved” into a sharp exchange in which Netanyahu
confronted Shapiro with a lot of frustration about the lack of
clarity on the administration’s position on Iran’s nuclear
program, Rogers said.

“The uncertainty about where the United States’ position is
on those questions has created lots of problems and anxiety that
I think doesn’t serve the world well and doesn’t serve peace
well,” Rogers said.

In an interview with an Israeli television station on
Sunday, Shapiro dismissed an Israeli newspaper account of the
heated closed-door exchange as “a very silly story” that did not
reflect what actually happened in the meeting where the
conversations were “friendly and professional.” Netanyahu has
not commented on the exchange, which was first reported by the
daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.

Israel has its own undeclared nuclear arsenal that is
believed to contain as many as 200 warheads.

Rogers said the Israeli and U.S. timelines differed on how
quickly Iran could put a nuclear weapon on a missile, if it
decided to move in that direction.

Netanyahu believes “if they decide to do the dash it could
be four weeks to eight weeks,” while U.S. intelligence analysts
believe it would “take a little longer than that,” Rogers said.
“But the problem is nobody really knows for sure.”

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