How Close Is Iran to a Nuclear Weapon?

Watch How Close Is Iran to a Nuclear Weapon? - AlArabiya English on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00So, John, Israel's objective seems to be to eliminate Iranian nuclear and ballistic capabilities.

00:06But in March, America's U.S. intelligence chief, Chelsea Gabbard,

00:11said that Iran hasn't been building a nuclear weapon.

00:15How close is Iran to a nuclear weapon?

00:18And what changed so dramatically since her statement in March?

00:22Well, the Israelis know better than anyone that Iran is not,

00:25was not on the verge of breaking out and building a nuclear weapon.

00:29Iran has had that capability for many years now if it wanted to do that,

00:32and it has chosen not to do that.

00:33That's a political decision, not a technical decision.

00:37The fact is that this is another in a series of Israeli operations launched by Prime Minister Netanyahu

00:44that doesn't have a clear objective, or rather has a shifting objective,

00:48that is sometimes difficult to pin down and sometimes tends to blow with the prevailing winds.

00:54Supposedly, this is to knock out Iran's nuclear capability.

00:58And yet, the Israelis are also making a lot of noise about regime change

01:01and about uprooting the Ayatollahs and encouraging the Iranian people to rise up.

01:07So, you know, the reality is, for the Israelis, this, I think, was an opportunistic moment.

01:14They didn't want to see the United States making serious progress towards peace with Iran.

01:19And they recognized that Iran has been severely weakened in the past year and a half.

01:24And I think they chose their moment to deal it a significant blow,

01:29if not exactly a fatal blow yet.

01:31Well done.

01:32You