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Moshe Dayan’s widow: Israel doesn’t know how to make peace
By Gideon Levy

She turned 93 last Friday, according to the Hebrew calendar. On Thursday, Herzliya awarded her honorary citizenship. Ruth Dayan doesn’t rest for a moment. In the Bedouin town of Segev Shalom and in the Palestinian village of Kharbata, she founded an arts and crafts workshop for women. Once every week or two she drives to these places by herself. She’s also busy with countless humanitarian issues in the territories. A few months ago she flew to Malta to meet the daughter of Yasser Arafat, the granddaughter of her soulmate, Raymonda Tawil.

During the interview her son, the filmmaker Assi Dayan, emerges from his room in Ruth’s apartment in north Tel Aviv. She sends him off to rest some more. The day before the interview, Maariv published a heartrending poem written by her. She greatly admires the book “The End of Conflict” by Avinadav Begin, the grandson of the former prime minister, and she is busy helping her biographer, Anthony David, get on with the job. (David also wrote a biography of Salman Schocken, who bought Haaretz back in the 1930s.)

She shows me the first picture ever taken of her; she’s a baby in her mother’s arms. On the back of the fading photo is scribbled: “Ruth. Three months. 1917.”
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Ruth Dayan, are you proud to be an Israeli? Are you ashamed?

It depends. I’m proud to be an Israeli on a limited basis. Every person has his own inner Israeli.

What is your Israel?

My Israel is the country, the landscape I see when I travel from north to south. The mountains, the ocean – just like it was back then. For a moment I even enjoy myself. I remember when we would pick anemones of various colors in the hills that surround Nahalal. I’m from Jerusalem, and there they had red anemones. I miss the old Israel, when there were still ideals, when we settled the land.

And we expelled?

We didn’t expel. During my childhood, we didn’t expel. We bought those tracts of land. Since then, however, many things have happened and today Israel is not the same. It’s cliche to talk about how we’re in a state of occupation and we’re trying to occupy more and more. I’m at that age where I don’t even talk about peace anymore. We don’t know how to make peace. We go from war to war and this will never end.

Whose fault is it?

Ours, mainly. Are we, with all our power, incapable of taking a step?

Moshe Dayan was there when this occupation started.

No. The occupation was the only remaining option. Nothing else could have been done. Moshe was the one who actually led the policy of building bridges.

Perhaps this perpetuated the occupation?

That could be. I don’t think it did. Even Arafat, the man who would kiss me when we met, told me he admired Moshe. Even the Jordanian chief of staff told me in 1948: “What a pleasure it is having your husband as an enemy.” His behavior toward the Arabs was positive even after the Six-Day War. He would travel alone to Nablus; he liked being with them. He had a dialogue with them. Today, who talks with them? For the current government, peace is just a word.

Have you lost hope for peace?

I think Zionism has finished its work. I’ve endured many wars and I can’t ignore the fact that they didn’t want us. When I go to the territories, I don’t even bother instilling hope in them. Out of courtesy, I tell them that I hope something will change, but the deterioration is just awful. Particularly the fence. This is something I can’t tolerate.

People say it stopped terrorism.

Oh, please. “It stopped terrorism.” Nothing will be able to stop terrorism except dialogue.

Shimon Peres admired Dayan. What was Dayan’s attitude toward Peres?

Moshe didn’t admire anybody. Maybe Ben-Gurion. He was a lone wolf.

What is Peres’ contribution to peace?

I think he can still contribute a lot. Though a president doesn’t have to intervene, he must intervene. He must make an impact, even on the people. The people are dispersed across a number of different viewpoints and groups and even religions within our religion. My grandfather graduated from the Sorbonne, my mother was a secular woman, and it’s not like I hear anybody speaking to me from behind the clouds.

Are you Jewish?

I’m just an Israeli. It was a great honor to be Israeli, even when I was still a Jewish Palestinian during my childhood in London. I’m the first daughter of graduates of the Herzliya Gymnasium after Yehudi Menuhin was the first son. In London, I went to pray with the gentile girls.

What did you think would be here?

We lived the moment. In Nahalal, 17 children were killed during the War of Independence. We only thought about today and nothing else.

Two states or one?

There was a time when I thought one state for two peoples. Now I see that we have to have two states because we really are different and it would be best if everyone takes care of his own business. We’re a mob that can’t even get along internally. So we’re going to get along with them?

Is there a politician you admire today who sparks hope in you?

