Israel army chief: Other nations could strike Iran

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s mil­i­tary chief said Thurs­day that other coun­tries have read­ied their armed forces for a poten­tial strike against Iran’s nuclear sites to keep Tehran from acquir­ing atomic weapons.

Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz did not spec­ify which nations might be will­ing to sup­port or take direct action against Iran. Still, his com­ments were one of the strongest hints yet that Israel may have the back­ing of other coun­tries to strike the Islamic Repub­lic to pre­vent it from devel­op­ing nuclear arms.

“The mil­i­tary force is ready,” Gantz said. “Not only our forces, but other forces as well.”

“We all hope that there will be no neces­sity to use this force, but we are absolutely sure of its exis­tence,” he told The Asso­ci­ated Press, adding that he was not speak­ing on behalf of any other nation.

Iran says its nuclear pro­gram is for peace­ful pur­poses, and that it does not aim to develop atomic weapons.

Israel, which views a nuclear Iran as an exis­ten­tial threat, has said it will not allow Tehran to acquire a nuclear bomb. It cites Iran­ian calls for Israel’s destruc­tion, Tehran’s sup­port for mil­i­tant groups and its devel­op­ment of mis­siles capa­ble of strik­ing the Jew­ish state.

Israel’s key ally, the United States, favors diplo­macy and eco­nomic sanc­tions and has said mil­i­tary action on Iran’s nuclear facil­i­ties should only be a last resort if all else fails. U.S. logis­ti­cal and diplo­matic sup­port would likely be cru­cial to any poten­tial Israeli strike.

Wash­ing­ton and other major pow­ers have imposed a series of crip­pling eco­nomic sanc­tions while open­ing a dia­logue with Iran.

Gantz said that in his assess­ment Iran is seek­ing to develop its “mil­i­tary nuclear capa­bil­ity,” but that the Islamic Repub­lic would ulti­mately bow to inter­na­tional pres­sure and decide against build­ing a weapon.

The key to that pres­sure, he said, were sanc­tions and the threat of a mil­i­tary strike.

Gantz’s stance on Iran’s inten­tions appeared to put him at odds with Israel’s polit­i­cal lead­ers, who have staked out a more hard­line posi­tion. Gantz denied that was the case Thurs­day, say­ing there was no inter­nal dis­agree­ment over Iran’s aims.

But Israeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu told CNN on Tues­day that inter­na­tional sanc­tions have not changed Iran’s behav­ior, and that the coun­try con­tin­ues to enrich ura­nium — a key step toward devel­op­ing a weapon.

The sanc­tions “haven’t rolled back the Iran­ian pro­gram or even stopped it by one iota,” Netanyahu said.

(This ver­sion CORRECTS Gantz’s rank).)

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Arti­cle Source: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_ISRAEL_IRAN?SITE=NCWIN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT