First, Benny Gantz, head of the Israeli Defense Force, told Haaretz, in an interview published on April 25, that he did not think Iran would build a nuclear bomb -- not now, anyway. He scoped out Khamenei's thinking in some detail:
As long as its facilities are not bomb-proof, "the program is too vulnerable, in Iran's view. If the supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wants, he will advance it to the acquisition of a nuclear bomb, but the decision must first be taken. It will happen if Khamenei judges that he is invulnerable to a response. I believe he would be making an enormous mistake, and I don't think he will want to go the extra mile. I think the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people. But I agree that such a capability, in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists who at particular moments could make different calculations, is dangerous."And now, Yuval Diskin, former head of Israel's internal security service, casts a cold eye on current Israeli leadership. The Times' Jodi Rudoren reports:
