U.S. Envoy: Plans to Strike Iran Are ‘Ready’
Newsmax
American Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro says plans for a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities are “fully available” and “ready.”
In remarks aired by Israel’s Army Radio on Thursday, Shapiro said: “It would be preferable to resolve this diplomatically and through the use of pressure than to use military force. But that doesn’t mean that option is not fully available — not just available, but it’s ready.
“The necessary planning has been done to ensure that it’s ready.”
Israel has hinted it could launch a pre-emptive attack on Iran’s nuclear development program, which Iran insists is for peaceful purposes but Israel believes is aimed at producing nuclear weapons.
However, many analysts believe the United States alone has the ability to inflict lasting damage on Iran’s program, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
Award-winning journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave recently told Newsmax in an interview that a U.S. strike against Iran would be “the height of strategic madness” because it could escalate rapidly into a regional war.
But Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak recently asserted that a “radical Islamic Republic of Iran with nuclear weapons would be far more dangerous both for the region and, indeed, the world” than an attack on Iran.
Ambassador Shapiro’s comments came days before the scheduled resumption of talks between Iran and Western allies in Baghdad.