Israel has just days to launch a military strike and stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations has warned.
The deadline was set by outspoken former envoy John Bolton, who claimed that time was running out for the West to crush Tehran’s atomic ambitions.
He said Iran is planning to bring its first Bushehr reactor online on Saturday, when a shipment of nuclear fuel will be loaded into the plant’s core.
At that point, he said it would be too late for Israel to attack the facility because it would spread radiation and affect innocent Iranian civilians.
‘Once that uranium, once those fuel rods are very close to the reactor, certainly once they’re in the reactor, attacking it means a release of radiation, no question about it,’ said Mr Bolton.
‘So if Israel is going to do anything against Bushehr it has to move in the next eight days,’ he told Fox News in the U.S.
If the Israelis fail to act, Mr Bolton said: ‘Iran will achieve something that no other opponent of Israel, no other enemy of the United States in the Middle East really has and that is a functioning nuclear reactor.’
But the former diplomat, who served as George Bush’s ambassador to the UN between 2005 and 2009, said he doubted Israel would attack Iran.
‘I’m afraid that they have lost this opportunity,’ he added.
DM
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