Tel Aviv: According to reports released last week, the US intelligence community has provided assessments indicating that Israel is contemplating attacks on Iran’s nuclear program, which could occur this year.
When all indications are that Iran is “inches” from a nuclear device, the understanding in some parts of the western world is changing – more and more voices call for a military attack on Iran’s nuclear sites.
The last to join the growing trend is a British think-tank that has claimed the UK should launch direct attacks on Iran after current international policy and sanctions have “failed spectacularly”.
According to a report in the Iran International website operated from London by the opposition to the regime in Tehran, the Henry Jackson Society published a report that claims the West’s policy on Iran is “in tatters”.
As per the think tank, Iran continues to support Russia’s war on Ukraine, bolsters its nuclear capabilities, fund, train and arm militias in the Middle East and most recently, target international shipping through its Yemeni proxy, the Houthis, in the Red Sea region.
“For too long, Iranian aggression has been unchallenged,” the report said. The think tank experts claim that the US should remove its carriers from the Persian Gulf, granting the US strike capability while insulating them from drones, mines and anti-ship missiles. It also suggests targeting Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) bases such as the Pasdaran base and senior IRGC personnel on Iranian or foreign soil.
“Since the Gaza war alone, sparked in October by Iran-backed Hamas’s invasion of Israel, over 200 attacks on US facilities in the Middle East as punishment for supporting Israel’s right to defend itself, have all but passed with no response. Just a handful of retaliatory attacks have been launched, none of which touched Iran directly,” the report said.
“Under the Biden administration, Tehran has only continued to become more emboldened, escalating Its not nuclear enrichment, in spite of sanctions, even blocking access to the UN’s inspectors.”
The think tank also suggests targeting Iran’s oil infrastructure, including refining and processing facilities, domestic distribution pipelines and terminals, and the hydrocarbon export ports.
-The writer is an Israel-based freelance journalist. The views expressed are of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