Avishay [Braverman, a Labor MK and minority affairs minister]. No one is like him. I was impressed by his work at Ben-Gurion University. He can very well be prime minister, and he wants to be.

What would you do if you were prime minister?

Just like how we started. Like when we met with [Jordanian King] Abdullah and when [Yitzhak] Rabin tried. Rabin could have delivered peace.

So far only Likud has made peace.

Let’s have Likud. Let’s have whoever. Currently I’m in a trance from Avinadav Begin. He says that there are no Jews, there are no Muslims. This is the foundation. This I really like. The more I read this book, the more floored I am. He is very Beginesque, just like his father and grandfather. He believes in something. He doesn’t go to Bil’in just to be seen there. He goes there because he believes in it.

I want to read you a passage from his book: “Do we need words to observe the developing buds, to observe our children, to observe the droplets of dew that sparkle in the morning sun? How are we to love if the word love is nothing but a tool used to tighten our grip on our most dear?”

Moshe Dayan always used to say I was a romantic. In letters he wrote to me from prison, he always wrote that one day we would reach a state of tranquillity and that I would sit nearby and knit for him. And I would wear my Scottish kilt. People always used to say I was an extreme leftist, but I love this country.

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Moshe Dayan’s widow: Israel doesn’t know how to make peace

Israel Air force trains for rapid refueling In preparing for Iran Strike
Exclusive: Long-range destinations such as Iran would necessitate risky procedure.

In preparation for long-range missions and possible conflict with Iran, the Israel Air Force has expanded its training programs to include rapid refueling operations on runways.It’s a dangerous practice since the aircraft’s engines are running while the fuel nozzle is still connected to the jets. The training is for both pilots and ground crews and it is being done to enable the aircraft to carry as muchfuel as possible for long-range missions.

Fuel nozzles are traditionally disconnected from fighter aircraft while they are still parked in hangers and before they are rolled out to the runway, where they usually wait for several minutes before takeoff and while burningfuel. The new protocol includes keeping fuel trucks on the runway, having ground personnel reattach the nozzle and fuel the aircraft to the maximum fullness, disconnecting seconds before takeoff.

“We understand that many of our threats and challenges require us to develop a long-range capability,” one senior IAF officer explained. “Part of our preparation includes knowing how tofuel our aircraft so they can have as much fuel as possible.”

Last week, the IAF inaugurated a new unmanned aerial vehicle called the Heron TP. With the same wingspan as a Boeing 737, the Heron TP is Israel’s largest and most sophisticated drone, weighing 4,650 kg. and capable of flying for 36 hours while carrying a payload of hundreds of kilograms. The Heron will increase the IAF’s long-range capabilities, mainly in intelligence and surveillance, and according to foreign reports could also have missile strike capabilities.

Meanwhile on Saturday, The New York Times reported that Iran recently moved almost its entire stockpile of low-enriched uranium to an above-ground facility. According to a recent report by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, close to two tons of low-enriched nuclear uranium was moved all at once from storage deep underground to a facility where it can be enriched to a 20-percent level, putting the material just a jump away from the 80-to-90% that is required for nuclear weapons.

Iran’s action, which according to the report has confused Western officials, exposes the material to an air strike or even to ground-based sabotage.

The Times quoted one official as saying the move was tantamount to painting a bull’s-eye on the stockpile.

The paper raised several possible explanations, primarily that Iran might have run out of suitable storage containers for the radioactive material and was forced to move it all at once. It would, however, not require the entire two tons to enrich uranium for the aging reactor in Teheran where it makes medical isotopes.

Other explanations raised by the paper include the possibility that the Islamic Republic actually wants Israel to attack, since that would likely unite the Iranian people behind the regime and silence the opposition Green Movement and the demonstrations protesting against the results of June’s presidential election.

Teheran, the Times said, might be using the move as leverage against the West and as part of a threat to further enrich its entire stockpile if the international community did not reduce its pressure on the Islamic Republic.

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IAF trains for rapid refueling

Zvi Bar’el / Let’s calm down on Syria and Hezbollah
By Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz Correspondent

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has visited Syria four times, twice during the past year. Bashar Assad has visited Tehran four times since Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005. If reciprocal visits by the presidents of Iran and Syria are cause for panic, let’s calm down: the balance between the two has been preserved. Hamas leader Khaled Meshal has also visited Tehran many times, most recently in December, so his meeting with Ahmadinejad last week is not unusual. If Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas are planning a war against Israel, they don’t need showcase meetings. But why not panic when you can panic? Why not see every meeting as a threat?

