Israeli minister: Iran seeking to become nuclear superpower

Israel's strategic affairs minister said Tuesday that most people underestimate both the threat and the scope of Iran's nuclear program, which is geared to enable the country to become a nuclear superpower. "From the outset, the Iranian program was built not to produce a few nuclear bombs but to achieve the capacity to produce dozens and hundreds of bombs within a decade or two," Yuval Steinitz told media and foreign diplomats at a briefing in Jerusalem. The nuclear facility in Natanz presently has some 12,000 centrifuges and plans to reach 54,000, which would make it capable of enriching enough fissionable material to produce 20-30 atomic bombs a year, said Steinitz, who is also Israel's international relations and intelligence affairs minister. "This is the most critical issue of our generation. Human history will look different if Iran succeeds in producing a bomb," said Steinitz. The Israeli minister noted that Tehran's nuclear ambitions are global, as "Iranian leaders are very explicit about the need to change the balance of power between Islam and the West." Noting that Israel appreciates the devastating effect of current economic sanctions against Tehran, which, according to estimates, has lost 100 billion U.S. dollars in oil export revenue over the past 18 months, Steinitz said they were still not sufficient to coax the Islamic Republic to halt its nuclear program and must be backed by a credible military threat.