No evidence Iran is pushing for nuclear weapon, CIA director says as Israel weighs strike targets

Former PM Bennett says current situation presents opportunity to strike Iran’s nuclear program

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As Israel continues to weigh its options in a retaliatory strike against Iran, following the ballistic missile attack last week, opposition leader Yair Lapid called on the government to strike Iran’s oil facilities.

Lapid argued that Iran is already facing economic collapse and that a strike on the nation’s oil fields would target its “Achilles' heel.”

Lapid did not rule out a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities but said it needs to be in cooperation with the United States.

“I think we need to mobilize a broader coalition to attack the nuclear facilities,” Lapid continued.

“It should be in cooperation with the Americans, but right now Israel needs to respond not to one attack but to two. We didn't react strongly enough to the first attack. Iran's Achilles' heel is its economy. Iran is an economically fragmented country, and you always attack where your enemy's weakness is particularly great.”

Acknowledging that the U.S. is opposed to a strike on Iran’s oil facilities, Lapid said, “I can understand why they [the Biden administration] don’t want to have a spike in oil prices a minute before the U.S. elections. It doesn't change the fact that Israel has its own interests or perspectives.”

Explaining why the U.S. believes a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities is not called for, CIA Director William Burns recently said he sees no evidence that Iran is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon.

However, Burns acknowledged that Iran is stockpiling near weapons-grade uranium, which would allow it to quickly develop enough fissile material for a weapon if it chooses. He also said the regime has used its ballistic missile development to prepare for delivery of just such a weapon.

“We do not see evidence today that the supreme leader has reversed the decision that he took at the end of 2003 to suspend the weaponization program,” he said.

His remarks came during the 2024 Cipher Brief Annual Threat Conference in Sea Island, Georgia, where he was speaking on Monday.

The CIA director also noted that Iran would probably only need “a week or a little more to produce one bomb’s worth of weapons-grade material.”

Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett released a video on Tuesday morning, again calling for Israel to “damage Iran’s nuclear program.”

Bennett said the current gives Israel “the ability to act against Iran without fear of a terrible and intolerable response.”

“Therefore,” Bennett concluded, “we must attack the Iranian nuclear program, in addition to fatally damaging its leadership and economy. We must not settle for attacks on Iranian military bases, or noisy but casual actions designed only to convey a message. The time for messages has passed.”

Former U.S. President Donald Trump agrees that Israel should hit Iran’s nuclear facilities.

In a campaign event in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Trump responded to an off-duty soldier’s question regarding Israel’s Iron Dome, promising that the U.S. would have its own air defense system.

Trump then attacked U.S. President Joe Biden for recent remarks, when he said Israel should avoid striking Iran’s nuclear facilities in its retaliatory strikes.

“That’s the thing you wanna hit, right?” Trump asked. “I said, ‘I think he’s got that one wrong. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to hit?’”

Trump previously called for strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities and claimed that if he were president, Iran would not dare attack Israel.