Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s minister of strategic affairs, told Israel Radio that Iran’s nuclear program is mired in technical challenges. “These difficulties postpone the timetable, so we can’t talk about a point of no return. Iran does not currently have the ability to produce a nuclear weapon by itself,” he said.
He said he believes Iran is at least three years away from having the technical mastery needed to build a bomb.
Meir Dagan, who retired last month as head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, put an Iranian bomb even further out in his final briefing. “Iran will not achieve a nuclear bomb before 2015—if then,” he said, Reuters reported.
Dagan said the Iranian program had been delayed by several factors, including international sanctions and last year’s political ferment.
Dagan also said Israel should not rush to use military action against Iran because an attack would likely prompt Iran to pull out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, meaning it would then pursue its nuclear program without any international oversight. “Israel should not hasten to attack Iran,” Dagan said, “doing so only when the sword is upon its neck.”
Israel has been famous—and sometimes ridiculed—for long saying that Iran was on the verge of building a bomb. Officials have commonly said that Iran was just one or two years away from building a bomb. Even in the late 1990s, Israeli officials were saying Iran would have the bomb before the new millennium began.
Yaalon’s and Dagan’s predictions put Israel more in line with the United States. While US intelligence has not issued a new estimate recently, for several years it has said it expected Iran to be able to build a bomb sometime in the 2010-15 time period.
Yaalon, 60, is deputy prime minister and minister of strategic affairs, which portfolio has him overseeing Iran issues. He commanded Israeli military intelligence in the 1990s and was chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces from 2002 to 2005. He is a member of the right of center Likud Party.
