“I think this is a real option,” James Carafano, vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital. “I mean, if I were the Iranians and I had to do it, I would do it now because Biden (US President Joe Biden) is not going to do anything.”
“The Israelis are overwhelmed,” Carafano added. “There are months before Republican nominee Donald Trump takes office — if he wins, of course — and by then Iran will have nuclear power and whatever happens will happen. He’s not going to start World War III, is he? He’s not going to come in on day one and bomb Iran. He’s not going to do that, and they know that.”
The Biden administration has repeatedly warned over the past year that Iran is on the verge of producing a nuclear weapon, with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken telling the Aspen Security Forum in July that Iran is “probably a week or two away” from achieving “the ability to produce fissile material for a nuclear weapon.”
Blinken blamed the collapse of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known as the Iran nuclear deal, for accelerating Iran’s development.
He stressed that the United States had not seen any evidence at the time that Iran actually possessed a nuclear weapon, according to the Barron’s newspaper.
“We are committed to not allowing Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, and we are prepared to use all elements of national power to ensure that outcome,” a State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
For his part, Carafano argued that the uncertainty surrounding the US presidential election, especially President Biden’s “lame duck” status after he decided not to seek a second term, has exacerbated tensions between the US and Iran, adding: “It has given Iran a major opportunity.”
“It doesn’t matter whether you can deploy a nuclear weapon or not,” he continued. “They’ll just say it, and everyone will panic. They can say, ‘Well, I declare myself a nuclear power now, and I’m going to defend myself with nuclear weapons.’ And of course, it’s worse if you say that and people learn that you can defend yourself if you have weapons.”
“Once you go nuclear, there’s this kind of feeling of, ‘I have a force field around me,’ like the spaceship Enterprise,” Carafano continued.
“If you look at the timing of that… are the Israelis going to attack you? I mean, they’re a little bit busy right now. What is Biden going to do? Biden won’t do anything between now and the election and January, and if Trump wins, it will be months before he takes office,” he added.
Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Moore agreed with Carafano’s assessment, calling it a “distinct possibility,” but noted the limited power of declaring nuclear capabilities, particularly since “declaring yourself a nuclear power and being able to effectively deploy and use a nuclear weapon are two entirely different things.”
“I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that after any ‘announcement’ by Iran or during the final steps required to effectively test a weapon and get it onto a delivery vehicle, we would see Israel and/or the United States take action to prevent that from happening,” Moore explained.
Carafano acknowledged that in the long run, nuclear weapons only serve as a deterrent against other nuclear weapons, continuing: “Nuclear weapons have a very limited utility, which is deterring nuclear conflict with another nuclear power, but other than that… if you can’t win a conventional war, don’t start a nuclear war, right? It’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card for the Iranians, and… five seconds after they become a declared nuclear power, the Saudis, the Turks, the Egyptians, and others want to be nuclear powers, too.”
For his part, Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior figure at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, considered that the nuclear gradualism “gave way to the major nuclear advances that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei made while Biden was in office,” and speculated that “it is entirely plausible that these are gains that Tehran might want to secure or fortify if Trump returns.”
“Lest we forget,” Talbo continued, “Iran originally aimed to impose a nuclear fait accompli on the world before its discovery in 2002. Tehran has pursued an extensive program aimed at producing a small number of nuclear weapons in the hope that it will give it prestige and security.”
It is worth noting that Kamal Kharrazi, advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, had previously said that his country is not currently developing nuclear weapons, but it may change its doctrine if its existence is threatened.
Kharrazi stressed that if Iran faces an existential threat, it will inevitably have to change its nuclear doctrine.
Source: Fox News + RT
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2024-08-19 16:27:19
