Iran’s suspected illicit nuclear program can be stopped militarily by hitting targets other than the country’s nuclear sites, the former chief of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency revealed in a rare interview.
“You don’t need to hit only the immediate, direct nuclear infrastructure of theirs,” said Shabtai Shavit, who served as Mossad director from 1989 to 1996. “You can achieve this goal by going after some other targets, without (my) being more specific.”
Shavit was speaking in an interview on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” on New York’s WABC Radio.
Shavit was responding to a hypothetical question about whether a U.S. military strike successfully could eliminate Iran’s nuclear program. Some of Iran’s scattered nuclear installations are known to be deep underground, with some reportedly positioned atop civilian zones.
Last week, Iran’s top naval commander boasted that closing the Persian Gulf to oil tanker traffic would be “easier than drinking a glass of water” but that his nation would not do so for now.
During the radio interview, Shavit predicted that Iran would not act on its threats for the time being.
“I don’t believe that their threat will be materialized. I do believe that in this case the Iranians are going to be at the end of the day pragmatists and not messianic,” the former Mossad chief told Klein.
Shavit said Iran will be deterred for now by the presence of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, as well as by recent statements from the Pentagon warning that Iran’s closing of the Straits “will not be tolerated.”
Shavit said the international community is rightly focusing on sanctions to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
He suggested, however, that stronger sanctions are needed besides the current restrictions being debated that would target Iran’s oil exports.
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1 comment:
Iran's threat to Israel is not some academic exercise bantered back and forth by a few college professors. It's real and Israel has been planning and preparing for it for a long time. They can take care of themselves and even more so in light of the top secret aid we give them (BILLIONS of dollars in cash, military supplies, technology, computer equipment, construction supplies, etc.). Ron Paul is EXACTLY right. They DON'T need our (further) help to handle Iran. Israel can turn Iran into a prehistoric society at anytime. Iran knows it, too.
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