Israeli officials are beginning to signal impatience with the slow pace of diplomacy aimed at restraining Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
In Jerusalem on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stressed the need for the international community to join a U.S. sanctions push aimed at limiting Iran’s nuclear program. He suggested the Iranian leadership’s days could be numbered if it continues to seek nuclear capability.
“The stronger those sanctions are, the more likely it will be that the Iranian regime will have to choose between advancing its nuclear program and advancing the future of its own permanence,” Netanyahu said. He added: “I think that the international community and the leading countries in the international community have to join the American effort. And Israel has been helping out with key countries and continues to do so.”
Netanyahu’s message is being reinforced by his deputy foreign minister, Daniel Ayalon, who arrived in Washington on Tuesday for urgent meetings on Iran with senior State Department and White House officials, including Deputy Secretary of State James B. Steinberg, Undersecretary of State William J. Burns and White House nuclear expert Gary Samore.
Ayalon traveled to Washington to emphasize Israel’s growing displeasure and nervousness with the sanctions debate at the U.N. Security Council, according to a senior Israeli official who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive diplomacy.
The Obam…
