An Israeli defense official believes Tel Aviv must rush to carry out a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities even without US approval, a report says.A 'senior defense official' said that Tel Aviv believed a military strike could 'significantly delay' what it claims to be an Iranian nuclear weapons program, the Israeli daily Maariv reported on Wednesday, without revealing the official's name.
The official added that Israel could carry out such an attack without US approval but time was running out for it to be effective.
“The Iranians are creating fortifications and camouflage to defend against a strike from the air,” said the official.
“The military option is real and at the disposal of Israel's leaders, but time is working against them.”
However, in contradictory remarks, the official also said that there was 'no point' in a strike in the near term, before US President Barack Obama's proposed talks with Iran begin and before officials in Washington 'despair of the effectiveness of the talks'.
Israel, Middle East's sole nuclear-armed regime, continues to repeat its allegations against Tehran, despite the lack of evidence to prove that Iran is conducting any nuclear activity other than the peaceful work Tehran insists it is pursuing.
This is while Iran's nuclear cites, which are power generation facilities, remain under the strict supervision of UN nuclear watchdog inspectors.
The former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton says that Washington should support Tel Aviv if it decides to attack Iran, since it will be 'blamed for it anyway'.
The worst outcome of an Israeli attack on Iran would be its failure to halt Tehran's nuclear program, Bolton said in an interview with Russia Today on Thursday.
"I personally believe the US should assist Israel, I think if Israel does attack, the United States is going to be blamed for it anyway," he said. "A nuclear holocaust, a repeat of the killing of 6 million Jews in World War Two is not something Israel will simply wait for" said Bolton.
Dore Gold, former Israeli ambassador to the UN:
“The Israeli public at least senses increasingly that Israel will have to deal with this on its own,” Gold said. “It’s a period where we’re feeling very much alone.”
International reports on Iran’s nuclear program indicate that it could produce an atomic bomb in two years, but U.S. and Israeli reports have indicated that a bomb could be built,
in the worst-case scenario, within a year, though that is unlikely.
And if that is unlikely, then what's the big rush to attack Iran? Could it be oil?
Haaretz: Israel, Iran liable to clash in 2009 over nukes, says U.S. intel chief
Israel operating in Kurdistan
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