October 9, 2024
“Whether it takes a few weeks or a few months for Iran to obtain a nuclear warhead will not make a decisive difference in the outcome,” Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian diplomat who served on Iran’s nuclear negotiations team in the mid-2000s and is today a specialist at Princeton University‘s Program on Science and Global Security, told Newsweek.
“In the event of a military attack,” he added, “there will be no guarantee for the continuation of Iran’s peaceful nuclear program.”
Mousavian argued that former President Donald Trump‘s decision to exit the 2015 nuclear deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and the ensuing campaign of U.S. sanctions “led Iran to also develop its nuclear capabilities, turning it into a nuclear threshold state.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had always opposed the agreement, warning it did not go far enough to block Iran from producing a nuclear weapon. Now, Mousavian said that Israel, which is widely known to possess a covert nuclear arsenal, would not be capable of defeating Iran on its own without the aid of its U.S. ally and that such an outcome would only galvanize Iranian reconsiderations of its nuclear stance.
“Israel alone is not capable of a broad military confrontation with Iran unless the U.S. participates,” Mousavian said. “In such a scenario, Iran will likely become a nuclear state.”
https://www.newsweek.com/iran-nuclear-weapons-israel-attack-1966488