Barak: Islamic regime in Iran won’t last forever

Ex-IDF general: Israel can technically attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, says current round of sanctions will not stop regime.

By YAAKOV KATZ
Barak stink-eye 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Barak stink-eye 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
The Islamic regime in Iran will likely not be around in another decade, but Israel cannot rely on a regime change when confronting the Iranian nuclear threat, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Tuesday.
“I am not sure that this regime will be in power 10 years from now,” Barak said at a conference on Iranian Jewry held at the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv. “I can also not rule out the possibility that in a year from now, an opposition group like the Green Movement will not lead a new revolution. But we cannot count on this.”
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Barak added that the current round of sanctions imposed on Iran will not succeed in stopping the Islamic regime’s race to obtain nuclear power.
“Sanctions are having an effect, but there is no chance that on their own they will stop the Iranians’ efforts,” Barak said. “There’s still time for diplomacy but the sanctions need to be much tougher and include Russia, China and India. Only this way will the Iranians be really tested.”
Another speaker at the conference, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Itzik Ben-Israel, the former head of the IDF’s Research and Development Directorate, said that in his opinion, Israel had the military capability needed to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and cause them extensive damage.
“Israel technically can attack facilities like these, but we cannot do it every week,” Ben- Israel said. “The US can do it as much as required – every two weeks, every year or whatever is needed.”
Ben-Israel also played down the severity of the Iranian nuclear threat. While declaring that Israel needed to work to stop Iran, he said that if Iran succeeded in developing a bomb and then dropping it on Tel Aviv, the fallout would not spell the end of the Jewish state.
“If Iran were to get a weapon and attack Israel with it and it would land in Tel Aviv, it would have a blast radius of about 500 meters, meaning that 20,000 people would be killed,” he said. “This is a lot but it doesn’t destroy Tel Aviv or the State of Israel.”