Iran International, Apr. 13, 2023
“It is impossible to separate the Iranian nuclear issue from the internal protest in the country.”
Senior Israeli intelligence analysts have spoken about the in-depth research its dedicated units are doing in assessing the threat from Iran. In an article in Israeli newspaper Maariv, four officials revealed the country’s focus on Iran’s internal divide, its economic woes, its nuclear program and its foreign policy implications.
The four experts from the Iran branch of the AMAN unit, the Israel Defence Forces’ intelligence division, spoke about the turning point of 2015’s nuclear deal, which emboldened the regime to expand its influence across the region, not least, in Syria.
However, by 2018, under the Trump administration, everything changed when a raft of sanctions came down hard on the regime, with support and pressure from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Iran was made an international pariah state. Rather than stem the tide, this only hastened the race to arm, said the intel chiefs. Aligning its proxy militia Hezbollah with President Assad’s fight in Syria against opposition elements, an alliance to which the Russians also joined, Iran’s net has only grown wider. It has led to a tit for tat shadow war in Syria which has become a battleground between Iran and Israel, and even drawn in US forces.
… [To read the full article, click here]
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