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TEL AVIV With diplomatic efforts to curb Irans nuclear program teetering, Israels defense minister has ordered his forces to prepare a military option, warning the world that Israel would take matters into its own hands if a new nuclear agreement did not sufficiently constrain Iran.

But several current and former senior Israeli military officials and experts say that Israel lacks the ability to pull off an assault that could destroy, or even significantly delay, Irans nuclear program, at least not anytime soon. One current high-ranking security official said it would take at least two years to prepare an attack that could cause significant damage to Irans nuclear project.

A smaller-scale strike, damaging parts of the program without ending it entirely, would be feasible sooner, experts and officials say. But a wider effort to destroy the dozens of nuclear sites in distant parts of Iran the kind of attack Israeli officials have threatened would be beyond the current resources of the Israeli armed forces.

Its very difficult I would say even impossible to launch a campaign that would take care of all these sites, said Relik Shafir, a retired Israeli Air Force general who was a pilot in a 1981 strike on an Iraqi nuclear facility.

In the world we live in, the only air force that can maintain a campaign is the U.S. Air Force, he said.

The recent discussion of a military attack on Iran is part of an Israeli pressure campaign to make sure that the countries negotiating with Iran in Vienna do not agree to what Israeli officials consider a bad deal, one that in their view would not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

At the moment, there appears to be little chance of that as the talks, aimed at resurrecting the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, have only regressed since Irans new hard-line government rejoined them last month.

Until now, Israel has tried to curb Irans nuclear program, which it considers an existential threat, through a combination of aggressive diplomacy and clandestine attacks. Israeli officials considered it a coup when they were able to persuade President Donald J. Trump to withdraw from the 2015 agreement, which President Biden now wants to salvage.

Israel has also waged a shadow war through espionage, targeted assassinations, sabotage and cyberattacks smaller-scale operations that it has never formally claimed. Israel secretly considered mounting full-scale airstrikes in 2012 before abandoning the plan.

But as Irans nuclear enrichment program approaches weapons-grade levels, Israeli politicians have warned in increasingly open fashion what the world has long assumed: that Israel could turn to open warfare if Iran was allowed to make progress toward developing a nuclear weapon, a goal Iran denies.

In September, the head of the Israeli armed forces, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, said large parts of a military budget increase had been allocated to preparing a strike on Iran. Early this month, the Mossad chief, David Barnea, said Israel would do whatever it takes to stop Iran from making a nuclear bomb.

This month, during a visit to the United States, Defense Minister Benny Gantz publicly announced that he had ordered the Israeli Army to prepare for a possible military strike on Iran.

But Israeli experts and military officials say that Israel currently lacks the ability to deal Irans nuclear program a knockout blow by air.

Iran has dozens of nuclear sites, some deep underground that would be hard for Israeli bombs to quickly penetrate and destroy, Mr. Shafir said. The Israeli Air Force does not have warplanes large enough to carry the latest bunker-busting bombs, so the more protected sites would have to be struck repeatedly with less effective missiles, a process that might take days or even weeks, Mr. Shafir added.

One current senior security official said Israel did not currently have the ability to inflict any significant damage to the underground facilities at Natanz and Fordow.

Such an effort would be complicated by a shortage of refueling planes. The ability to refuel is crucial for a bomber that may have to travel more than 2,000 miles round trip, crossing over Arab countries that would not want to be a refueling stop for an Israeli strike.

Israel has ordered eight new KC-46 tankers from Boeing at a cost of $2.4 billion but the aircraft are back-ordered and Israel is unlikely to receive even one before late 2024.

Aside from the ability to hit the targets, Israel would have to simultaneously fend off Iranian fighter jets and air-defense systems.

Any attack on Iran would also likely set off retaliatory attacks from Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, allies of Iran that would try to force Israel to fight a war on several fronts simultaneously.

Irans defense capabilities are also much stronger than in 2012, when Israel last seriously considered attacking. Its nuclear sites are better fortified, and it has more surface-to-surface missiles that can be launched swiftly from tunnels.

It is very possible that when the Israeli planes try to land back in Israel, they will find that the Iranian missiles destroyed their runways, said Tal Inbar, an aviation expert and former head of the Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, an aviation-focused research group.

