Iran's nuclear ambitions are bigger than most people think, with the country capable of becoming a nuclear superpower, Israel's strategic affairs minister said Tuesday.
If not stopped, Iran could produce dozens of nuclear weapons a year, Yuval Steinitz said.
"This is a ramified nuclear industry that has been built not to produce a few bombs but to produce fissionable material for dozens and hundreds of nuclear bombs. The issue at hand is not a nuclear state but the possibility of creating a nuclear superpower," Steinitz wrote in a government memo obtained by
The Algemeiner.
Iran's Natanz nuclear facility currently has about 12,000 centrifuges and plans to reach 54,000, he said. That would make it capable of enriching enough uranium to produce 20-30 atomic bombs a year.
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Though it has yet to produce a single nuclear weapon, Iran still poses a grave threat to the West, Steinitz said. "It already has missiles directed towards Israel and missiles that cover much of mainland Europe and is making a concerted effort to basically have intercontinental ballistic missiles."
"The Iranian nuclear program is changing the rules of the game," Steinitz said. "It will change the state of Israel, the state of the Middle East and even the world situation. The Iranians’ ambition is to change the global balance of power from end to end, between Islam and the West."
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