BBC Expert Explains Why Israel Has Taken A 'Massive Gamble' By Attacking Iran

Firefighters work the scene of an explosion at a residence compound in northern Tehran, Iran, Friday, June 13, 2025. A BBC expert has explained how Israel has taken a “massive gamble” by attacking Iran.Security correspondent Frank Gardner said the move could actually speed up Tehran’s progress towards building a nuclear bomb, which could then lead to an arms race across the Middle East.Israel said it had targeted dozens of air strikes at the “heart” of Iran’s nuclear programme.In response, Iran reportedly sent about 100 attack drones towards Israel.Keir Starmer has has called on both sides to “step back” amid fears of a full-blown war.Hossein Salami, chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards, was among killed in the air strikes. On Radio 4′s Today programme this morning, Gardner said the Israeli action could actually backfire if enough of Iran’s top brass have survived.Gardner said: “It’s a massive gamble by Israel and the gamble is this: they will be hoping that this deals once and for all with Iran’s nuclear programme, which they suspect of being far more than civil and working towards a nuclear bomb.“The flip side is that enough of Iran’s regime and its military structure survives that they now accelerate towards building a nuclear bomb.“There will be plenty in Israel who will be saying ‘well, they were doing that anyhow’.“Either way, it’s incredibly dangerous for the region because if Iran gets a nuclear weapon, Saudi Arabia will almost certainly want to have nuclear weapons as well, and then Turkey will want them, and then Egypt. And then suddenly you’ve got a Middle East that is bristling with nuclear weapons that can flatten an entire city.“So we are at a very dangerous juncture here.”He added: “If you look at the difference between Libya and North Korea. Libya’s [former leader] Colonel Gadaffi gave up his weapons of mass destruction in 2003. He had a vast chemical weapons programme and a nascent nuclear weapons programme.“Tony Blair’s government persuaded him to give that up and eight years later he was dead in a ditch from the Arab Spring protests.“North Korea’s regime has defied all the western sanctions, acquired a terrifying arsenal of inter-continental ballistic missiles and up to 50 nuclear warheads. No one is attacking North Korea in a hurry because it’s got that deterrent.“So the hawks in Iran’s security establishment, those who survive this, will be saying ’that’s it, we’ve now got to race for the bomb to make sure that we don’t get attacked again. That’s why this is a massive gamble by Israel.”Related...'Step Back': Keir Starmer Calls For 'Restraint And Calm' After Israel Strikes Iran

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