Israel Defense Forces Chief of General Staff Aviv Kochavi, in a rare public statement about U.S. foreign policy, urged the Biden administration not to attempt to kick-start the Iran nuclear deal.
Kochavi, speaking virtually at the Institute for National Security Studies think tank’s annual conference on Tuesday, said that even if a potential deal could improve on the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, it would not be the right move for regional security.
“With the changing of the administration in the United States, the Iranians have said they want to return to the previous agreement,” the military commander said, according to the Times of Israel. “I want to state my position, the position that I give to all my colleagues when I meet them around the world: Returning to the 2015 nuclear agreement or even to an agreement that is similar but with a few improvements is a bad thing, and it is not the right thing to do.”
The United States withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018 and embarked on a “maximum pressure” campaign aimed at squeezing Iran into submission. Since the U.S. departure, Iran has continued to breach all aspects of the treaty. Earlier this month, its regime announced that it was rolling out 1,000 additional centrifuges and would begin enriching uranium to levels far in excess of the JCPOA.
“As of today, Iran has increased the amount of enriched material beyond what was permitted. It enriched it to levels beyond what was permitted. It developed and manufactured centrifuges that will allow it to rush ahead and produce a weapon at a much faster rate, within months, maybe even weeks,” Kochavi warned.
Kochavi also said he has directed the IDF to refresh the country’s operational plans regarding what to do if it needs to strike Iran because of its nuclear program.
“Iran can decide that it wants to advance to a bomb, either covertly or in a provocative way. In light of this basic analysis, I have ordered the IDF to prepare a number of operational plans, in addition to the existing ones. We are studying these plans, and we will develop them over the next year,” he said.
“The government will, of course, be the one to decide if they should be used. But these plans must be on the table, in existence, and trained for,” he added.
In January, the Iranian regime notified the International Atomic Energy Agency in a weekend letter that it is planning to enrich uranium to 20%. The nuclear deal dictated that Iran cannot enrich uranium by more than 3.67%, although the regime has previously broken the pact by upping enrichment to 4.5% purity.
The comments from Kochavi come a day after the Iranian regime reportedly executed 30-year-old wrestler Mehdi Ali Hosseini. Hosseini’s death was preceded by 27-year-old champion wrestler Navid Afkari, who was killed in September despite pleas from several human rights groups and prominent international figures.
