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Israel Has the Ability to Militarily Thwart Iran's Nuclear Plans
(Israel Hayom) Yoav Limor - Maj.-Gen. Tal Kalman, who heads the IDF's Iran Directorate, said in an interview that the Israeli strategy in the past 30 years actually worked, and the proof is that Iran still has no nuclear capability. Kalman took part in discussions on Iran earlier this month with the new U.S. administration's National Security Council. "The first stage is to be aligned with them on the intelligence picture. The Iranian nuclear program in 2021 is not the same program that existed when the deal was signed in 2015. I think that in very high percentages they see the situation as we do." "As we see it, the actions Iran has taken are reversible, and were made to signal the international community to 'hold us back and come back to the deal.' It's not that Iran has run away and is headed towards a bomb....Under Biden's national security doctrines, the Middle East is in fourth or fifth place. The U.S. is looking at other regions and doesn't want to invest as much in ours." Israel has the ability to militarily thwart Iran's nuclear plans. This is the message Israel is sending in its dialogue with the U.S. and Europe. "We don't want to use it....It must be the final resort. We need to reach a solution in other ways, diplomatically, and I think there's a chance for that, but this tool is also important. The Iranian regime is...cautious and calculated....For them the nuclear bomb is an insurance policy, so if they understand it could endanger them, they'll think again." "Over the past two years we've seen dramatic changes in cooperation with our allies, mainly the U.S. We have a relationship that has reached high intimacy. There were operations in the past year where things happened that never did before, from intelligence cooperation to operational cooperation. It happens because the Americans understand the shared interest in restraining the Iranian challenge in the Middle East." Kalman noted the normalization agreements with the Gulf states, adding, "I think the Iranian leader, whose strategy is to base Iran on Israel's borders, wakes up these days and is very concerned, because he sees potential for Israel to be based around his own borders. It's a major change."