Interview: ‘Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities may come as early as 2025’

War is likely even if a nuclear accord is renegotiated, the authors of a new book on the Israel-Iran conflict said. 

By World Israel News Staff

The chances of a full-blown war between Israel and Iran are escalating with every month and could happen as early as 2025, the authors of an explosive new book told World Israel News in an interview on Wednesday.

According to Yonah Jeremy Bob and Ilan Evyatar, two Israeli journalists whose recently published book, Target Tehran, chronicles the history of the Israel-Iran nuclear conflict, war is likely to break out even if the U.S. and Iran succeed in negotiating a return to the 2015 nuclear accords, which Israel opposes.

“Without an ironclad agreement between Iran and the world powers guaranteeing that Tehran will not be able to become a nuclear weapons power, the chances of conflict grow with every month,” Evyatar told World Israel News.

“The fundamental reason for Israel’s opposition to the Iran nuclear deal is that it simply does not believe Iran will stop pursuing the development of an atomic bomb,” he added.

Israel’s stance is fortified by the revelations uncovered in its pillage of Iran’s nuclear archive, executed right under the nose of the Iranian security apparatus in the heart of Tehran. The raid—which the authors dissect in a chapter of the book — highlighted that Iran’s nuclear aspirations remained steadfast even before former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear accords – a decision he made based on evidence the Mossad found during the heist.

Read  2 Israeli reserve soldiers killed in northern fighting

Since then, Iran has been amassing enough 60% enriched uranium for several nuclear bombs, and is poised to take the relatively straightforward step to 90% weapons-grade enrichment.

Bob and Evyatar suggest that the crisis could boil over as early as October 2025, when the restrictions on the number of centrifuges Iran can assemble begin to expire. Even if a new accord was signed, if it maintains the basic provisions of the previous one, the authors argue, tensions could escalate in anticipation of an Iran equipped with more centrifuges, thus capable of achieving weapons-grade uranium at unprecedented speeds.

The 2015 agreement, which Iran is still party to, theoretically keeps Tehran several months away from a nuclear weapon by limiting the volume of enriched uranium. However, the Israelis argue that once Iran obtains a substantial number of advanced centrifuges and enrichment sites, detecting a breakout in time to counteract will become far more challenging for Israeli and western intelligence apparatus.

“Israel would probably address such a prospect first through covert sabotage led by the Mossad, and if that didn’t work, the IDF would be assigned to mount an aerial strike,” Bob said.