“Winds of war” was the headline Israeli newspapers used to describe these meetings, even though the Israel Defense Forces’ intelligence assessment was that no preparations are being made for war. All we need to get that pleasant war sensation is the arrival to the region of the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, or for Hassan Nasrallah to give one of his speeches about Tel Aviv, or for a Christian Lebanese politician to charge for the 100th time that Hezbollah seeks to draw Lebanon into a war, or for Ahmadinejad to return to Damascus and for the umpteenth time say the Zionist entity will disappear. Could anything be clearer proof that we are being pushed toward war, or at least that “something is happening”?

On the face of it, each of the leaders meeting in Damascus last week has his reason for war with Israel. Israel, too, has a reason to go to war against each of them, as a group or individually. But a reason for war is insufficient for war. The fact is, Israel is not going to war against Hezbollah, and Syria is not moving its tanks into the Golan Heights. Armed groups like Hamas and Hezbollah consider the menace they pose a strategic asset – not only against Israel.
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Hezbollah is basing its control over Lebanon on that menace, but it realizes that war may destroy its political legitimacy. Hamas, cut off from Egypt and the West Bank, cannot allow itself to suffer a Cast Lead II while it is still trying to recover from the effects of Cast Lead I. Syria can attack Israel, but the price it will have to pay is likely to be much higher than what Hamas or Hezbollah will have to pay.

Moreover, Iran is not very keen for its allies to suffer a severe blow whose political implications will echo clearly in Tehran. As far as Iran is concerned, the threat of war is preferable to actual war. The balance of terror is its most effective restraint against an Israeli attack – a view shared by Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.

This balance can only be overturned by a peace agreement between Syria and Israel. It will not prevent Iran from going nuclear and will not sever the ties between Syria and Iran or Hezbollah. But it will remove an essential element from this four-pronged threat.

However, it appears that we get along much better with threats than wars or real “operations.” We’re thrilled when Assad ridicules U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s demand that he distance himself from Iran; proof that the axis of evil exists and the threat is alive and kicking. But when Assad repeatedly calls for the resumption of indirect negotiations with Israel, the list of preconditions is ready: The Golan Heights will not be returned, we will not agree to Turkish mediation, and we demand the dismantling of the Syria-Iran alliance.

When the United States tries to convince us that the talks with the Palestinians may weaken Iran’s influence in the region – regardless of whether this assessment is valid – we create new areas of friction with the Palestinians. There is little left of the freeze in settlement construction, and declaring the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb national heritage sites may lead to a third intifada. The fact that Hamas has not fired Qassam rockets for more than a year is perceived as obvious, but the blockade of the Gaza Strip has continued for more than three and a half years. In Israel’s eyes this is something natural that should have no effect on the Palestinians’ positions.

Israel cannot honestly talk about external threats when it does not pose an alternative to the public. President Shimon Peres may extend his hand of peace to Syria, but the Israeli government extends its finger in a lewd gesture.

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Let’s calm down on Syria and Hezbollah

If sanctions on Iran haven’t worked, why bother again?
By Uriel Heilman · February 21, 2010

The United Nations Security Council, shown in session on Feb. 18, 2010, has passed sanctions legislation three times against Iran but has failed to curb the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions. (UN Photo / Eskinder Debebe)

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The United Nations Security Council, shown in session on Feb. 18, 2010, has passed sanctions legislation three times against Iran but has failed to curb the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions. (UN Photo / Eskinder Debebe)

NEW YORK (JTA) — For years, sanctions have been the world’s answer to Iran’s suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Three times already — in 2006, 2007 and 2008 — the U.N. Security Council passed sanctions legislation aimed at obstructing Iran’s nuclear capabilities and prodding the government in Tehran into cooperating.

The result: Iran moved ahead with building clandestine nuclear facilities, installing centrifuges and enriching unranium while refusing full access to international weapons inspectors and turning down deals with the West. Last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency issued a report saying it had evidence of “past or current undisclosed activities” by Iran to build a nuclear warhead.

Tehran repeatedly has made clear that its policy toward the West — on the nuclear issue and other matters, including last year’s disputed election — is defiance and obduracy, not cooperation or capitulation.

Now, in the face of mounting evidence that Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear bomb continues unabated, pro-Israel groups and U.S. and European governments again are pushing for new sanctions.

