Experts: Iran Using Conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon, Ukraine, to Distract from Its Nuclear Weapons Buildup

JERUSALEM, Israel – As Israel fights Hamas in the south and prepares for a potentially greater conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria in the north, Iran remains a major player behind the chaos.

Many analysts say that is due to the Tehran regime's efforts to distract the world from what is happening with the country's nuclear program.

Yonah Bob, military correspondent for The Jerusalem Post, told CBN News, "Whether it is a formal strategy or it's just happening that way, it's absolutely a danger.  Iran threw out the nuclear inspectors, eight most important ones, in September 2023; they tripled the speed of enriching uranium for most of the last few months between 60 percent and 20 percent enriched uranium."

Experts believe the regime has enough uranium to make up to eight nuclear weapons.

"They could enrich to 90 percent weaponized uranium in like a week or two," Bob explained. "Israel, the United States – the world – is very distracted by Hamas, Hezbollah and the rest of the world by Ukraine. So could Iran try to break out now? Yeah."

Iran claims it successfully launched three satellites earlier this year. Bob sees this as especially significant in terms of weapons delivery systems.

"The technology they use for launching satellites can also be used potentially for nuclear weapons, in particular ICBMs, which can go a lot further.  As far as we know, they're not there yet – but we have to keep a very strong eye on that, too."

Rafael Grossi, Chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, recently reported that Iran continues to prevent access to inspectors, as well as video recorded by cameras at key nuclear sites.  

"We must move forward in the clarification of the many aspects that require this from Iran. All countries that have signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty are not supposed to have nuclear weapons in any form. This is forbidden in international law," Grossi stated.

Bob believes Iran is effectively blinding the world to the country's nuclear progress.

"It is a very dangerous situation," he stressed. "And it's problematic with the IAEA Board of Governors, you know, has basically decided to do nothing about it –certainly not referring it to the U.N. Security Council."

Bob maintains sanctions from the "original" 2015 nuclear deal could be re-introduced through a "snapback" arrangement – a mechanism by which sanctions from the original deal would be imposed on Iran if it violates terms from the deal nine years ago – but this provision has a time limit.

"If the United States and the three key European countries want to snap back, they can snap it back and the entire U.N. Security Council would need to enforce it," Bob stated.

He added, " When you get to October 2025, January 2026, so many of the limits on Iran fall apart that Israel – and I hope the United States – will need to make a decision to do something potentially militarily with Iran if it does not radically reduce where its nuclear program is today."

Retired General Amir Avivi, head of the Israel Defense Security Forum, sees Iran's nuclear threat in a global context.

"If Israel has to go to all full-scale war with Lebanon, this is our chance also to hit Iran, all the nuclear sites. So really, if the US wants to avoid a regional and maybe global war, it needs to show leadership and they really, really deter Iran and Hezbollah. This is the only way to stabilize the Middle East.

Avivi also uses more of a moral perspective to describe Israel's war with Iran's proxies.

"It's a war between darkness and light, between evil and good," the general asserted. "We're fighting the whole Western societies' war against extremism, against people who really want to destroy our way of living."

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