On April 30, 2018, Benjamin Netanyahu revealed stolen archives from Iran attesting that a secret military program of nuclear research had persisted in that country until 2003, despite the ban by Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei.

The decision of the United States to get out of the Iranian nuclear deal – which Tehran stipulated in 2015 with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany – provokes a situation of extreme danger, not only for the Middle East.

To understand the implications of such a decision, taken under pressure from Israel which qualifies the agreement as the “surrender of the West to the Axis of Evil led by Iran”, we must start from a simple precise fact well: it is Israel that has the nukes, not Iran.

Israel has been producing nuclear weapons for over fifty years at the Dimona site, built with the help of France and the United States. This site is not subject to inspections because Israel, the only nuclear power in the Middle East, does not adhere to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which Iran, on the other hand, signed fifty years ago. The evidence that Israel produces nuclear weapons was provided more than thirty years ago by Mordechai Vanunu, who had worked in the Dimona site: after being scrutinized by leading nuclear weapons experts, it was published by The Sunday Times newspaper on 5 October 1986. Vanunu, who was abducted in Rome by the Mossad and transported to Israel, was sentenced to 18 years in a disciplinary ward and released in 2004 under severe restrictions. [1]

Israel today (though without admitting it) possesses an arsenal estimated at between 100 and 400 nuclear weapons, including tactical bombs and new-generation neutron bombs; it produces enough plutonium and tritium to build hundreds more. The Israeli warheads are ready for launch on ballistic missiles, such as Jericho 3, and F-15 and F-16 fighter-bombers from the US, plus the F-35s.

As confirmed by the many IAEA inspections, Iran does not have nuclear weapons and pledges not to produce them by subjecting itself, on the basis of the agreement, to close international control. However, writes former Secretary of State Colin Powell in an email on March 3, 2015, that has come to light – “In Tehran we know that Israel has 200 nuclear weapons, all aimed at Tehran, and that we have thousands.”

The US European allies, who formally continue to support the deal with Iran, are substantially lined up alongside Israel. Germany provided it with four Dolphin submarines, modified to launch nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. Germany, France, Italy, Greece and Poland participated, along with the US, in the largest international air warfare exercise in Israel’s history, Blue Flag 2017 [2].

Italy, linked to Israel by a military cooperation agreement (Law n ° 94, 2005), participated with Tornado fighters from the 6th Stormo of Ghedi (Brescia), assigned to the transport of US B- 61 nuclear bombs (which will shortly be replaced by B61-12). The USA, with F-16s of the 31st Fighter Wing of Aviano (Friuli), assigned to the same function.

Israeli nuclear forces are integrated into NATO’s electronic system, as part of the “Individual Cooperation Program” with Israel, which, although not a member of the Alliance, has a permanent office at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

According to the plan tested in US-Israel exercise Juniper Cobra 2018, US and NATO forces would arrive from Europe (mostly bases in Italy) to support Israel in a war against Iran. [3] This could begin with an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, such as that carried out in 1981 in Osiraq, Iraq. In the event of Iranian retaliation, Israel could use a nuclear weapon unleashing a chain reaction with unpredictable consequences.