Peres wants Iran oil income lowered

Israeli President Shimon Peres has suggested targeting Iran’s main source of income as a means of lowering the country’s defensive force.

In a Sunday evening speech in Rishon Lezion, Peres described Iran’s oil reserves as ‘dangerous’ and said that oil prices must be brought down.

“The basic problem in Israel and the world is that the price of oil must be lowered. Then they (Iranians) won’t have the possibility of spending the money on enriching uranium and buying weapons,” he said.

Tel Aviv claims that Tehran’s nuclear program posses a threat to its security. This is while Israel, the Middle East’s sole nuclear power, is widely believed to possess over 200 atomic warheads housed in facilities never inspected by the UN nuclear watchdog.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has confirmed that Iran’s nuclear program has not been diverted toward proliferation. The watchdog says Iran only enriches uranium to a level of 3.7 percent – a rate consistent with the construction of a nuclear power plant. Nuclear arms production requires an enrichment level of above 90 percent.

However, this has not prevented Israel and its staunch ally, the US, from threatening to launch a military offensive against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

On Sunday, Haaretz reported that the US Department of Defense was planning to sell Israel 1,000 ‘bunker-buster’ bombs capable of taking out fortified nuclear installations in Iran.

The Guided Bomb Unit-39 (GBU-39) are highly advanced smart bombs developed to target fortified facilities deep underground.

Iran sees diplomacy as the only acceptable means for clarifying the nature of its nuclear program and ending the nuclear standoff. However, Tehran has warned Washington that Israel and its 32 military bases in the region would be targeted should the country come under attack.

Last week on Sunday, Israeli President Shimon Peres said that a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities could only trigger a broader confrontation.

“The military way will not solve the problem,” said Peres in his interview with The Sunday Times. “Such an attack can trigger a bigger war,” he said.

MJ/CW/BGH