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US opposition to an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear program may be softening, a former head of IDF intelligence said Wednesday.“The American stance on an Israeli strike against Iran has changed dramatically recently,” said Amos Yadlin, who served as chief of the IDF’s Intelligence Directorate from 2006 to 2010.“In 2012 the [Americans'] red light was as red as it can get, the brightest red,” Yadlin said in an interview with Army Radio Wednesday morning. “But the music I’m hearing lately from Washington says, ‘If this is truly an overriding Israeli security interest, and you think you want to strike,’ then the light hasn’t changed to green, I think, but it’s definitely yellow.”Yadlin is thought to be close to parts of the US defense establishment. He served as Israel’s military attache in Washington from 2004 to 2006, and was a Kay Fellow in Israeli national security at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in 2011.In April, Yadlin told a conference at the Institute for National Security Studies, which he heads, that Israel would have to make a decision on striking Iran by the summer of this year.“For all intents and purposes, Iran has crossed Israel’s red line… in the summer, Iran will be a month or two away from deciding about a bomb.”Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to Yadlin’s comments then by saying Iran had not yet crossed his “red line.”Yadlin is a veteran of Israeli anti-nuclear strikes in the past. He was one of the eight pilots who conducted Operation Opera, which destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981, and was head of IDF intelligence during the September 2007 strike against Syria’s fledgling nuclear program deep in the country’s northern desert.Israel has not formally acknowledged responsibility for the Syria strike, but is widely believed, including by former senior officials, to have carried it out.Yadlin’s comments came on the heels of a Tuesday press conference in Tehran in which Iran’s new president, Hasan Rouhani, said Iran is ready for “serious” and swift talks with world powers over its controversial nuclear program.The press conference was Rouhani’s first as Iran’s president, and was immediately dismissed by Netanyahu, who called for increased pressure on the Iranian regime.The cleric won a landslide victory in June presidential elections and took the oath of office on Sunday.“We are ready to engage in serious and substantial talks without wasting time,” Rouhani said, but warned that Iran’s interactions with the West should be based on “talks, not threats.”
US opposition to an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear program may be softening, a former head of IDF intelligence said Wednesday.
Watch the Israeli strike fail miserably as it's details get leaked.More accurate.
