Israeli Defence Chief Contradicts Netanyahu

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Israeli military chief Lieutenant General Benny Gantz says he believes Iran is not building a nuclear bomb, and Iran’s “very rational” leadership is not likely to move in that direction.

Reuters cites Haaretz as the source of the military chief’s statement, which is the exact opposite of what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said regarding Iran. Netanyahu said last week that Iran “is feverishly working to develop atomic weapons…”

Gantz reportedly told Haaretz that Iran is reaching a point where it must decide whether to build a bomb, adding that: “It still hasn’t decided yet whether to go the extra mile.”

He said Iran’s Supreme Leader would be making a big mistake if he decided to turn Iran’s nuclear program toward building weapons.

The statement comes after the Iranian Supreme Leader has announced on several occasions that the storage and use of nuclear weapons is forbidden.

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2 thoughts on “Israeli Defence Chief Contradicts Netanyahu

  • April 25, 2012 at 7:13 pm
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    It all depends if you classify Iran as being part of the Middle East or a South West Asian state. The growth of nuclear weapons has occurred across Asia. You have these energy rich central Asian states, stuck between Russia, China and nuclear powers around them. So over the next 20 years I expect more proliferation specifically in relation to central Asia.

    Basically every country in Central to South West Asia will have nuclear weapons along with the East Asia. It all depends on the fear of China and US posturing in SEA as to whether those nations also do decide on a nuclear deterrent. You could end up with all of Asia having nuclear weapons.

    If Iran is part of south west Asia, they are responding to an arms race, if they are part of the middle east they are starting one. It is a mute point, as they are on the fault line between south west Asia and the Middle East. Either way it will lead to proliferation into the Mid East.

    There are dim prospects for non-proliferation. If you do not work on the catalysts that start an arms race you cannot stop the proliferation, it is like domino’s. People look at the START treaty and see non-proliferation but the Start treaty had to be linked to other nations and until those countries join with Russia and the US it will not work. At the very least under a Start inline with with US and Russia cuts, they would be a ban on increasing the size of arsenals.

    Because the US and Russia regardless of Obama’s position cannot continue to reduce while you have each nation with an arsenal of 300 or so warheads all over the place. They will have to respond in kind. It will be a reverse START there will still a treaty but it will have caps and limits on increases, but not disarmament and reducing stockpiles.

    This was the reason regardless of Iran as a state or a threat, that proliferation must be stopped and it has to be stopped at some location and that was Iran. Basically it does not matter if it was a nation called Iran or a nation called shoebox. That is irrelevant.

    If it is not stop then the whole ideology of non-proliferation is over. No more nuclear powers, or the creeping of states towards nuclear capabilities cannot be stopped and you end up with outcomes I have mentioned.

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  • April 25, 2012 at 7:49 pm
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    So yeah the debate about rational or not rational or whether Iran is or is not a danger was always irrelevant to the position Iran and the issue of enrichment. This debate about building the bomb or not was also irrelevant it was about enrichment and ‘all options’ and the UN resolution that states Iran must stop enrichment. They were going to get whacked because they enrich, not because they had done anything with it.

    Bush did not say they could not have nuclear power, he said they cannot enrich and the fuel will have to obtained from a supplier and returned. For civil power or the medical isotopes. There specific nations that can provide those services of supply enriched Uranium.

    If you go back the US was setting up a system of countries that would fulfill that role. Other than those countries no one could enrich. Certainly there would be no new countries allowed to enrich Uranium.

    It is all about strict controls on enriched Uranium and the knowledge that goes with the infrastructure.

    That was the strategy, we are taking Saddam’s stuff (oops), if you don’t want to end up like in hand it in. And prevention via preemptive means no more enrichment.

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