New Delhi: The decision to carry out strikes on Iran was taken by Israel well after Prime Minister Narendra Modi completed his two-day visit, the country’s ambassador to India Reuven Azar clarified in an interview to NDTV.
This dispels theories that Modi came to know of Israel’s plans to attack Iran during his visit to Tel Aviv.
The Congress has been attempting to corner the government by terming Modi’s visit to Israel “shameful” and “ill-timed”. Salman Khurshid, chairman of the Congress’ foreign affairs department, had said the timing of the Prime Minister’s trip “creates the perception of a political endorsement of military escalation”.
When Azar was asked whether there was a sense that Israel would start a military operation soon during the Indian PM’s visit, he replied: “Well, the region was volatile. However, the operational opportunity came only after Prime Minister Modi left… as you know, that ended in the decapitation of the military leadership of Iran. That operation was approved by our cabinet only two days after Prime Minister Modi left.”
“Yes, we have created a situation in which the nuclear stockpile is inaccessible. Of course, we have an interest in removing it from Iran and we hope it can be done diplomatically. We are capable at this point of degrading the huge military industry they have built all around the country. It was spread in dozens of locations and at this point, they don’t have production capability,” the Israeli envoy replied to a question on whether his country has achieved the goals behind its attack on Iran.
The offensive has degraded about 70 per cent of Iran’s launching power, he added.
When asked if Iran can reconstitute its nuclear capability, Azar said: “Nuclear technology is not very advanced. It’s a technology that has existed for a hundred years… But w
e have deepened our intelligence capabilities inside Iran. They are exposed, and we will keep monitoring the situation until we are sure they are unable to build a nuclear arsenal they were trying to build.”
Israel’s goal is not to bring regime change in Iran, he made it clear.
“First of all, we didn’t say that we are going to bring regime change. What we said is that we are going to give the Iranian people an opportunity to embrace their future, and that means that we are going to help remove some of the oppressive forces there so the Iranians can actually express themselves… they have been oppressed, they have been killed, they have been raped by this regime so we have an interest of helping them because we don’t want to engage every year in an attempt to degrade their capabilities. We prefer to have a more permanent change. That’s why I think we share a common interest not just with our American friends in the region, but also with the Iranian people,” he said.
When asked whether this was a battle of attrition – a strategy to wear down the opponent – the Israeli diplomat said this battle of attrition started more than three decades ago, “when the Iranians decided that they wanted to destroy the state of Israel”.
“They have been attacking us constantly in different ways through proxies by exporting weapons of mass destruction, by training terrorists and by supporting them financially through their propaganda. So this has been continuing for a long time. You are now seeing the military part of it that we got to because they were trying to create programmes that are immune from future attack that would allow them to actually implement their plan of extermination of our country,” Azar said.
Iran is attacking civilians in Israel in the Gulf, he said, adding: “So we have to make sure that their capability to do so diminishes and we will continue this campaign until either Iran changes course or we are convinced that we have done enough and we have exhausted our capabilities to keep them weak.”
Israelis are resilient, he claimed. “We have the will, not only to survive but also to thrive in our country and will continue to prosper despite the Iranian attempts to destroy our country,” Azar said.