What Did the Israeli Army Chief Actually Say About Iran?

[bananas]

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/what-did-the-israeli-army-chief-actually-say-about-iran/256387/

What Did the Israeli Army Chief Actually Say About Iran?
By Jeffrey Goldberg

Apr 26 2012, 9:47 AM ET 62

A Washington Post headline this morning states: "Israeli Military Chief: Iran Will Not Build Nuclear Bomb." From the story beneath the headline:

Israel's military chief said in an interview published Wednesday that he believes Iran will choose not to build a nuclear bomb, an assessment that contrasted with the gloomier statements of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and pointed to differences over the Iran issue at the top levels of Israeli leadership.

The comments by Lt. Gen Benny Gantz, who said international sanctions have begun to show results, could relieve pressure on the Obama administration and undercut efforts by Israeli political leaders to urge the United States to get as tough as possible on Iran.

It is well-known that Israel's army leaders have been more cautious about the Iranian issue than their civilian bosses, Prime Minister Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, the defense minister. Gantz's predecessor, Gabi Ashkenazi, was eased out of his position in part because he was strident in expressing his opinion (the correct opinion, I think) that Iran's nuclear program was not an issue that Israel could address alone, but was one that required the concentrated attention of the international community.

The particular statement that prompted The Washington Post headline seems to be this, from the interview that Haaretz's Amos Harel conducted with Gantz:

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." (my italics)

This is a much-more nuanced statement than The Post headline, and story, suggest. First, Gantz seems to be endorsing Ehud Barak's analysis that ...

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[marble falls]

1. The nuance being that the rational government he describes won't .....

actually develop a nuclear weapon just to keep it out of the hands of radical fundamentalists. Pretty much in line with the general gist of his statement supporting a general ratcheting down of tone out of Jerusalem. Pretending that Israel did not already exist with a nuclear arsenal of over 290 weapons already including MIRV type warheads capable of reaching at least Europe, does anyone besides some extreme religious fundamentalist in Tehran believe that Iran will be allowed to have nuclear weapons?