Israel admits merits of US diplomacy vis-à-vis Iran

In an interview with Foreign Policy [1], Israel’s Defense Minister General Benny Gantz acknowledged the merits of US foreign policy on Iran. According to him, the US approach aims to put the Iran nuclear deal back in a box.

Also according to Gantz, Iran would be capable of manufacturing its first atomic bomb in three months. On which, the New York Times [2] upped the ante by suggesting a much shorter timeframe of one week. It would therefore be logical, Ganz continued, to have preventive plans in place, including an Israeli military option, in the event US-Iran negotiations were to fail.

Iran discontinued all nuclear weapons research for 32 years, from Imam Khomeini’s fatwa banning weapons of mass destruction (1988) to the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani (2020). Yet US-Israeli propaganda has never stopped accusing Iran of seeking to acquire a nuclear bomb. Even assuming that the Revolutionary Guards revived this program, it seems unlikely they could have brought it to completion in just about 20 months.

Russia’s permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov, deplored the New York Times allegations, emphasizing that there is zero indication of Iran having embarked on the nuclear military race.