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THINK TANK: CONSULTANT
Removing nuclear threat from Iran 'very difficult' - former Israeli PM
Lucy Williamson
BBC Middle East correspondent, reporting from Tel Aviv
Israel’s former prime minister, Ehud Barak, was involved in some of Israel’s earliest planning to counter a nuclear threat from Iran.
He said the first few days of this operation were “extremely impressive” – the result of far-sighted planning, very detailed preparation and a determined, aggressive execution.
But removing the nuclear threat would still be very difficult, he told me, because Iran was already a nuclear threshold state.
“Israel cannot delay their capability by more than two or three weeks, and even the Americans cannot delay it for more than a few months, and that’s a sensitive issue,” he said. “It means that, if there is a serious intention to block Iran from turning into a military nuclear power, the only way is to announce a full-scale war on the regime itself, an carry it on until they are toppled.”
Israel, he says, cannot do this alone.
“The only way to execute it successfully is by coordinating intimately with America and having them fully, actively on your side.”
The US, in his view, does not currently have an appetite to enter into a major war.
“The best scenario is that the regime will collapse,” he says. “Second best, that the Iranians will turn into a softer negotiator. Let’s hope it works.”
Otherwise, he says, the current conflict will turn into a long war of attrition, with Israel’s allies helping to defend it, but not actively involved in the war.
The worst case of all, he says, is that Iran will say it is left with no choice but to “go as fast as it can towards a nuclear weapon”.
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BREAKING: 'The IRGC Aerospace Force in combination with other branches of the Armed Forces have launched a joint missile & drone strike on Israel' – IRIB
