Official says Israel’s operation in Iran expected to last 2-3 weeks, end goal is tight nuclear agreement

Israel operation against Iran could take 2-3 weeks, but the timeframe depends on decisions made by the political echelon on the scope of the campaign, an Israeli official tells The Times of Israel.

“There’s a bank of military targets that we can complete pretty quickly,” says the official. “If they decide to expand it to more like government symbols, economical targets, all that, then it will take longer.”

A tighter nuclear agreement between Iran and Western powers is the goal, says the official.

Israel is aiming to “cause enough damage [to the nuclear program] to revert to diplomacy and get a good agreement.”

The Iranians have been sending messages through intermediaries to Israel that “if Israel stops attacking, they will stop and they’re ready to go back to the negotiations,” says the official. “But Israel has to stop first.”

Israel is still conducting battlefield damage assessments to see how much damage the attacks have done, but it is too early to know at this stage. It believes that the underground facility at Natanz has been damaged in addition to the aboveground infrastructure, but that is still being examined.

It is less optimistic about Israel’s ability to seriously damage the Fordo nuclear facility on its own.