The chief of staff for Israel's Defense Forces said this week Iran is close, just "months" or "weeks" away from developing a nuclear weapon, the Times of Israel reports.
"No one has any doubt: Iran hopes, wants, identified, and built the capabilities necessary to be a military nuclear power, and maybe even use them when it decides it wants to," Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi said in a speech to Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies.
He noted, if the country were to "rush ahead," it could complete a bomb in "months, maybe even weeks," due to its stockpile of enriched uranium and improved centrifuges.
"There needs to be serious effort so that by the end, there won't – not only not be a bomb – but there won't be an ability to rush to a bomb," he added.
Kohani appeared to call out President Joe Biden's desire to return to the nuclear agreement the Obama Administration made with Iran, when he went on to say, "The Iran of today is not the Iran of 2015 when the deal was signed."
"Iran now is under enormous pressure — financial pressure, massive inflation, bitterness, and unrest in the population, whose salaries have tanked — because of the American sanctions," he continued. "These pressures must continue. No matter what happens. Anything that releases that pressure gives them oxygen, gives them air, and will allow them to continue to violate the current agreement.
"A return to the 2015 nuclear agreement, or even if it is a similar accord with several improvements, is a bad thing, and it is not the right thing to do from an operational and strategic point of view."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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