Iran News Daily : "Israel Still Mulls Preventative Strike on Iran"

Israel Still Mulls Preventative Strike on Iran

MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) - Israel is not threatening anyone but has not yet decided if it would be right and necessary to launch a preventive strike against nuclear facilities in Iran, a senior Russian academic said on Monday.

"Israel understands that the threat is growing and its main problem is whether or not to deliver a preventive strike, while there is still no bomb or once it is clear that only five minutes remain, together with the United States or without it," Georgy Mirsky, a senior research fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations with the Russian Academy of Sciences, told RIA Novosti.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden suggested in an interview with ABC television that Washington would not get in Israel's way if Tel Aviv decided to attack nuclear facilities in Iran.

"We cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination ... their survival is threatened by another country," he told the U.S. broadcaster.

Mirsky said there was public pressure on the Israeli government to act on Iran.

"The people of Israel demand that the government do something before it is too late, and it will already be too late when Iran can answer with a nuclear strike," the Russian academic said.

"An attack must be conducted together with the United States. But even in this case there would be no certainty that all nuclear facilities had been destroyed," he added.

"However, from the political point of view it would be the most disastrous catastrophe that could happen for America. All [U.S. President] Barack Obama's policies would be ruined," Mirsky said.

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