IDF Officer: ‘Nuclear Iran could deter wars in Gaza, Lebanon’
The Jerusalem Post reports on the real Iranian “threat”:
A nuclear-armed Iran could deter Israel from going to war in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip against Tehran’s terrorist allies, an IDF officer said on Tuesday.
OC Planning Directorate Maj.-Gen. Amir Eshel echoed leaders in Jerusalem who argue that a nuclear-armed Iran could create a “global nuclear jungle” and fuel arms races in an already volatile Middle East.
Eshel made clear that Israel worries that Syria and Hezbollah, as well as Hamas in the Gaza Strip, could one day find reassurance in an Iranian bomb.
“They will be more aggressive. They will dare to do things that right now they would not dare to do,” he said in a briefing to foreign journalists and diplomats.
“So this is going to create a dramatic change in Israel’s strategic posture, because if we are forced to do things in Gaza or Lebanon under an Iranian nuclear umbrella , it might be different.”
Eshel, who spoke at the conservative Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs think-tank, quoted an unnamed Indian officer who, he said, had described the Asian power’s friction with nuclear-armed rival and neighbor Pakistan in terms of self-restraint.
“When the other side has a nuclear capability and are willing to use it, you think twice,” Eshel said. “You are more restrained because you don’t want to get into that ball game.”
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