Israel must destroy Iran’s nuclear program within the next 12 months or risk being attacked with an atomic bomb, the former head of the Mossad told the British Sunday Telegraph.

"As an intelligence officer working with the worst-case scenario, I can tell you we should be prepared," said Shabtai Shavit, Mossad chief from 1989 to 1996. "We should do whatever necessary on the defensive side, on the offensive side, on the public opinion side for the West, in case sanctions don’t work. What’s left is a military action."

"The time that is left to be ready is getting shorter all the time," Shavit told the Telegraph.
 
   
"I think if they are to do anything, the most likely period is after our elections and before the inauguration of the next President."
Ex-US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton comment on the most likely time for an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Shavit added that a victory by Democratic nominee Barack Obama in the November presidential election would significantly lower the chances that the U.S. would approve of military action against Iran. "If [Republican candidate John] McCain gets elected, he could really easily make a decision to go for it," Shavit told the paper. "If it’s Obama : no. My prediction is that he won’t go for it, at least not in his first term in the White House."

The assessment echoed the assessment of former UN Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, who said that an Israeli strike could occur as early as November, since Israel was unlikely to take such a dramatic action before the US election. "I don’t think they will do anything before our election because they don’t want to affect it. And they’d have to make a judgment whether to go during the remainder of President Bush’s term in office or wait for his successor."

Bolton said he has given up on the Bush administration’s efforts to stop Iran from developing an atomic bomb. "I don’t think it’s serious any more," he said. "If you had asked me a year ago I would have said I thought it was a real possibility. I just don’t think it’s in the cards."

Bolton said that if Senator Obama is elected in November, Israel could not afford to wait until he takes office on January 20, before taking action. "An Obama victory would rule out military action by the Israelis because they would fear the consequences given the approach Obama has taken to foreign policy," according to Bolton, who served as ambassador to the U.N. for less than two years until 2006.

"I think if they are to do anything, the most likely period is after our elections and before the inauguration of the next President," Bolton said in an interview last week with FOX News.

In an interview with the British ’Daily Telegraph,’ Bolton said he believed the Arab world would actually be "pleased" by an Israeli strike. Their reaction, he told the paper, "will be positive privately. I think there’ll be public denunciations but no action."

Bolton believes that Israel may consider postponing the attack if Senator John McCain emerges as the victor in the race, and said apprehension of Obama’s foreign policy in Jerusalem would likely be the motivating factor behind an early strike.

Shavit also told the Telegraph that Israel would go it alone if necessary. "When it comes to decisions that have to do with our national security and our own survival, at best we may update the Americans that we are intending or planning or going to do something," Shavit told the paper. "It’s not a precondition, [getting] an American agreement," he said.

Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign minister said on Sunday he did not believe Israel was in a position to attack the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program.

"They know full well what the consequences of such an act would be," Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki told reporters. "[W]e do not see the Zionist regime in a situation in which they would want to engage in such an adventurism," he said when asked about the possibility of an Israeli attack.

The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards was more specific. He warned that if his country is attacked, Tehran would strike back by barraging Israel with missiles and taking over a key oil passageway in the Persian Gulf, according to Jam-e-Jam, not a hiphop artist but an Iranian state newspaper report published Saturday.

Teheran is reported jittery after disclosure of last month’s massive Israeli military exercise over the Mediterranean Sea, a drill seen as "sending a message" to Iran. Jafari warned that if attacked, Iran would strike back, and not just at Israel but at US and western interests, including choking off the Straits of Hormuz, passage for much of the oil from the region.

"Should a confrontation erupt between us and the enemy, the scope will definitely reach the oil issue. ... Oil prices will dramatically increase. This is one of the factors deterring the enemy from taking military action against the Islamic Republic of Iran," Jafari was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, it is being reported that U.S. congressional leaders agreed late last year to President George W. Bush’s funding request for a major escalation of covert operations against Iran aimed at destabilizing its leadership.

The article by reporter Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker magazine, published online Sunday, reveals a highly classified Presidential Finding signed by Bush "focused on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change," the article cited a person familiar with its contents as saying, and involved "working with opposition groups and passing money."

Funding for the covert escalation of up to $400 million was approved by congressional leaders, according to the article, citing current and former military, intelligence and congressional sources.

 

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