With international efforts to renew a 2015 nuclear deal still stalled, the Iranians have stepped up enrichment of uranium, a process with civilian uses that could also eventually produce fuel for nuclear bombs — although Iran denies having such a project.
Experts say Iran could increase the fissile purity of its weapons-grade uranium in short order. But building a warhead would take years, they say — an estimate repeated by an Israeli military intelligence general this month.
“In two or three years, you could be streaking eastward across the skies and taking part in an attack on nuclear facilities in Iran,” Defense Minister Benny Gantz told Air Force cadets in a speech.
For more than a decade, Israel has issued veiled threats to attack its archenemy’s nuclear facilities if it considers world powers’ diplomacy with Tehran a dead end. However, some experts doubt that Israel has the military power to do lasting damage to distant, dispersed and well-defended Iranian targets.
The Israeli military intelligence forecast for 2023 is that Iran “will continue on its current path of slow progress” in the nuclear area, according to the Israel Hayom newspaper on Sunday.
Under an ambiguous policy designed to deter enemies while avoiding provocations that might spur arms races, Israel neither confirms nor denies having nuclear weapons. Scholars believe so, and the Israeli government would have acquired the first bomb in late 1966.
Unlike Iran, Israel is not a signatory to the voluntary 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty, which offers access to civilian nuclear technologies in exchange for renouncing nuclear weapons.
Por Dan Williams
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