The likelihood of Iran imminently developing a nuclear arsenal has been the subject of a great deal of speculation recently after Israeli d...
The likelihood of Iran imminently developing a nuclear arsenal has been the subject of a great deal of speculation recently after Israeli defence minister, Benny Gantz, told the United Nation Security Council on August 4 that “Iran … is only around ten weeks away from acquiring weapons-grade materials necessary for a nuclear weapon”.
“Now is the time for deeds – words are not enough,” he said, adding: “The Iranian regime is threatening us and sparking a regional arms race.”
Gantz’s is not the first such warning about the imminent prospect of an Iranian nuclear capability. Antony Blinken, in his first official interview as US secretary of state in February, claimed that Iran was “months” away from building a nuclear bomb. He forecast that if all the restraints of the nuclear deal were abandoned, it could have enough fissile material “within weeks”.
Paradoxically, the political aims that prompted Blinken’s stark warning were exactly the opposite of those of the Israeli government’s recent statement. The current warnings from the Israeli government are designed to put an end to nuclear negotiations. Iran itself appears to be overstating its stockpiles of fissile materials in order to pressure the United States.
For the incoming Biden administration, the potential for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons constituted one of the key...
