JERUSALEM — The U.S. military’s top general conducted an intense string of closed-door talks with Israeli leaders Friday, amid apparent disagreements between the two countries over how to respond to Iran’s disputed nuclear program.
The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, and Israeli leaders kept silent about the exact content of their discussions. Dempsey was expected to urge Israel not to rush to attack Iran at a time when the U.S. is trying to rally additional global support to pressure Iran through sanctions to dial back its nuclear program.
Dempsey met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been warning about the dangers of the Iranian nuclear program for more than a decade.
Netanyahu told Dempsey the U.S. should ratchet up sanctions against Iran to ones that would target its central bank and oil exports, the Israeli news site YNet reported. It quoted Netanyahu as saying such measures must be imposed immediately.
After Dempsey’s departure Friday evening, his spokesman, Col. David Lapan, said the meetings “served to advance a common understanding of the regional security environment.”
At the start of talks with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Dempsey said the U.S. and Israel “have many interests in common in the region in this very dynamic time, and the more we can continue to engage each other, the better off we’ll all be.”
“There is never a dull moment, that I can promise you,” Barak replied, in comments released by Barak’s office.
In an interview published Friday in the Israeli daily Maariv, Israel’s recently retired military intelligence chief, Amos Yadlin, said the U.S. and Israel now agree that Iran is deliberately working slowly toward nuclear weapons, to minimize international diplomatic pressure and sanctions.
The U.S. and Israel differ about what would be considered unacceptable Iranian behavior that would require a military strike, the former chief claimed.
