Iran sends unexpected message to Israel about how it will respond to attack

Iran will not have any choice but to respond to the crossing of red lines if it is subjected to an attack on its oil facilities or nuclear facilities.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

In an unexpected turn, Iran sent a message to Israel through European channels that it was prepared to ignore a limited Israeli retaliatory attack, but would respond strongly if Israel crossed “red lines.”

The Saudi Arabian news platform Asharq Al-Awsat reported, “The Iranian message to Israel, sent mostly indirectly, is that it will ignore a limited Israeli attack, and will not respond to it as it is threatening to do.”

“Iran will not have any choice but to respond to the crossing of red lines, if it is subjected to an attack on its oil facilities or nuclear facilities,” it added.

Three US and Israeli officials told Axios that after a call between their respective leaders, US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were said to be edging closer to an agreement on the form and scale of Israel’s retaliation for Iran’s launch of 180 missiles earlier this month.

Axios reported the US officials said Israel’s planned retaliation was somewhat more aggressive than what the US prefers, but the two parties are  “moving in the right direction.”

When asked by reporters if the US would approve of Israel’s bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities, Biden gave a flat “no,” for which he was ridiculed by former president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

At a campaign rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Trump ridiculed Biden’s earlier remarks by saying,” ‘As long as they don’t hit the nuclear stuff.’ That’s the thing you wanna hit, right? I said, ‘I think he’s got that one wrong. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to hit?’”

He added that nuclear weapons are “the biggest threat we have.”

Trump said, “His answer should have been ‘Hit the nuclear first, worry about the rest later.’”

Two U.S. officials told Reuters they don’t believe that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon.

A senior Biden administration official and a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) agreed with CIA Director William Burns’ remarks earlier in the week that the U.S. had no evidence that Iran was reversing its 2003 statement that it was abandoning its program to develop nuclear weapons.

“We assess that the Supreme Leader has not made a decision to resume the nuclear weapons program that Iran suspended in 2003,” said the ODNI spokesperson, referring to Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The U.S. conviction that Iran has suspended its plans to develop a nuclear bomb may explain the Biden Administration’s opposition to a potential Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

However, a U.N. watchdog,  the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),  reported that at two facilities, Iran has been enriching uranium to up to 60% fissile purity, close to 90% of weapons-grade.

The watchdog  group also reported that, in theory, it has enough material enriched to a level that can be used to make a nuclear bomb.

Iran’s ongoing enrichment of uranium has reduced the “breakout time” to make a bomb to a week or longer, down from a year in 2015.