‘Prepare for Iran nuclear facility strike,’ says Israeli official after election of ‘Butcher of Tehran’

New Iranian president “most extremist to date,” says Foreign Ministry official.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

Israeli senior military and intelligence officials are gearing up for a future strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, after news broke that Ebrahim Raisi was elected president of the Islamic Republic.

Raisi is a hardcore Islamist who has been named by Amnesty International as a perpetrator of war crimes.

Channel 12 News reported that Raisi is in favor of a return to the 2015 nuclear deal in exchange for relief of sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy.

But as talks with the U.S. enter yet another round of talks with no set end in sight, Israel is worried that Iran will continue stockpiling and enriching uranium until the ink on a deal is dry.

Israel believes the earliest such deal could be signed is August, leaving a relatively long window of time in which Iran could ramp up its nuclear program.

“There will be no choice but to go back and prepare attack plans for Iran’s nuclear program,” a senior Israeli official told Channel 12.

“This will require budgets and the reallocation of resources.”

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid referenced Raisi’s brutal reputation on Saturday evening, tweeting that “Iran’s new president, known as the Butcher of Tehran, is an extremist responsible for the deaths of thousands of Iranians. He is committed to the regime’s nuclear ambitions and to its campaign of global terror.”

He added that the “election should prompt renewed determination to immediately halt Iran’s nuclear program and put an end to its destructive regional ambitions.”

Lior Haiat, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, also tweeted that Raisi is set to become Iran’s “most extremist president to date…committed to Iran’s rapidly advancing military nuclear program.”

Senior IDF officials are set to meet with their American counterparts in Washington on Sunday, the military said in a statement.

The statement signaled that Israel and the U.S. would work together to mitigate the Iranian threat, on the heels of tensions between the two nations over a potential return to the 2015 deal.

“The chief of staff [Aviv Kochavi] will discuss…current shared security challenges, including matters dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat, Iran’s efforts to entrench itself militarily in the Middle East, Hezbollah’s rearmament efforts, the consequences of the threat of precision-guided missiles and joint force build-up,” the statement said.

Ebrahim RaisiIran nuclear dealiran nuclear programIsrael Iran