Israels forsvarssjef Benny Gantz tror ikke det iranske lederskapet er så gale at de utvikler atomvåpen. Han regner med at de er rasjonelle.
Uttalelsene er på linje med hva amerikanske militære mener.
“I believe he would be making an enormous mistake, and I don’t think he will want to go the extra mile,” the chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Force, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, told the left-leaning newspaper Haaretz, referring to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“I think the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people,” General Gantz added. “But I agree that such a capability, in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists who at particular moments could make different calculations, is dangerous.”
General Gantz, a former paratrooper who took the helm of the military last year, rarely gives lengthy public statements like the ones published here on Israel’s Memorial Day, a traditional period of national self-reflection.
Several analysts saw his comments as more in line with the views of Israel’s military and intelligence establishment, including the former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, than with the harder line taken by the government. They were also seen as parallel to the position of his United States counterpart, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“What he said,” said George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in an Associated Press article, is “consistent with the views of the U.S. military leadership, the U.S. intelligence community. What’s interesting is why he said it out loud.”
