(JNS) Israel Kasnett - Dore Gold, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and Israel's former ambassador to the UN, told an online discussion hosted by the Emirates Policy Center that while the threat of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons is considered the most dangerous, it is also the least likely element of the Iranian arsenal to be used in the near future. Instead, Gold believes it is Iran's proxies that represent the greatest threat today. "Many people anticipated in 2015 the proxy problem would diminish. But after the deal was concluded, the problem of proxies mushroomed across the Middle East." There is "a very dangerous Middle East on the horizon if the West and the negotiators allow the proxy issue to expand and not be addressed." The malign activities of Iranian proxies "are a reflection of Iran's quest for regional hegemony." Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, a senior project director at the Jerusalem Center, said Iran wants to be "a regional superpower and eventually a global superpower. This is why Iran does not want to be a nuclear threshold country; it wants to have nuclear weapons." If Iran crosses the nuclear threshold, its proxy forces in the Middle East "will feel much more comfortable increasing their activities with the nuclear backbone of Tehran and will work harder to spread Iran's ideology throughout the Middle East and the world."
2021-07-05 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive