Tweet
ISRAELI MILITARY CHIEF BELIEVES IRAN WON'T MAKE A BOMB
PanARMENIAN.Net
April 25, 2012 - 13:23 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - If Iran goes nuclear it will have negative dimensions
for the world, for the region, for the freedom of action Iran will
permit itself, Israel's Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz said
As Gantz told Haaretz in an Independence Day interview, "there's also
the potential for an existential threat."
"If they have a bomb, we are the only country in the world that someone
calls for its destruction and also builds devices with which to bomb
us. But despair not. We are a temperate state. The State of Israel
is the strongest in the region and will remain so. Decisions can and
must be made carefully, out of historic responsibility but without
hysteria," Gantz said.
Asked whether 2012 is also decisive for Iran, Gantz shies from the
term. "Clearly, the more the Iranians progress the worse the situation
is. This is a critical year, but not necessarily 'go, no-go.' The
problem doesn't necessarily stop on December 31, 2012. We're in
a period when something must happen: Either Iran takes its nuclear
program to a civilian footing only or the world, perhaps we too, will
have to do something. We're closer to the end of the discussions than
the middle."
Gantz says the international pressure on Iran, in the form of
diplomatic and economic sanctions, is beginning to bear fruit.
Iran, Gantz says, "is going step by step to the place where it will
be able to decide whether to manufacture a nuclear bomb. It hasn't
yet decided whether to go the extra mile."
As long as its facilities are not bomb-proof, Gantz says,"the program
is too vulnerable, in Iran's view."
"If the supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wants, he will
advance it to the acquisition of a nuclear bomb, but the decision
must first be taken. It will happen if Khamenei judges that he is
invulnerable to a response. I believe he would be making an enormous
mistake, and I don't think he will want to go the extra mile. I think
the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people. But I agree
that such a capability, in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists who at
particular moments could make different calculations, is dangerous,"
he says.
PanARMENIAN.Net
April 25, 2012 - 13:23 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - If Iran goes nuclear it will have negative dimensions
for the world, for the region, for the freedom of action Iran will
permit itself, Israel's Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz said
As Gantz told Haaretz in an Independence Day interview, "there's also
the potential for an existential threat."
"If they have a bomb, we are the only country in the world that someone
calls for its destruction and also builds devices with which to bomb
us. But despair not. We are a temperate state. The State of Israel
is the strongest in the region and will remain so. Decisions can and
must be made carefully, out of historic responsibility but without
hysteria," Gantz said.
Asked whether 2012 is also decisive for Iran, Gantz shies from the
term. "Clearly, the more the Iranians progress the worse the situation
is. This is a critical year, but not necessarily 'go, no-go.' The
problem doesn't necessarily stop on December 31, 2012. We're in
a period when something must happen: Either Iran takes its nuclear
program to a civilian footing only or the world, perhaps we too, will
have to do something. We're closer to the end of the discussions than
the middle."
Gantz says the international pressure on Iran, in the form of
diplomatic and economic sanctions, is beginning to bear fruit.
Iran, Gantz says, "is going step by step to the place where it will
be able to decide whether to manufacture a nuclear bomb. It hasn't
yet decided whether to go the extra mile."
As long as its facilities are not bomb-proof, Gantz says,"the program
is too vulnerable, in Iran's view."
"If the supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wants, he will
advance it to the acquisition of a nuclear bomb, but the decision
must first be taken. It will happen if Khamenei judges that he is
invulnerable to a response. I believe he would be making an enormous
mistake, and I don't think he will want to go the extra mile. I think
the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people. But I agree
that such a capability, in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists who at
particular moments could make different calculations, is dangerous,"
he says.