Other military experts, however, say that Israel could still take out the most important elements of the Iranian nuclear apparatus, even without newer aircraft and equipment.

Its always good to replace a car from 1960 with a brand-new car from 2022, said Amos Yadlin, a former air force general who also participated in the 1981 strike. But we have refueling capabilities. We have bunker busters. We have one of the best air forces in the world. We have very good intelligence on Iran. We can do it.

Can the American Air Force can do it better? Definitely. They have a much more capable air force. But they dont have the will.

He cautioned that he would only support a strike as a last resort.

Israeli officials refuse to discuss the red lines Iran must cross to warrant a military strike. However, a senior defense official said that if Iran were to begin enriching uranium to 90 percent purity, weapons-grade fuel, Israel would be obliged to intensify its actions. American officials have said Iran is currently enriching uranium up to 60 percent purity.

The fact that it could take years to ramp up a program to carry out a massive air campaign against Iran should come as no surprise to Israeli military officials. When Israel considered such an attack in 2012, the preparations for it had taken more than three years, Israeli officials said.

But the distance between the current governments threats and its ability to carry them out has provoked criticism of the former prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who led Israels government until last June and was a dogged advocate for a harsher approach to Iran.

Since 2015, training for a strike on Iran had slowed, a senior Israeli military official said, as the defense establishment focused on confrontations with militias in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza.

In 2017, the Israeli Air Force determined it needed to replace its refueling planes, but Mr. Netanyahus government did not order them until last March.

And another senior military official said the army had asked Mr. Netanyahu since 2019 for extra funds to improve Israels ability to attack Iran, but was rebuffed.

In a statement, Mr. Netanyahus office said the opposite was true, that it was Mr. Netanyahu who pushed for more resources and energy on a strike on Iran while the military chiefs insisted on spending most of their budget on other issues and slowed down preparations to strike Iran.

Were it not for the political, operational and budgetary actions led by Prime Minister Netanyahu over the past decade, Iran would have long had an arsenal of nuclear weapons, the statement added.

Whether or not Mr. Netanyahu restricted the funding, experts have said that the money under discussion would not have significantly changed the armys ability to attack Iran.

You can always improve buying more refueling airplanes, newer ones, bigger loads of fuel, Mr. Shafir said. But even with these improvements and a superior air force, he said, Israeli airstrikes would not end Irans nuclear program.

They would likely, however, set the region on fire.

Ronen Bergman reported from Tel Aviv, and Patrick Kingsley from Jerusalem. Myra Noveck contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and Rawan Sheikh Ahmad from Haifa, Israel.

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Israeli Defense Officials Cast Doubt on Threat to Attack Iran - The New York Times

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VIENNA After three weeks of talks, discussions on the Iran nuclear deal are essentially back to where they were at the beginning of summer.

Yet, diplomats said,eventhat reflects progress, coming afterfivemonths in which negotiations were on pause following the election in June ofEbrahim Raisi, a hardline conservative, as president of Iran.

We have now a text that with some minor exceptions is a common ground for negotiations, said Enrique Mora, the senior EU official coordinating the talks.

Iran resumednegotiationswith the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China on November 29, withtheEU acting as coordinator of the talks.Since then, talks have been perpetually close to collapsing, withIrans new regimemakingfresh demandsandrestrictingaccess to its nuclear facilities.

Now, diplomats said, theyve agreed to work off the text frombefore the election, with slight amendments to reflect the latest Iranian proposals.

Modest progress, a senior U.S. State Department officialsaid. We now have a common understanding of what the text will be that will serve as the basis of negotiationson nuclear issues.

It is in the interest of all sides to keep the talks alive, even with a weak heartbeat. European countries have long championed the deal, Irans economy is suffering under heavy sanctions and the U.S. wants to show it is making every diplomatic effort.

Still, officials said that negotiations needed to pick up if they were to be successful,as the fast pace of Irans nuclear advancesis eroding the potential benefits of a deal.

This only takes us back nearer to where the talks stood in June, senior European diplomats cautioned in a joint briefing.

TheseniorState Department official echoed the sentiment. What is on the table now, the official said, is an agenda of issues to be examined, not a set of solutions to be accepted.