Given that sanctions haven’t worked in the past, is there any hope that things will be different this time?

“We won’t know the answer until we actually try,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice-chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the main U.S. Jewish umbrella group on Mideast-related issues.

“Sanctions can have an impact if they’re the right kind of sanctions, if they’re not going to be put off,” Hoenlein said. “The question is implementation. It’s not moving fast enough. The Iranians only understand one language: They have to understand this is showdown time.”

For now the approach among Jewish organizational leaders who have led the campaign to halt Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is to continue to promote sanctions — both by the United Nations and by individual countries, including the United States. The thinking is that sanctions currently under consideration are considerably tougher than earlier rounds and must be tried before any other options can be explored.

“If we’re willing to put meaningful, painful sanctions in place, it can work,” said Josh Block, spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which has been the main lobbying group pushing Congress for sanctions on Iran.

“Do we have the ability to create significant economic pain for the Iranian government? Yes. Are they willing to change their behavior based on that impact? We don’t know,” Block acknowledged.

The new U.N. sanctions would target Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and more severely restrict Iran’s banking industry. For enactment, nine of the U.N. Security Council’s members must vote for them, and none of the five permanent, veto-wielding members — China, Russia, the United States, Britain and France — can block them.

Russia, an early holdout, is now sending signals it favors new sanctions, but China has yet to agree. Four more yes votes would be necessary from the 10 rotating members: Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina , Brazil, Gabon, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, Turkey and Uganda. The four votes are not yet in place, insiders say, and the date for a vote on sanctions continues to be pushed back.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress is set to pass broad unilateral sanctions that would target Iran’s energy sector.

As the day of reckoning with a nuclear Iran fast approaches, advocates in the Jewish community are being forced to confront the question of where to go beyond sanctions.

There are no sure answers. Sanctions have not worked so far, and the U.S. administration doesn’t appear close to considering the military option.

Even if Israel were to circumvent the United States and strike Iran, it would be hard to wipe out the country’s nuclear facilities, which are thought to include sites that are hidden, underground, scattered and heavily fortified.

Some Jewish groups have begun talking about how to live with a nuclear Iran.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, the founder and president of The Israel Project, said that even if sanctions couldn’t stop Iran from going nuclear, they still could help deter a nuclear Iran from using its weapons.

“The idea that the game is over if Iran has a nuclear device is mistaken,” Mizrahi told JTA. “As long as Iran hasn’t used a nuclear device to shoot anybody or give it to terrorists, we still have to give it a full-court press.”

It’s possible, she noted, that Iran already has obtained a nuclear device from North Korea or other clandestine methods.

“Even if they were to have a nuclear device and a rocket today, it would still be useful to have sanctions,” Mizrahi said. “They can still be dissuaded from using their weapons and giving them up.”

With the time remaining for effective sanctions to have an impact on the Iranian regime dwindling, is it time to go to Plan B?

“There are plan B’s,” Hoenlein said. “We have not advocated military action. We don’t believe that’s our role. We believe all options should be on the table, including that. If they don’t believe all options are on the table, they will never move.”

Plan B, he said, could entail anything from a naval blockade to military strikes. The United States does not yet appear to be at that point, but of course Israel at any point could move to its own Plan B.

Even as they concede that serious questions remain about the efficacy of new sanctions and other options, U.S. Jewish organizational leaders are canvassing the country and holding meetings around the world to warn about the dangers of a nuclear Iran — and not just so they can feel like they’re doing something or to give their audiences a reason to lay awake at night.

“I’m not trying to suggest this as a panacea,” said Rabbi Steve Gutow, executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a policy umbrella group. “We still have to get the sanctions thing passed.”

Talking about the dangers of a nuclear Iran can energize people to lobby their elected representatives, press the issue at consulates and embassies, and talk to associates with business interests overseas about the imperative to isolate Iran, he said.

The point, several Jewish officials said, is to not give up.

“Because of our history, because of our teachings, I think we’ve been taught that one cannot just sit by and watch evil win,” Gutow said, citing Theodor Herzl’s famous “Im Tirtzu” line – “If you will it, it is no dream.”

Mizrahi also cited Herzl.

“I’m not optimistic about any of these things, but as Golda Meir put it, Jews don’t have the option of being pessimists,” Mizrahi said. “If every time the world said it’s impossible for Israel to accomplish something, if they’d listened Israel wouldn’t have gone back to reclaim the land, drain the swamps and build the country. I believe very strongly in what Herzl said.”

