“Israel can attack Iran alone and can also deal with the aftermath,” Major-General (Ret.) Amos Yadlin, the former IDF head of military intelligence told the annual conference of the Institute for National Security Studies. According to Yadlin, Iran has already “crossed the new red line drawn by Israel.”
Yadlin estimated that “the Iranians can very quickly produce a nuclear bomb even now, and the closer they get to the breakthrough moment, the faster they’ll be able to do it – under a presidential order. He warned that as early as this summer Iran will be at a stage where the time lag between an order and a finished bomb will come down to a month or two.
At that point, he warned, it would be extremely difficult to stop Iran.
Gen. Itai Baron, head of the research division at Military Intelligence, said that back in 2012 Israeli experts recognized a difference between the real capabilities of Iran and what it was actually prepared to execute. He estimated that the sanctions imposed on Iran, including international pressure, damage and deter Iran. Yet, despite those influences, Iran’s nuclear program continues to advance in an obvious direction.
“We are in a period of a lot of risks, uncertainties and instability, in an explosive atmosphere and an increased likelihood of escalation scenarios,” Baron concluded. But he nevertheless stressed that the IDF is not expecting an all out war of annihilation directed at Israel, similar to the Yom Kippur War 40 years ago.
Gen. Baron also warned against the Syrian government’s repeated use of chemical weapons and of repeated attempts to send Syrian military equipment to the Hizbollah in Lebanon.