Iran and the U.S. are not holding direct negotiations, with Tehran still smarting over former U.S. President Donald Trumps decision to withdraw from the deal known as theJoint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOAin 2018. Instead, they rely on European diplomats to act as go-betweens.

When Iran returned to the table in November, it was unwilling to resume negotiations on the basis of texts that had been negotiated by the previous Iranian administration earlier in the year, changing almost 90 percent of what had beenagreed to inJune,Westernofficials said.

Europeanand U.S.negotiators considered this approach unacceptable and said it had prevented them from getting down to real negotiations.

Irans new negotiating team under Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani also brought new demands to the table. According to a seniorWestern diplomat, Iran wants, among other things, broader access to carbon fiber,as previously reported by the Wall Street Journal. The material is commonly used in airplanes and sporting equipment, but it can also be used to producecentrifuge rotors that are used to enrich uranium.

Iranalsodemands that all sanctionsberemoved, including those that had been imposed by Trump under the so-called maximum pressure campaign.

Westernofficials saidthat the U.S. had put a good offer on the table and that it was up to Iran to accept it. But the issue of sanctions lifting has not been the main focus during this seventh round of talks, according to a senior state department official. We havent gotten to that point yet.

Separately, a collapse of the nuclear talks was averted on Wednesdayafterthe International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reached a Russia-brokered agreement with Iran on allowing international inspectors to replace cameras at a workshop in Karaj, a city west of Tehran, where parts for centrifuges are produced.

By reachingtheagreement, Iran avoided a censure resolution the U.S. had threatened topresent to theIAEA Board of Governors before the end of the year. Iran had said that it would walk away from the nuclear negotiations in such an event.

The cameras needed to be replaced because one of the four IAEA cameras was destroyed in June in what Iran calls an act of sabotage that it blames on Israel. The other three cameras were removed by Iran and they have also kept their memory cards, saying that they will only return them once an agreement at the nuclear talks is reached and sanctions are lifted.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi on Friday showed a sample camera, similar to the ones that will be reinstalled at the Karaj assembly plant, to a packed room of international journalists. In an apparentriposte toIranian claims that the cameras can be hacked, Grossi explained that the cameras cannot be tampered with as they are under IAEA seal and not connected to a computer.

Grossi also said that his inspectors have ways to reconstruct the gap in monitoring since the cameras were removedin Juneand their reinstallations in a few days from now. He said that IAEA inspectors will be able to put the jigsaw puzzle back together.

The stakesin the talksare high theirfailure could lead to instability in the Middle East and anarms race in the region. Military action has also not been ruled out.Time is also running out,giventhefast advances inIransnuclear program.

We are rapidly reaching the end of the road for this negotiation, senior European diplomats concluded.

Ali Bagheri Kani, Irans chief negotiator, framed itdifferently: The pace of reaching an agreement depends on the will of the other side. If they accept Irans logical views and positions, the new round of the talks can be the last round and we can reach an agreement as soon as possible.

The eighth round of talks will begin in Vienna after a break, most likely before the end of the year.

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Iran nuclear talks go back to the future - POLITICO Europe

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In its annual report on terrorism, the United States Department of State underlined the terrorist threats posed by the Iranian regime. This report revives the need to counter Iranian terrorism amid the talks in Vienna and Western governments efforts to restore Irans nuclear deal.

The report highlights how Tehran has been using its Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Quds Force to support terrorist organizations across the globe. The Iranian regimes network of terrorism and espionage stretches from Africa to South America, Europe, and Asia.

The report underlines that the Iranian regime provide cover for associated covert operations, and create instability in the region, and supports terror groups in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.

On December 7, 2021, theU.S. Department of Justiceuncovered two large caches of Iranian weapons seized in late 2019 and early 2020 while en route to Yemen via the Arabian Sea.

In a press conference on October 6, 2021, the Iranian Resistance unveiled Tehrans massive UAV program details. The new information about the regimes UAV program, operated by the IRGC Quds Force was gathered by the network of theMojahedin-e Khalq(MEK) inside Iran. The regimes terrorist proxy groups have used these UAVs to spread chaos in the region.