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jta.org

Partners against Iran
By JPOST EDITORIAL
16/02/2010 23:03

Mullen’s visit underlined Washington’s intensifying effort to keep closely coordinated with Israel.
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The visit to Israel this week by the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, underlined the growing urgency of the Iranian nuclear challenge, and the Obama administration’s intensifying effort to keep closely coordinated with Israel while grappling with that threat.

Mullen’s visit coincided with the announcement that Vice President Joe Biden will also come to Israel in the near future, again for high-level talks largely focused on the Iranian issue.The visit also came as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton toured Qatar and Saudi Arabia in order to shore up support for American diplomatic and military efforts in the region, ahead of visits by three of her top deputies and a reported upcoming trip by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel.

The rhetoric from Washington is firm: Clinton declared to Iran that the US would “not stand idly by while you pursue a nuclear program that can be used to threaten your neighbors and even beyond.” Mullen was more curt still: Iran “cannot have a nuclear weapon, [or] nuclear capability,” he said here.

At the same time, however, there is profound concern in Israel that the fine words, even backed up by a new seriousness in seeking more effective economic sanctions, will prove insufficient to deter the ayatollahs.

Clearly, the flurry of visits by high-level US officials marks a heightened era of dialogue between Washington and Jerusalem, as the US steps up its campaign to resolve the Iranian crisis without a resort to force.

Mullen warned Israel tellingly of the “unintended consequences” of a military strike. Biden, the former head of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, will doubtless also stress the administration’s conviction that there are still effective ways, and sufficient time, to force the Islamic Republic’s hand before we arrive at the stark choice: a nuclear Iran, or military intervention to prevent it.

FOR NOW, President Barack Obama has yet to add Israel to his travel plans. And eight months after his landmark visit to Cairo, and his outreach address to the Muslim world, his absence is keenly felt here. Obama the candidate received the usual rock-star treatment when he visited – and took time to tour Sderot – in 2008. Obama the president is a more suspect commodity – a friend of Israel and guardian of the strategic partnership, to be sure, but also a leader who has been publicly at odds with ours over the dimensions of a building freeze beyond the ’67 lines and over his assessment that progress on the Palestinian front can produce leverage on Iran rather than the other way round.

A presidential visit in the near future would certainly prove reassuring to many Israelis, and would disarm those critics who assert that our well-being is not a sufficiently high priority for hisWhite House.

But whether their face-to-face meetings take place here or in Washington, there can be no doubting that further direct consultations between Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu will be vital in the coming months – as the US president strives to force Iran to change course, and the possibility of this effort failing raises ever-greater concerns in Israel.

Israel has been publicly supportive of the American effort at engagement with Iran, even as it has privately complained about the lack of firm parameters guiding that engagement, the fudging of deadlines, the apparent capacity for Iran to exploit a well-meaning president’s desire for a diplomatic solution in order to buy time and close in on the nuclear weapons goal.

Ultimately, Israel must and will take the decisions it feels necessary to safeguard its basic security interests. Ultimately, Israel will gauge the risks, assess the consequences, and act accordingly.

Today, in mid-February 2010, the US and Israel remain shoulder-to-shoulder in seeking biting sanctions against Teheran, to obviate the recourse to the use of force. It is encouraging to see the succession of candid, straight-talking, high-level visits bolstering that coordination. It is a partnership that needs to be maintained at the very highest level as well.

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Partners against Iran

As mutual fear, mistrust and polarisation increases between Iran and Israel, an arms race between the two sworn enemies is gathering momentum.

Central to this is the Russian-made S-300 missile system.

It is one of the most advanced multi-target anti-aircraft missile systems in the world today and air power experts say it represents a formidable defence against conventional aircraft.

In 2005, Iran sought to buy five batteries of the S-300 from Russia in a deal believed to be worth around $800 million.

The S-300 would significantly boost Iran’s defence capability at a time when it is concerned about the US military’s presence in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan and Israeli threats to target its nuclear facilities.

But the S-300 deal has yet to go through and Israel has been engaging in some diplomatic wrangling in an attempt to ensure that it does not.

In early June 2009, Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s Russian-speaking foreign minister, visited Moscow.

He was on a mission to convince Russia to put an end to its arms deals with Iran and Syria and, in particular, to halt the sale and delivery of Russia’s S-300 missile system to Iran.

