Fmr Mossad Official - No signs of Iran stopping Nuclear Program

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• No sense in speculating about completion date of Nukes- Ilan Mizrahi
• Stuxnet and military threat effective in deterring Iran
• Hamas and Hezbollah avoiding new conflict   

Washington, Jan 13 - Iran’s nuclear program may be further along than some Israeli intelligence officials accept and it would be a grave mistake to assume they will not have a bomb before 2015, former senior Mossad official Ilan Mizrahi said Wednesday.

In a conference call organized by The Israel Project, Mizrahi discussed Iranian nuclear ambitions, Hamas and Hezbollah, and other regional threats to Israeli security.

Retiring Mossad chief Meir Dagan recently said that the Iranians would be unable to acquire a weapon until 2015.[i] However Mizrahi said that speculating about dates was a mistake. Rather, Israel and the international community should view the nuclear program as a process which the Iranians were determined to pursue as quickly as possible.

“It will be better not to fix a date, 2015, 2016 or 2014. The issue is that there is a process. The Iranians are going full steam ahead in trying to have the bomb and in having long-range missiles, both tracks,” Mizrahi said. “They will do the best to do it as soon as possible. It might be later than 2015, it might be sooner.” 

Slowing this momentum, he said, “depends now on the political decision of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and how the international community will be really devoted to the several tracks of activity, diplomatic, economic, operational, and a military option.”

Mizrahi confirmed that the Stuxnet computer worm, along with diplomatic and economic sanctions, have significantly slowed the progress of the weapons program. Ahmadinejad himself has publicly admitted the damage caused by Stuxnet.[ii]

Turning to Lebanon, Mizrahi offered a mixed assessment of the implications after Tuesday’s collapse of the Lebanese government sparked by the resignation of 11 Hezbollah ministers. The crisis arose because a U.N. tribunal is about to indict several Hezbollah officials of involvement in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

With Syria and Saudi Arabia working to forge a deal, “all the parties will do their best to avoid civil war, and I think they will succeed in avoiding it.” However, to keep the peace, Lebanese factions would likely be forced into further concessions to the Iranian-backed terrorist group which will further solidify its position as the dominant factor in Lebanon, Mizrahi said.

Such tumult, however, is unlikely to provoke a new Hezbollah-Israeli war in the short term, Mizrahi said, since both parties have an interest in maintaining a quiet Israeli-Lebanese border.

In Gaza, Hamas - another beneficiary of Iranian terrorist funding –would like to avoid another full-scale military confrontation with Israel, Mizrahi said. Smaller terrorist groups have fired 23 rockets and missiles at Israeli civilians already this year.

“They too do not have an interest to open a campaign or do something that will result in an Israeli campaign against them,” he said.

On a final note, Mizrahi said that Israel and the United States should be most concerned in the coming year by two overarching concerns: aggressive Iranian nuclear aspirations and the continuing instability of Pakistan.

[i] http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/outgoing-mossad-chief-iran-won-t-have-nuclear-capability-before-2015-1.335656

[ii] http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/1130/Stuxnet-Ahmadinejad-admits-cyberweapon-hit-Iran-nuclear-program