Iran’s attack on Israel: where is Tehran in its quest for nuclear weapons?
Cairo: Hani Kamal El-Din
How far will the cycle of retaliation go? The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, repeated on Wednesday April 17 that his country “reserved the right to protect himself” facing Iran, after the unprecedented Iranian attack which targeted its territory. On the night of April 12 to 13, the Iranian army launched more than 350 drones towards Israeli territory, in response to a strike against the Iranian consulate in Damascus (Syria) attributed to the Israeli air force. If the vast majority of the devices were able to be intercepted, with the help of several nations allied to Israel, the Israeli executive promised to respond. “We cannot stand idly by in the face of such aggression, Iran will not emerge unscathed from its attack,” proclaimed army spokesperson Daniel Hagari.
Nearly five days after the Iranian attack, the Israeli response has not yet taken place. But several Western officials are calling for restraint, fearing that an Israeli offensive will lead to a regional conflagration with a country whose nuclear program is worrying. For years, this subject has in fact been at the heart of tensions between Tehran and Tel Aviv, which accuses the Islamic Republic of seeking to acquire atomic weapons. Franceinfo summarizes what we know about Iran’s real nuclear capabilities.
“Today, Iran does not have nuclear weapons”, assures franceinfo Héloïse Fayet, researcher at the French Institute of International Relations, specialist in nuclear proliferation. The Islamic Republic of Iran has been a member of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty since 1968. Signatory states that do not have an atomic bomb undertake not to develop them.
However, Tehran has long been suspected of having turned its back on this commitment. This is the reason why several great powers, including the United States and France, negotiated the Vienna international agreement, signed in 2015, in which Iran accepts, in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions, a supervision of its production of enriched uranium, which can be used in the design of nuclear weapons. But since the United States withdrew from the agreement under the presidency of Donald Trump in 2018, Iran has freed itself from these limits.
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