Lieberman had a bargaining chip: If Russia went ahead with the sale to Iran, Israel might continue to provide hi-tec weapons to neighbouring Georgia, which engaged Russia in a war last year.

Filmmaker Abdallah el-Binni investigates this high-stakes game of brinkmanship as it threatens to spread to other countries in the region.

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Israel Countdown Against Iran – 01 October 09 – Part 1

Clinton wants Saudis to prod China on Iran sanctions
by Lachlan Carmichael Lachlan Carmichael – 1 hr 26 mins ago

SHANNON, Ireland (AFP) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton flew Sunday to the Gulf to ask for oil-rich Saudi Arabia’s help in pressing China to join the US drive for sanctions against Iran’s disputed nuclear program, aides said.

The chief US diplomat’s three-day trip to Qatar and Saudi Arabia is also aimed at enlisting broader regional support, including Turkey’s, in a drive to stop Iran’s sensitive nuclear work, her aides told reporters.

Her mission comes amid US security buildup involving the deployment of anti-missile systems in the Gulf as well as a flurry of high-level visits to the region by senior US diplomats and military officials.

Clinton’s aides neither confirmed nor denied suggestions that they would ask Saudi leaders to offer China, which imports much of its oil from Iran, supply guarantees in return for winning Beijing’s support for new UN sanctions.

“Saudi Arabia has an important trading relationship with China already,” Jeffrey Feltman, Clinton’s top diplomat for the Middle East, told reporters en route to Doha, via Shannon, Ireland.

Feltman noted that there have been a number of recent visits between the Gulf and China.

“We would expect them (the Saudis) to use these visits, to use their relationship in ways that can help increase the pressure that Iran feels,” said Feltman, the assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs.

China appears to be the strongest holdout to sanctions among the five veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council, which also include the United States, Russia, Britain and France.

Moscow has hardened its stance toward Iran lately.

In Doha, aides said, Clinton will discuss Iran but also the Arab-Israeli peace process with Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Qatar’s emir, and Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani, who is both foreign minister and prime minister.

She will hold similar talks with other Muslim leaders attending the seventh US-Islamic World Forum, where Clinton will deliver remarks building on President Barack Obama’s own speech in Cairo last year calling for a “new beginning” with Muslim communities worldwide.

Clinton’s spokesman Philip Crowley said the chief US diplomat will discuss Iran with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“We obviously need to have Turkey’s support as we move forward and contemplate particular actions on the pressure track,” Crowley said.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is due to visit Iran next week to push for a diplomatic solution to the stand-off over Iran’s refusal to curb its uranium enrichment program.

The West fears the program masks a drive to build an atomic bomb, while Iran denies the charge and says its goal is the peaceful use of nuclear power.

Turkey, the only NATO member that neighbors Iran, insists the row should be resolved through dialogue, arguing that economic sanctions or military action against Iran would have a damaging impact on the whole region.

China has taken a similar stand.

During her stop in Riyadh on Monday, Clinton is set to meet Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud and Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal.

Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East advisor in past US administrations, doubts the Saudis would offer oil guarantees to China, whose economy is growing rapidly, to encourage Beijing to change its stance on sanctions.

Miller told AFP US-Saudi ties have eroded since the September 11, 2001 attacks — which involved many Saudi members of Al-Qaeda — and Obama has disappointed Riyadh with his failure so far to revive Arab-Israeli peace talks.

In an apparent switch in emphasis on the Arab-Israeli peace process, the Obama administration is urging Gulf Arab leaders to offer Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas political and financial support to revive peace talks with Israel.

Last year, the administration urged Gulf Arab states to take steps toward normalizing ties with Israel, such as allowing the Israeli airline El Al to fly over their territories.

The aides omitted to mention such a step as the Arabs accuse Washington of failing to follow through on its demand for Israel to halt settlements.

However, Feltman and Crowley urged Arab states like Qatar, Bahrain, Morocco and Mauritania to reopen Israeli trade offices in their capitals after they were closed in protest over Israeli military actions against the Palestinians.

During her tour, Clinton is scheduled to meet with the board of directors of the controversial Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television and answer questions from Arabs and Muslims in “town-hall style” events broadcast on television.

US officials said visits to the region this month involve top diplomats James Steinberg, Jacob Lew and William Burns. Top military officials Michael Mullen and General David Petraeus are due to visit the Gulf this week.

For more reading, click here Clinton wants Saudis to prod China on Iran sanctions