Tehrans support of terrorism in the Middle East and other Muslim Countries has continued since 1980. The absence of a firm international response to the regimes terrorism has encouraged Tehran to continue its malign activities and spread them worldwide, mainly in Western countries.

The U.S. State Department reports highlight that Tehran continued supporting terrorist plots or associated activities targeting Iranian dissidents in Europe.

The most prominent case of the regimes terrorism in Europe is the foiled bombing of the Iranian Resistances rally in 2018 in France. The Iranian regimes diplomat-terrorist, Assadollah Assadi, attempted to bomb the Free Iran rally but was arrested shortly before the operation, along with his three co-conspirators.

On November 17 and 18, a court in Belgium heard the appeal cases of Assadis accomplices who, along with Assadi, received heavy prison sentences in February 2021. The court session continued on December 9, when two explosive experts revealed some of the shocking dimensions of the possible casualties if the bomb had exploded.

The Iranian regimes terrorist activities are not limited to the 2018 foiled bombing. During Assadis trial, it was revealed that he operated an extensive network of spies across Europe. Recent arrests of many Iranian operatives shed light on Irans dark and rooted terrorism in Europe.

In November 2018, Swedish authorities arrested MohammadDavoudzadehLuluifor his cooperation with Irans Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). He was plotting to assassinate an Iranian dissident in Denmark.

In September 2021, Swedish newspapers, including Aftonbladet and Expressen,reportedthat a former Swedish security police chief, Peyman Kia, had been arrested for spyingfor four years between 2011 and 2015. Kia had obtained Swedish citizenship and worked as a director in the Swedish Security Police (SPO) and an analyst in a Swedish military organization, acting as Irans spy.

The Iranian regimes terrorism in Europe dates back to the 1980s. This fact was highlighted in November 2021, when, according to the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK), the Norwegian National Criminal Investigation Service accused Lebanese national and a former senior Iranian diplomat at the regimes embassy in Oslo. The duo had attempted to assassinate William Nygaard, the former head of the Norwegian publishing company Aschehoug, who had published the Norwegian edition of Salman Rushdies novel, The Satanic Verses.

The Iranian regimes terrorism is the elephant in the room that, sadly, Western governments try to ignore. Tehran has been using terrorism as leverage to put pressure on the world community to continue its weak approach toward the regime.

History has proven that any weak approach toward a rogue regime will indeed increase their hostile actions. The only way to counter the Iranian regimes terrorism is to impose genuine sanctions on it and end any conciliatory policy toward this regime. The regimes embassies should be shut down, and its agents should be expelled from all Western countries, and this would undoubtedly curb the regimes terrorist activities.

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US Report on Iran Regime's Terrorism Reminds Tehran's Increasing Threats - NCRI - National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)

A hawkish gaggle of former U.S. national security officials, lawmakers, and diplomats has launched a public campaign to pressure the Biden administration into militarily threatening Iran. Thestatement, headlined by former CIA chiefs Leon Panetta and retired Gen. David Petraeus as well as former Obama-era senior Pentagon officialMichle Flournoy asserts that it is vital to restore Irans fear that its current nuclear path will trigger the use of force against it by the United States.

The statement which was also signed by former Democratic Rep. Jane Harman and Democratic diplomatic heavyweight Dennis Ross, and published by the Washington Institute,a militarist think tank argues that the Biden administration must take steps that lead Iran to believe that persisting in its current behavior and rejecting a reasonable diplomatic resolution will put to risk its entire nuclear infrastructure, one built painstakingly over the last three decades. They suggest that President Joe Biden consider orchestrating high-profile military exercises by the U.S. Central Command, potentially in concert with allies and partners, that simulate what would be involved in such a significant operation, including rehearsing air-to-ground attacks on hardened targets and the suppression of Iranian missile batteries.

Iran analyst Hooman Majd,author of The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran, said the letter from the former U.S. officials is just plain silly. He told The Intercept, Theres no restoring Irans fear the last time it feared a U.S. military strike or war was in the immediate aftermath of the Iraq invasion when it looked like the easy victory there and in Afghanistan would indeed perhaps lead to real men going to Tehran. Majd points out that despite repeated U.S. and Israeli threats of military action, Iran has steadily beefed up its military capabilities. So Id say that Iran doesnt fear U.S. military action against it now, he added. All of the Israeli bluster about preparing for war with Iran hasnt changed their calculus and they know Israel is probably more likely to attack their facilities than the U.S. is so why would any U.S. bluster or preparations for war do so?

Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, blasted the statement, telling The Intercept: The exaggerated faith in the miracles that U.S. militarythreats can deliver are not limited to any one party in the United States, but is intrinsic to the establishment religion that American security is achieved through global military hegemony.

The former U.S. officials argued that their strategy is aimed at forcing Iran to the negotiating table and to compel it to reverse any efforts to develop nuclear weapons made in the aftermath of Donald Trumps abandonment of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. While the United States has recognized Irans right to civilian nuclear power, Irans behavior continues to indicate that it not only wants to preserve a nuclear weapons option but is actively moving toward developing that capability, they wrote. While advocating for potential military action and openly calling on Biden to make explicit military threats the authors of the letter claim their intent is to support diplomatic efforts. [W]e are not urging the Biden Administration to threaten regime change or to advocate for a regime change strategy under cover of non-proliferation, they wrote. This is not about hostility toward Iran or its people.

Parsi, an Iranian American analyst and author of Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy, added, Rather than being the solution to the crisis, the military threat the U.S. poses to Iran is a key reason why the Iranian nuclear program has expanded. The more a country is faced with military threats, the more it will demand a nuclear deterrence.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden repeatedly criticized Trumps abandonment of the nuclear deal and his assassination of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani in Baghdad on January 3. But nearly a year into his presidency, Biden has taken no action to return to the deal and has staked out an increasingly hostile stance toward Tehran. In late August, Biden appeared to be placing military options on the table. During a press gaggle with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett at the White House, Biden said, If diplomacy fails with Iran, were ready to turn to other options. The Biden administration has maintained and, in some cases, expanded U.S. economic sanctions against Iran, which has spurred allegations from Tehran that the U.S. is already waging a nonmilitary war against Iranian civilians. Iran is demanding a cessation of sanctions as a precondition to return to negotiations.

Iran has every reason to want to restore the JCPOA at least in terms of getting the most onerous sanctions against it lifted. But it hardly is going to engage because it thinks the U.S. will go to war with it if it doesnt, said Majd.

Donald Trumps military threats and broad economic sanctions are precisely why we are in this mess right now. To believe that more Trumpian conduct by the United States will break the nuclear deadlock bewilders the mind, says Parsi. Trumps exit from the deal and the lack of confidence that the United States will stay in the deal beyond 2024 has profoundly undermined the value of American promises of sanctions relief. The Iranians are hesitating largely because they do not believe that the economic benefits the U.S. promiseswill be forthcoming. No amount of military threats will changethat fundamentalweakness in the U.S. negotiating position.

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Two Former CIA Directors Call on Biden to Threaten Iran Militarily - The Intercept

DUBAI, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Iran is evacuating its envoy to Yemen's rebel Houthi movement after he contracted COVID-19, Iran's Foreign Ministry said on Saturday, and a Houthi spokesman said Saudi Arabia and Iraq helped in the transfer of envoy Hasan Irlu.

Saudi Arabia and Iran, the region's Sunni Muslim and Shi'ite powerhouses, launched direct talks this year at a time when global powers are trying to salvage a nuclear pact with Tehran and as U.N.-led efforts to end the Yemen war stall. read more

"In order to transfer him (Irlu) to our country for treatment, the Foreign Ministry conducted consultations with some regional countries to prepare for his transfer, which is currently under way," ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told state media.

Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam said on Twitter: "Under an Iranian-Saudi agreement reached through contacts with Iraq, the Iranian ambassador in Sanaa was transferred on an Iraqi plane due to his health condition."

A Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015 against the Houthis after the movement ousted the internationally recognised government from Sanaa, the capital. The coalition has imposed a sea and air blockade on areas the group controls.

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Reporting by Dubai newsroom; additional reporting by Yasmin Hussein in Cairo; Editing by Leslie Adler

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Iran repatriating envoy to Yemen who has COVID-19 - Reuters