Israeli army chief doubts Iran ready to build nuclear bomb

Israel’s Chief-of-Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz does not believe Iran will take the decision to build a nuclear bomb, he told an Israeli newspaper in an interview published on Wednesday.

Speaking to the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper, Gantz said Iran was going “step-by-step to the place where it will be able to decide if it wants to manufacture a nuclear bomb.

“It still hasn’t decided yet whether to go the extra mile,” he said, expressing a view also held by the administration of US President Barack Obama.

“If Iran goes nuclear it will have negative dimensions for the world, for the region, for the freedom of action Iran will permit itself,” Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz told Haaretz

That freedom of action might be expressed “against us, via the force Iran will project toward its clients: Hezbollah in Lebanon, Islamic Jihad in Gaza”, he added.

Iran has already developed the capacity to enrich uranium to 20 percent, which is used to create medical isotopes, but going “the extra mile” would mean working to enrich to 90 percent -- the level needed to make nuclear weapons.

“If the supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wants, he will move forward towards acquiring a nuclear bomb, but the decision must first be taken,” he said.

“In my opinion, he would be making a huge mistake if he does so, and I don’t think he will want to go the extra mile,” Gantz said.

“I think that the Iranian leadership is made up of very rational people”, he told Haaretz.

Commenting on the Arab Spring and the events in Syria, Gantz said: “I don’t know what will happen in Syria, but presumably the Golan Heights won’t be as quiet as before.

I cannot remove Syria from the military equation, nor Lebanon. I assume that if there are ‘terror’ threats from the Golan or Lebanon, I’ll have to take action.”