Defense Minister Gantz Calls Israel Can Serang Iran Nuclear Facilities 2-3 Years Later

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz. (Wikimedia Commons/IDF Spokesperson's Unit photographer)

JAKARTA - Israel could attack Iran's nuclear site in the next two or three years, the country's defense minister said on Wednesday, an unusual explicit comment on possible timelines.

With international efforts to update the stalled 2015 Nuclear Deal, Iran has increased uranium enrichment, a process with civilian use that could eventually produce fuel for the nuclear bomb, although they deny it has such a design.

Experts say Iran has the potential to increase the purity of its uranium fissile to weapons levels in a short time. However, building a transmitted warhead will take years, they said, an estimate echoed by an Israeli military intelligence general this month.

"In two or three years, you may cross the sky to the east and take part in the attack on the nuclear site in Iran," Defense Minister Benny Gantz told an air force cadet graduate in his speech.

For more than a decade, Israel has issued a veiled threat to attack its arch-enemy nuclear facilities, if it considers the diplomacy of world powers with Tehran deadlocked.

However, some experts doubt Israel has military power to deliver permanent damage to Iran's far-reaching, well-maintained targets.

Israel's estimated military intelligence for 2023 is that Iran will "continue its current slow path" in the nuclear sector, according to Israeli newspaper Hayom on Sunday.

"Iran will only change its policy if extreme sanctions apply to it; then Iran can decide to accelerate enrichment to the military level," the report said, confirmed by a military spokesman citing intelligence assessments.

Under an ambiguous policy designed to prevent the surrounding enemy while avoiding provocations that could spur a gun race, Israel did not justify or deny possessing nuclear weapons. Undergraduates believe it was true, having obtained the first bomb in late 1966.

Unlike Iran, Israel is not the signing of the 1970 voluntary Non-Proliferation Treaty, which offers access to civilian nuclear technology in exchange for its refusal to use nuclear weapons.