A top Iranian general said his country may reconsider its nuclear policies if Israel threatens to attack its atomic sites, an implicit warning that Tehran might race toward a nuclear weapon as rhetoric continued to escalate in the wake of its April 13 drone and missile attack.
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander Ahmad Haghtalab didn’t specify what the change might be, but Tehran has long said its nuclear program, which has prompted concern from the US, Israel and the United Nations for years, is solely for peaceful purposes. Haghtalab also said such an attack would prompt a tit-for-tat attack on Israel’s nuclear facilities.
“It’s possible and conceivable to revise the nuclear doctrine and policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran and deviate from the considerations of previous declarations” if Israel uses the threat of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities to pressure Tehran, he said, in comments reported by the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency. The comments fanned tensions that the US and its allies have been seeking to tamp down in the days since Iran launched a barrage of some 300 drones and missiles on Israel in response to a strike in Syria that killed several Iranian officers on April 1. Israel, the US and UK shot down almost all of the incoming weapons, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials have said the country has no choice but to respond.
Speculation has mounted that Israel might use a retaliatory strike to target Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran has continued to enrich its uranium to 60% purity, part of work it’s pressed ahead with in the years since the Trump administration backed out of a nonproliferation deal that was meant to halt its nuclear advances.
“The nuclear centers of the Zionist enemy have been identified, and the necessary intelligence about all targets is at our disposal,” Haghtalab said. Israel has a nuclear-research center near the desert town of Dimona and is widely believed to have nuclear weapons though it’s never confirmed their existence.
The head of the Iranian Nuclear Protection and Security Corps Ahmad Haqtalab said on Thursday that Iran has identified Israeli nuclear facilities and has its “hand on the trigger” to target them if Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear centers, according to the Iranian state news agency Tasnim. He said Iran could “revise and deviate from the declared nuclear policies and considerations” if threatened.
Haqtalab assured that Iran is “ready to face any threat” from Israel “by using passive defense plans as well as highly advanced facilities and equipment, and due to the dispersion of our country’s nuclear complexes and facilities.”