IDF chief to Haaretz: I do not believe Iran will decide to develop nuclear weapons

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: Haaretz

Asked whether 2012 is also decisive for Iran, Gantz shies from the term. "Clearly, the more the Iranians progress the worse the situation is. This is a critical year, but not necessarily 'go, no-go.' The problem doesn't necessarily stop on December 31, 2012. We're in a period when something must happen: Either Iran takes its nuclear program to a civilian footing only or the world, perhaps we too, will have to do something. We're closer to the end of the discussions than the middle."

Gantz says the international pressure on Iran, in the form of diplomatic and economic sanctions, is beginning to bear fruit. "I also expect that someone is building operational tools of some sort, just in case. The military option is the last chronologically but the first in terms of its credibility. If it's not credible it has no meaning. We are preparing for it in a credible manner. That's my job, as a military man."

Iran, Gantz says, "is going step by step to the place where it will be able to decide whether to manufacture a nuclear bomb. It hasn't yet decided whether to go the extra mile."

As long as its facilities are not bomb-proof, "the program is too vulnerable, in Iran's view. If the supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wants, he will advance it to the acquisition of a nuclear bomb, but the decision must first be taken. It will happen if Khamenei judges that he is invulnerable to a response. I believe he would be making an enormous mistake, and I don't think he will want to go the extra mile. I think the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people. But I agree that such a capability, in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists who at particular moments could make different calculations, is dangerous."

Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/idf-chief-to-haaretz-i-do-not-believe-iran-will-decide-to-develop-nuclear-weapons-1.426389

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Overall, this is a good statement to hear. It should calm things to have someone in his position go public with his views.

[Tax Man]

1. don't just tell it to 'haaretz'

tell it to 'the weekly standard'

[bulloney]

2. The MIC and its media stooges have it in their heads that we're going to war against Iran.

It doesn't matter what Gantz or anyone says. They can present airtight evidence that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons. The media gerbils will continue to make shit up about some hearsay from some obscure "source" who will say Iran is building nukes. And that's about all you'll hear from the US media.

If journalistic integrity was cotton, you couldn't find enough from the MSM to make a T-shirt for a piss ant.

[invictus]

3. +1