Iran’s economic and geopolitical setbacks mean this “may be a moment of opportunity to resolve in an enduring way the nuclear challenge” it poses, Antony Blinken said Monday in one of his last television interviews as U.S. secretary of state.
Blinken made the remark after Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC asked him: “What would stop Israel now from going in and taking out the nuclear program?”
Blinken began his answer by saying that “Iran is at a point where, in terms of the fissile material necessary for a nuclear weapon, it could upgrade that material to bomb-grade quality in a matter of a week or two,” but that “it still also has to develop the weapon itself, and that would take a lot longer.”
The incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump, who is scheduled to be sworn in next week, “would have an opportunity precisely because Iran’s on its back feet … it’s suffering economically in a terrible way,” added Blinken. Iran’s people “are disputing so much of what the regime has done, particularly in meddling in the affairs of other countries throughout the region.”
Iran’s currency began plummeting in value against the U.S. dollar in November, and the country has reached an inflation rate of over 30%. The decline, which has spurred a wave of protests, followed painful blows dealt to Iran by Israel, which severely incapacitated several of Iran’s regional proxies, including Hamas and Hezbollah.
The regime of Basar Assad in Syria, a former Iranian client state, collapsed in December. Israel also reportedly took out Iran’s advanced air defenses as retaliation for Iranian rocket attacks. The exchange resulted in minor damage to Israel but reportedly left Iran without air defenses, more exposed to attack than it has been in decades.
Iran has “lost its best proxies in Hamas and Hezbollah, it no longer has Syria and Assad,” said Blinken, and that means that “this is a moment of opportunity, and maybe a moment of opportunity to resolve in an enduring way [not only] the nuclear challenge posed by Iran, but also the actions that Iran takes throughout the region.”
A permanent ceasefire in Gaza and normalization of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia could be part of a move that “further marginalizes and isolates Iran and betters the lives of people throughout the region,” he said.
Asked again whether Israel should strike Iran, Blinken appeared to argue against such an attack.
“If that were to happen, would Iran simply rebuild and rebuild even deeper underground in a place that would be even harder to get to? You want to make sure that whatever you do […] is enduring,” he replied.
Blinken also spoke about the emerging deal between Hamas and Israel for the retrieval of hostages from Gaza. His administration has tried “to get an understanding on what would follow, basically a post-conflict plan, so that the vacuum that’s there—when Hamas is effectively not in charge and Israel pulls out—is filled by something that can run Gaza effectively,” he said.
Source » jns