"The perception among Israelis & Arabs that Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon is a "game-changer", is the REAL danger...."

MEPGS: Excerpts.
"On the eve of Prime Minister Netanyahu's visit to Washington, Israeli officials have found themselves scrambling to get a better sense of the direction of US Middle East policy.  "It's quite a departure from the Bush days," said one well-placed Israeli official recently.  "Coordination between Israel and the US was a hallmark of policy.  Today, we are rarely the first to know about US actions that impact directly upon us."      Nowhere is this difference more profound than in the unfolding US policy towards Iran.  It is coordination with America's European allies, in particular, that gets first priority.  Even Arab friends, leery of the Administration's desire to engage Iran, have expressed frustration at being sidelined.  As Defense Secretary Gates discovered on his recent trip to the region, Gulf Arab governments fear their interests will be sacrificed in order for Washington to strike what some call a "grand bargain" with Teheran. Gates and other US officials, including the State Department's point man on Iran Dennis Ross, have gone to great lengths to reassure the Arabs that the Administration is aware of their concerns and is proceeding cautiously.      In fact, the Administration is not only developing plans but also a timetable for dealing with Iran.  Key to the strategy is the adoption of what is called a "freeze for a freeze".  This approach would provide for a "freeze' in US efforts to apply additional economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for Teheran's willingness to stop expanding its uranium enrichment program.  Such an agreement would run concurrently with a US-led dialogue with the Iranians, intended to produce an agreement that would prevent them from achieving a nuclear weapons capability.  Preliminary plans call for this "freeze for a freeze" to be instituted after Iran's June Presidential elections [in order to avoid influencing the results].  Crucial to implementation of this plan would be the proviso that the "freeze" would act as a precursor to a halt in Iran's enrichment program.  "We are aware that the Iranians could well try to stretch out the freeze indefinitely, meanwhile slowly building their capability," says one well informed source.  In order to prevent such stalling tactics, the US is prepared to insist that the freeze be of specific and limited duration.  And if the Iranians try to drag it out, they will be required to adopt additional, if, as yet, unspecified measures that would further curtail their enrichment program.      Some Israelis, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak, appear to welcome this kind of US initiative.  As one veteran Israeli official put it recently, "The hard line Bush approach got us nowhere.  These guys have a new strategy, a kinder, gentler one."  Another key Israeli official argues that European collaboration on Iran [unlike on Arab-Israel peacemaking] is to be welcomed.  "The Europeans are more clear-eyed about Iran than the US," says this official.  "This comes in part from their years of experience with this regime --in contrast with the sometimes naive American view.      Other Israeli officials are far more skeptical.  "The Russians and to a surprising extent the Germans will go to great lengths to prevent a breakdown in talks if Iran decides to engage," says one senior Israeli official recently returned from Moscow.  Others, with direct experience with the Germans agree.  "We have been warning them for fifteen years and they did nothing.  They will do nothing now," says this former diplomat.      What most concerns the Israelis is that the Iranians will use the time spent negotiating to further work on the various parts of their nuclear program.  "When the time comes for Iran to `break out', they want to be able to produce a number of bombs in a relatively short period of time," argues one Israeli expert.  "Now they could only produce one.  But given a couple of years...."      Much of Israel's emphasis on Iran's emerging nuclear threat has been to talk, as Prime Minister Netanyahu has done, about the existential threat it poses to the Jewish state.  However, some Israeli officials argue that this is simplistic at best.  Says one veteran Israeli analyst, "Such talk can only add to insecurity in Israel.  The real insecurity lies not in making Hitler analogies but in the perception among Israelis and Arabs that Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon is a "game-changer."  As this analyst explains, "Starting sometime in the early 1990's, the Arabs came around to grudging acceptance of the fact that Israel was here to stay.  The US defeat of Iraq in the first Gulf War, massive immigration from the former Soviet Union were major contributing factors to the "`Arab street' abandoning, if reluctantly, the belief that Israel could be eliminated.  An Iranian bomb could reverse that view."       This preoccupation with Iran does not mean Prime Minister Netanyahu arrives in Washington unconcerned about the Administration plans for reviving the peace process.  However, given the disarray among the Palestinians, some US analysts say the Administration has much less room to maneuver on this issue..."